BY Fredrick Nwabufo
Twelve Nigerian soldiers were in the early hours of Tuesday sentenced to death for mutiny by a military tribunal sitting at Mogadishu Cantonment in Abuja.
In all, 18 soldiers were tried by the tribunal, five of whom were discharged and acquitted.
One soldier, Pte Ichocho Jeremiah, was found guilty of going “absent without leave” (AWOL), for which he got 28 days imprisonment with hard labour.
He was also found guilty of “conduct to the prejudice of service discipline”, for which he was reprimanded.
The Brigadier-General Chukwuemeka Okonkwo-led tribunal sentenced the remaining 12 soldiers to death by firing squad, after they were found guilty of criminal conspiracy to commit mutiny. They were also found guilty of committing mutiny.
The 12 soldiers are Cpl Jasper Braidolor, Cpl David Musa, LCpl Friday Onun, LCpl Yusuf Shuaibu, LCpl Igomu Emmanuel, Pte Andrew Ngbede, Pte Nurudeen Ahmed, Pte Ifeanyi Alukhagbe, Pte Alao Samuel, Pte Amadi Chukwudi, Pte Allan Linus, and LCpl Stephen Clement.
The five acquitted soldiers – Cpl David Luhbut, Cpl Muhammed Sani, Pte Iseh Ubong, Pte Sabastine Gwaba and Pte Inama Samuel – were discharged on all five counts of insubordinate behaviour, false accusation, mutiny, AWOL and conduct to the prejudice of service discipline.
On May 14, 2014 some soldiers at Maimalari barracks in Borno state shot at the general officer commanding of the 7th division of the Nigeria army, Maj-Gen Ahmed Mohammed, in protest against the death of their colleagues, which they blamed on senior officers.
Describing the incident, Okonkwo said the mutineers “shot sporadically in the air, calling senior officers cowards”.
He also said that the protesting soldiers falsely accused their commanding officers of deliberately putting them in harm’s way for sinister reasons.
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