Nigerian military to court-martial 118 more soldiers

December 23, 2014Nnenna Ibeh

FILE PHOTO: Nigerian Soldiers

The Nigerian military is set to court martial at least 100 more soldiers for a series of offences related to its fight against the terror group, Boko Haram, military sources told PREMIUM TIMES Tuesday.

Officials said 118 soldiers have been transported from Maiduguri, the Borno State capital, to face charges in Abuja, a week after 54 soldiers were sentenced to death for refusing to fight Boko Haram.

It is not clear when the troops will be arraigned before a Military Court, but our sources said unlike their colleagues who were convicted last Wednesday, the soldiers awaiting trial are not accused of mutiny.

Army spokesperson, Olajide Laleye, said he was unaware of the development.

Sources told PREMIUM TIMES that the soldiers are accused of relatively minor charges including loss or misplacement of rifles during operations against Boko Haram.

The allegations follow repeated reports of troops fleeing Boko Haram fighters and abandoning their weapons for the militants in the Borno and Adamawa States.

Boko Haram militants have flaunted arms they claimed were seized from government forces in several videos.

The military trials are seen as an attempt to instil discipline in a force that has struggled to contain the rampaging insurgents.

The 54 soldiers who sentenced to death belonged to the 111 Special Forces battalion attached to the 7 division of the army in Maiduguri.

They are to die by firing squad, the military court ruled last week.

The soldiers were accused of disobeying a direct order from superior officers to take part in an operation aimed at dislodging Boko Haram terrorists from Delwa, Bulabulin and Damboa in Borno State.

The soldiers said they refused to take part in the operation because the Army did not provide them with the required combat and support equipment needed for such operations.

Our sources said the convicted soldiers have been moved to Lagos to await appeal, or pardon or execution.

Also, in September, 12 soldiers were sentenced to death by firing squad for shooting at a car conveying their commanding officer, Ahmed Mohammed, a Major General.

The attack occurred May 14 at the army’s 7 Division, Maimalari Barracks in Maiduguri, headed at the time by Mr. Mohammed.

Others were also sentenced to life in jail for criminal conspiracy and attempt to commit murder.

The soldiers revolted after some of their colleagues were ambushed and killed by Boko Haram extremists, an attack they blamed their commander for.

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Top News

2015 president

The truth is that if our vote don’t count in February 2015 elections, then we are left with no other choice but to clamour for military takeover
- Onike24
  
  which military, the same one that produced Minimah, and Badeh? i day laugh oh, our army is broken like the rest of the country.
  - Wähala
    
    Don’t count them out so fast, that letter about corruption in the military was by a brave Lt. Col. Wende, he has refused to retract it and has come under investigation. If fat Alex Badeh et al, make the mistake of court marshaling Wende, his pals in the barracks may not be singing Christmas Carols for Dr. Dumbo o! Besides, others could take his cue and really pop our Clown Prince of Otuoke… before his Army court marshals every soldier given the rate they’re going. Don’t count the military among Dumbo’s casualties so fast biko…
    Merry Christmas o’jare!
    - emmanuel
      
      How come you get time for night to write, abi the bakery when you dey do night work don close for Christmas?
      
      Because i know say dem nor dey allow slaves enter work area with their phones, so now how e happen?
  - Otile
    
    Are you not grateful that these young soldiers are sacrificing their lives to defend your motherland for you? I guess you are somewhere overseas relaxing on your soft bed with 6 pillows supporting your laps in a heated room. Why not come back and defend your motherland? Some of your colleagues on the other side are being strapped with bombs to show loyalty to their leaders. What are you doing outside? Don’t criticize those who are carrying the burden for you. Do your own part, girl
    - Onike24
      
      I normally ignore your idiotic comments whether as Oleku or Otile, however I am in Nigeria as always at Christmas and will be back to vote for GMB, Change is coming, the clueless Jesus of Otueke and his thuggish wife will be ejected, very soon mark my words this 24th day of December.
      - You’re kidding right?
        
