Military authorities have placed immediate-past General Officer Commanding (GOC), 8 Division, Sokoto, Major General Hakeem Otiki, under house arrest after some soldiers carted away at least N400 million under his watch.
Otiki, who was redeployed to Administrative Staff College of Nigeria (ASCON), is being detained in the Officers Mess until he can be moved to Abuja for interrogation by personnel from the Directorate of Military Intelligence (DMI), Special Intelligence Bureau (SIB), and Nigerian Army Corps of Military Police (NACMP).
He is reportedly being guarded by heavily armed soldiers who are carefully screening his visitors.
The commanding officer was said to have detailed five soldiers to transport huge sums of money on July 11.
The soldiers – two corporals and three lance corporals – moved the money from Sokoto to the Nigeria Army airstrip in Jaji, Kaduna State.
Although instructed to load the money unto a military jet for transport to Abuja, the soldiers failed to do so but instead shared it among themselves and disappeared, Premium Times reported.
The soldiers reportedly dropped their rifles, uniforms and other accoutrements, and mobile phones before vanishing into thin air with the money.
However, controversy continues to trail the source of the stolen fund.
While some say the money may have been gotten from proceeds of illegal bunkering, others say the money was meant to pay troops allowances who have not been paid in the last two months.
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