Twelve soldiers, who had on May 14, 2014 fired shots at Mohammed, in Maiduguri, were convicted for mutiny and other offences such as insubordination and sentenced to death by a military court on Monday.
Investigations revealed that Mohammed was retired after he was recalled to the Headquarters of the Nigerian Army without posting for months after the soldiers’ attempt on his life.
According to reports from Punch,it was gathered from a top military source in Abuja that the Army authorities quietly retired him last month.
The source said, “The Maj. Gen. has been retired; you don’t expect that to be made public; issues of retirement especially in the military are confidential. The man was at the Army headquarters for some time. He was awaiting posting then but he was eventually retired about a month ago.”
Meanwhile, the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), the Trade Union Congress, (TUC) and human rights lawyers have urged the Presidency and the Army Council chaired by the Minister of Defence to prevail on the military authorities to spare the lives of the 12 soldiers.
The lawyers are three Senior Advocates of Nigeria–Olisa Agbakoba, Femi Falana and Sebastian Hon as well as Fred Agbaje and Monday Ubani.
In fact, Agbakoba, who flayed the judgment threatened to go to court to seek justice for the convicts.
He said that the process through which the court martial passed the sentences on the soldiers was unconstitutional.
The SAN, who maintained that the composition of the court violated the principle of natural justice, said he had asked his lawyers to approach the convicts for the purpose of lodging an appeal against the military authorities.
He said, “The court martial system is totally unconstitutional. They (soldiers) have the right to go to court and appeal the judgment. Actually, I have asked my lawyers to approach them and afford them our services to lodge an appeal.”
Now this makes sense.
ReplyDeleteHow can you sentence 12 young men to death for attempted murder. For wetin? !
ReplyDelete