        “The truth is incontrovertible. Malice may attack it, ignorance may deride it, but in the end, there it is.” Jona is the best president ever to brace the rungs of the leadership ladder. Buhari, on the other hand, is an expired he-goat and will never become president of Nigeria. More weeping for y’all come 2015.
        
        I wish GMB and his demented lackeys the best of the yuletide!!!!
      - Otile
        
        Don’t be carried away by sentiment. Vote wisely, vote for Great Jona.
        
        Imam is a disaster, you might suffer jail terms under him. For instance he may capriciously ban all foreign currencies in the country, so when visiting home with your good $ Iman’s boys may pounce on you and drag you to jail. Be careful, girl.
      - Onike24
        
        I will take my chances thank you for your ” concern”
      - Otile
        
        Do not take risky chances with Mohammedans. Let the Lord be your guide, girl.
      - Onike24
        
        I know of no ” Mohammedans” as you call them, but I know many muslims myself included.
      - emmanuel
        
        Onike we know you get paid for your bit at PT.
- utolason
  
  You’re very retrogressive, if not mad.
  - bros
    
    you are the mad man and retrogressive
- Mamapikin
  
  precisely! well said.
- emmanuel
  
  If your vote count for Buhari, should my vote not count for Jonathan?
  
  You guys already have answer to your question – it must be Buhari to win if not the elction is rigged. Nonsense!
  
  Who told you every Nigerian is gullible and do not understand the conspiracy against Jonathan from day one by the born to rule, now supported by the very greedy few Yorubas whose utmost agenda is to name Ariaria Market, Oba Market, fagge market as Folashade Tinubu-Ojo market then dismantle the Jiont Tax Board and have Alfa Beta takeover at Federal Level.
  - 2015 president
    
    If vote do count GEJ will never win elections because of non performance and massive sleeve he allow to florish under his watch,
- King Andy
  
  Of course, as a typical foot soldier of Buhari, this is a familiar language. Wait a sec, bro, did you guys glamour in 1983 when Buhari took over from a democratically elected government of Shagari via coup? He took over government through the barrel of gun, and has been loosing through the ballot since 2003. All his foot soldiers do is to threated military takeover, parallel government, the blood of baboons etc. Be afraid, be very afraid because more blood will be shed by your camp after Buhari will be sent to total oblivion come Feb 14 through the ballot and not barrel.
  - 2015 president
    
    Don’t decived yourself at our level of development both mentally and physically we need a strong leader to inspired us .
taewo

Initially they sentenced 54 soldiers to death. 54+118 = 172. So, how many soldiers remain to fight Boko Haram?
- Kay Soyemi (Esq.)
  
  Abi o.
  
  It is now a question of “get killed by boko haram or we kill you”!
Wähala

They should court marshal their C-in-C make we hia word jare, this piecemeal court marshals are beginning to get on my nerves… why not Dumbo who has refused to visit the warfront? Na soja wey no get bullets for magazine dem see to shoot at the firing stakes, how about fat Alex who ran away from his maternal home and fraternal and his ancestral enclave? Did Alex fight any Bokos… hasn’t Dr. Dumbo extended his contract even after serving the mandatory retirement years of 35
- Mamapikin
  
  thank you my brother…you spoke my mind
ODOFIN, Lagos

Congrats to the Military authority. By the time you will kill all our soldiers, then you will become GOCs, COAS and CDS of a dead military…Simple solution: The military authority should look inward and find lasting solutions to the disgraceful cause of this so-called mutiny. As a Nigerian one of whose taxes is used to maintain Nigeria military, I order that the mutiny charges against all the military fugitives should nullified immediately and the men involved should be de-uniformed. No bloodshed…
- Wale
  
  To tell you the truth; I think they’re just inviting a very bloody coup.
  - emmanuel
    
    Bloody coup for where? Shut your stinking trap.
    
