A Nigerian Army corporal, Damilola Thompson Charles, has been arrested and taken into custody by the Kaduna State Police Command for fatally attacking his mother with a knife on Tuesday.

The apparently disturbed soldier, who claimed to have been injured during counterinsurgency operations in the Northeast, was paraded by the Command alongside other felons on Thursday.

Mr. Charles, 30, reportedly owned up to the crime in the Sabon G.R.A neighborhood of the state,  stating that he stabbed his aged mother to death for “witchcraft.”

Narrating the incident to The Nation, the ailing military personnel said: “We (he and his mum) were fighting as a result of spiritual dispute; I saw her turning to a serpent severally at night, so, it angered me.”

The corporal added: “I am presently on sick leave, because I’m incapacitated. I was injured — I fell during an attack in Maiduguri. I am not a dismissed soldier, I am still serving.”

Police authorities, however, disclosed that Mr. Charles who was notorious for assaulting his slain mother on a regular basis, had absconded from service without authorisation.

An army spokesman was not available for comments on the rising spate of violent crimes by traumatised servicemen.

On Wednesday, Peoples Gazette reported how an army corporal Ojo Ayodele reportedly killed himself and his mistress in an accidental discharge of his firearm in Plateau.

The worrisome development has ignited calls for the military to strengthen internal mechanisms for evaluating the mental health of its troops, who are severely traumatised by extensive deployment in the Northeast ravaged by decade-long Boko Haram attacks.