Fallen Soldiers’ Secret Burial: Grave site identified

The Wall Street Journal in a damning report said the Nigerian government and its military authorities buried 1000 soldiers Boko Haram killed in one year in a secret graveyard in the northeast.

The Defence Headquarters on Thursday, however, denied the existence of secret graveyards in the northeast.

In a statement signed by Director, Defence Information, Colonel Onyema Nwachukwu, the Defence HQ said the Armed Forces doesn’t engage in secret burials for its fallen heroes.

“The cemetery described in the publication, which is situated in Maimalari Military Cantonment is an officially designated military cemetery for the Armed Forces of Nigeria in the North East theatre, with a Cenotaph erected in honour of our fallen heroes,” the statement read in part.

“The official cemetery has played host to several national and international dignitaries, where wreaths were laid in honour of the fallen heroes. It is, therefore, a far cry from the sacrilegious impression being painted by “Wall Street Journal”.

The DHQ said the insinuation can only emanate from an uninformed position of the author of the said publication.

According to the statement, the Armed Forces of Nigeria has a rich and solemn tradition for the interment of our fallen heroes. Therefore, it must be unambiguously clarified that the Armed Forces of Nigeria does not indulge in secret burials, as it is sacrilegious and a profanity to extant ethos and traditions of the Nigerian military.

“In tandem with the traditions of the Armed Forces, fallen heroes  are duly honoured and paid the last respect in befitting military funeral of international standard, featuring funeral parade, gravesite oration, solemn prayers for the repose of departed souls by Islamic and Christian clerics, as well as gun salutes, aside other military funeral rites.’

It then urged members of the Armed Forces and the general public to disregard such a misinformed publication and see it as a figment of the imagination of the writer, whose knowledge of military valued ethos and traditions is grossly misplaced.

The WSJ published “Nigeria Buries Soldiers at Night in Secret Cemetery” as the headline of the story alleging that the military buried soldiers in unmarked graves in the North East.