The Trade Union Congress of Nigeria, TUC, has called on the Federal Government and the military authorities to rescind the death sentence passed on the 12 soldiers accused of mutiny.
The soldiers were in the early hours of yesterday sentenced to death by a special court over allegation of criminal conspiracy to commit mutiny, disobeying lawful orders and various acts said to be inimical to military service.
TUC in a statement by its National President, Bobboi Bala Kaigama, and Secretary-General, Musa Lawal, stated that instead of shedding more blood, the military hierarchy should rather fish out the Boko Haram apologists among its ranks.
The union questioned the military authorities’ approach to the matter, insisting that there were more to the issue than being told.
The statement said: “To us, the issues are clearly more and the congress makes bold to say that the approach adopted on the issue that is already at the public domain is very incorrect.
“We reiterate that we abhor the temperamental response of the tried soldiers to the needless loss of lives of their colleagues due to needless orders from above, and do urge the military to put its house in order and fish out all the Boko Haram apologists within its ranks.
“It will be recalled that His Excellency the Pesident, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan had earlier said that there are Boko Haram members in his cabinet.
“Also, we recall that the Bornu State government had cried out that the sect had more sophisticated weapons than our military.
“If that is the case, it therefore means that members of the sect are everywhere, including the military.
“We would not want to mention names but the dailies have it that there were senior military officers who before the Boko Haram crisis were poor but have now suddenly become billionaires overnight while the innocent rank and file of the military is killed by the sect due to their superior weapons.
“The death sentence is not only a special gift to the Boko Haram terrorist, but the surest means of demobilising the rank and file of the Nigerian soldiers.
“Our position is that the Federal Government and the military leadership should look into the grievances of soldiers, especially now. “We say no to death sentence because we cannot afford to lose more soldiers.”
All the convicted and sentenced soldiers, including those that were discharged and acquitted of all the charges are within the rank and file.
The 12 soldiers found guilty of mutiny are Cpl Jasper Braidolor, Cpl David Musa, LCpl Friday Onun, LCpl Yusuf Shuaibu, LCplIgomu Emmanuel, Pte Andrew Ngbede, PteNurudeen Ahmed, PteIfeanyiAlukhagbe, PteAlao Samuel, PteAmadiChukwudi, Pte Allan Linu, and LCpl Stephen Clement
The court martial found five other soldiers innocent of all five counts of insubordinate behaviour, false accusation, mutiny, AWOL and conduct to the prejudice of service discipline.
Therefore, they were discharged and acquitted.
The five acquitted soldiers are Cpl David Luhbut, CplMuhammedSani, PteIsehUbong, PteSabastineGwaba and PteInama Samuel.
The 18th soldier, Private Ichocho Jeremiah, was found guilty of going AWOL (absent without leave) and was sentenced to 28 days in prison with hard labour.
Jeremiah was also found guilty of conduct to the prejudice of service discipline, but he was only reprimanded for this offence.
Meanwhile, prominent lawyers a have also condemned the verdict.
In his comment, former President of the Nigerian Bar Association, NBA, Rotimi Akeredolu, urged that the death sentence should be commuted in view of the circumstances surrounding the mutiny.
Human rights lawyer, Fred Agbaje, said the verdict did not come as a surprise to him, adding that he had handled several cases emanating from court marshal. “In most cases, their verdict is against the constitution.”
He pointed that just recently, a Colonel in the Nigerian Army that was convicted by the Military Court Marshal was set free by the Court of Appeal and was asked to be reinstated to his rank but the military is yet to obey court order.
According to Agbaje, the verdict of the Court Marshal must be subjected to strict judicial scrutiny by the Court of Appeal.
For his part, another human rights lawyer, Jiti Ogunye called for a commuter of the sentence and the reconsideration of the matter by the President as the Commander-in-Chief of Armed Forces.
Ogunye recalled that the children and spouses of some soldiers recently blocked the barrack insisting that they would not allow the military to send their husbands to death.
According to him, even if the military sentenced 100 soldiers to death for mutiny, it would not solved the problem.
Also reacting, Fiery lawyer, Femi Falana, said if the death sentence of the Maiduguri 12 is confirmed by the Army Council, the convicted soldiers should take the case to the Court of Appeal. Falana remarked that the Court of Appeal is likely to follow its decision in the case of Yussuf and 21 others versus Nigerian Army (2003) 36 WRN 68 “wherein the sentence of life imprisonment passed on the appellants who had rioted at the Cairo Airport in Egypt was quashed.
“It was the finding of the Court that the offense of mutiny complained of by the respondent was instigated by the officers who had diverted the medical allowances which ought to have been paid to the convicts while receiving medical treatment in Egypt”, he stated.
Falana argued that the facts and circumstance of the mutinous act of the convicted soldiers should be taken into consideration.
“Before the incident, the soldiers at the Maimalari cantonment had complained of insufficient ammunition, food and allowances.
“The visit of the GOC was said to have coincided with the arrival of the corpses of soldiers killed in an ambush in Chibok on the night of May 13, 2014. It was the tragic situation which reportedly infuriated the soldiers. Having investigated and confirmed the circumstances which led to the mutiny in question the military authorities removed the GOC.”
Falana pointed out that while mutiny cannot be condoned by the armed forces because it strikes at the foundation of discipline in the military, he emphasised that the 18 soldiers were erroneously charged under section 52(1) of the Armed Forces Act Cap A20 Laws of the Federation of Nigeria, 2004.
In the circumstance, the 12 convicts should have been charged under section 52(2) of the Armed Forces Act which provides for life imprisonment.
He noted that the General Officer Commanding whose car was shot at was not killed, which explains why the soldiers were charged with attempted murder which does not attract the death penalty.
The lawyer recalled that in the case of the Akure 27, the convicted soldiers were equally charged with mutiny but convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment.
He said the Army Council reduced the sentence of life imprisonment to seven years and later pardoned the convicts, after it considered that the allowances of the convicts who had served in Liberia were diverted by some military officers.
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