Key Points

• Dismissed lance corporal Rotimi Olamilekan displayed three bank alerts showing a N112,061.59 salary, a N20,000 grumbling allowance and a N45,000 operational allowance paid only during active deployment.
• He maintained that soldiers purchase their own helmets and fragmentation jackets, repeating claims the Nigerian Army publicly dismissed as false on Tuesday.
• The Army said Olamilekan’s dismissal stemmed from repeated violations of its social media policy and unauthorized media appearances, not from his videos’ content.

Rotimi Olamilekan is not backing down. The dismissed Nigerian soldier, widely known online as Soja Boi, posted a video Tuesday displaying bank transaction alerts he said were hard proof that soldiers earn modest wages and are forced to buy their own protective equipment out of pocket. Then he dared the Army to show its payroll.

Three receipts, one challenge

Olamilekan, a former lance corporal who served under the number 18NA/77/1009, released the video hours after the Army publicly described his earlier allegations as false and misleading. He came back with documents.

The first alert, dated Feb. 2, 2026, showed a credit of N112,061.59 with a narration referencing “NIC-ARMY AC.” He identified this as his monthly salary. The second, dated Feb. 4, 2026, showed a N20,000 credit he described as a grumbling allowance.

The third, dated Nov. 4, 2025, showed N45,000 credited from a reference to Skystone Finance Company Ltd, which he said was an operational allowance paid exclusively to soldiers deployed to active theaters like Maiduguri.

He also mentioned a security allowance of N6,000.

“If you are not in operation, they don’t pay you that one. If you go on operation, they will pay you,” he said of the N45,000 figure. On the N20,000 allowance, he hedged slightly: “People say they have increased it. I am not sure.”

Soldiers on barracks duty, he said, receive only their base salary and the N20,000. No operational extras.

Helmets, jackets, out of pocket

Olamilekan repeated his earlier claim that soldiers are not issued adequate protective gear and must buy their own. “Helmet, you go buy. Fragmentation jacket, you go buy them,” he said plainly.

He was careful to frame his disclosures as a service to fellow soldiers, not an attack on the institution. “I am not trying to spoil the Nigerian Army’s image or make people look at them as if they are not good,” he said. “But I am just speaking the facts and I will be backing them with evidence.”

He appealed to Nigerians with relatives serving in the military to do their own checking. “Call your brother, call your sister, and ask them if I am lying,” he said. Then came the direct challenge: “If they say I am lying, they should bring out their payroll. How much are they paying soldiers?”

The Army’s position

The Nigerian Army, in a Tuesday statement from its acting director of army public relations, Appolonia Anaele, rejected the claims outright.

It said uniforms, kits, arms and protective gear were distributed to all personnel through established logistics channels and that no soldier was deployed to an operational theater without adequate protection.

The Army acknowledged that some soldiers chose to supplement their issued kits but called such decisions voluntary.

On pay, the Army said personnel received consolidated monthly salaries plus uniform allowances, operational allowances and other mission-specific entitlements, all paid directly into their accounts.

Punch, which originally reported the story, noted it could not independently verify the receipts. While the first alert references “NIC-ARMY AC,” the narrations on the second and third receipts do not explicitly identify the Nigerian Army or any government body as the source of payment. None of the documents carry an official Army payroll reference or letterhead.

How Soja Boi got here

Olamilekan first gained national attention in February 2026 after a video challenging governors, senators and ministers to send their own children to serve in the Army went viral. He was arrested shortly after, spent his birthday in detention and was later dismissed from service.

The Army said his exit was the result of persistent indiscipline, including violations of its social media policy and unauthorized media appearances, and had nothing to do with the substance of his videos.

He has kept talking anyway.