Igbo rebuff of today’s Nigerian Army (I), by Ochereome Nnanna

For some years now, youths of the Igbo ethnic group, especially in the five states of the South East geopolitical zone, have been shunning enrolment into the military. In 2025, a Brigadier General, Chima Ekeator, led a team round the geopolitical zone canvassing for Igbo youths to take up their quotas. For instance, he said Kaduna State indigenes, like youths of most other states, oversubscribed their state quota, while Enugu State failed to raise up to 100 recruits to fill its 200 slots. This year, the Brigadier General in charge of the Nigerian Army’s Ohafia Division, A. M. Dikko, lamented that he failed to fill his slot as only a few showed up for recruitment.
The question is: why ha...