PUNCH searches for soldiers who forced man to swim in mud

Do you know the soldiers in the pictures above?

For now, they are yet-to-be-identified soldiers of the Nigerian Army. You might be doing the nation a world of good if you help The PUNCH to establish their identities so that they can get their well deserved punishment.

The soldiers subjected a middle-aged man to torture for no just cause.
The three soldiers, one of whom was in uniform, forced the man to roll inside murky water and dip his head therein.

The torture was captured in a video, which had gone viral.
However, the time and place, where the incident happened were not captured, while the name of the victim was also not disclosed.

In the one minute, 54 seconds clip, the soldiers shouted at the victim as they coerced him to roll back and forth in the mud.

One of them was heard requesting a horsewhip from a colleague to beat the victim if he failed to serve the punishment.

He said, “Oya, still go back again, go back! Bring that koboko (horsewhip). Go down…come back! Go for the last time. I go break your head o! Put (down) your head.”

A woman, who stood beside the soldier in uniform, begged that the victim should be pardoned.
“I beg, he no go do am again. He no well,” the woman said in Pidgin English
 But the soldier refused, saying the victim was strong enough to withstand the torture.
“He is a strong man,” he said.

At a point, the soldier discovered that somebody was videoing the incident and called on one of his colleagues to go after the person.
He said, “That guy dey video us, use style call am.”

They later ordered their victim to run into a compound around the scene.
A commentator on Nairaland, a social media platform, identified as Redomi, condemned the attack, saying that soldiers should learn to be civil.

Redomi said, “This is not a good one from the Nigerian Army. Imagine doing this to a harmless civilian, the Boko Haram terroriosts are there; go and try this nonsense with them. They haven’t learnt their lessons yet from the crippled man that was tortured for wearing camouflage.”

Another visitor to the platform, Arsenalholic, wrote, “I am convinced this guy didn’t do anything grave, otherwise they would have trashed him severely and not let him go away like that at the end. He must have committed a very trivial offence and yet these barbaric nitwits decided to make a sport of him.

“Slowly but surely, the day will come when the ordinary men will have their backs against the wall and something big will happen to all who think they’re untouchable right now.”
Punch reports.