    The only thing that can happen in Nigeria and will someday and may be in 2015 is disintegration war!
    - gaz
      
      Disintegration war? Not in this country. May god bless us with a lasting peace.
Mamapikin

The first person I recommend to face court martial is non other, than Goodluck, Ebele Azikiwe Jonathan! In God’s name, how can a Battalion of troops be defending Mubi, a town of close to 500,000 people, while over 100,000 members of the security forces were sent to Ekiti and Osun States to carry ballot boxes for politicians? Turn page, the so called Battalion of troops, was actually a fraction of the size of a true Battalion, just 174 men, when a Nigerian Battalion should be just under 1000 soldiers!
When we talk of Nigeria’s Special Battalion deployed in Mubi, what do we actually mean? A Special Battalion that’s specially undermanned, unequipped, demotivated, harassed, untrained to confront insurgency? A group of freshly commissioned officers and freshly graduated soldiers from Nigeria’s Military Training School in Zaria, with no war experience? (Where are the soldiers that were in Liberia and Sierra Leone? What happened to those guys by the way?)

Is it not obvious that we have a commander in chief that purposely sent these young men to die, just to go through the motion of doing something (really, doing something of course), just because according to what we read in General Obasanjo’s book, President Jonathan believes that insurgency in the North East equates to his enemies killing themselves?

This talk of court martial and executions is plain nonsense. Let them shoot just one of them, we will see if the so called commander in chief is not deposed by the people, tried and made to face the music, by peoples’ power. No wonder some say this man is a drunk and that he is clueless.
- Otile
  
  .. over 100,000 members of the security forces were sent to Ekiti and Osun States to carry ballot boxes for politicians.. Were you there?. This is what you heard from APC rumor mills and you are scandalized by the rumor.
  
  Again, avoid reading Ogagun’s books, they are scandalous, sensational, sometimes defamatory and injurious to the mind.
  - Mamapikin
    
    Thank you, so how many security agents were sent, according to Doyin Okupe? Let him give us his figures now…
    - Otile
      
      It doesn’t matter how many of them. Peace and serenity prevail over would be riot. You see, given the chance the govt can provide peace and prosperity in the land, but the distraction is too much. APC interference is as bad and Islamic terrorism.
      
      Please my brother, let’s appreciate what the govt is doing for us. It is not easy, a rash leader like Imam Buhari cannot handle it. If he is put in a difficult position he can easily draw his pistol and and shoot down a few people around before he realizes what he is doing.
      
      Caution, comrade, caution.
      - Mamapikin
        
        It doesn’t matter how many of them? I thought you wished to discuss facts and figures. You contradict yourself. So, if you don’t have superior authority, why do you dispute my propositions? You talk like a wanker.
      - Otile
        
        Don’t get fixated on numbers, for Buhari and his Mohammedan fanatics numbers can always be corrupted. Already they are bringing in other Mohammedans from Chad, next they will start registering goats. Never take their figures as facts.
emmanuel

Any rebellion as a Banker is never tolerated, it attracts dismisal.

What else does a soldier who has an assault riffle, extra magazine, bullet proof jacket and anti-ballistic helmet need for engagement? Why would a soldier flee into neighbouring country to relax from battle?

Commute their sentence to life imprisonment, since they like life let them enjoy the life in jail till they die.

A soldier who abandons his riffle in battle is a Nigerian Policeman – period!
- Sahara
  
  It’s not fair to assume that they were given adequate equipment to fight.
  Going to war without adequate preparation is called suicide.
Guguru

Do not allow your children serve in a force so inclined to murder its own.
Bidemi Lukman

Who say GEJ is not working. Cort Martial all Nigerian soldiers and bring your millitants from the creek to replace them.
Olufela 99

PASTORS MISLED NIGERIAN CHRISTIANS INTO COMPROMISE WITH ISLAMISM

Nigerian Christians are misled into a virtual slaughterhouse by naive Christian Pastors who
pocket tithes from Muslim Jihadists and then look the other way as genocide on Christians
continues. These naive Christian Pastors only just woke up from their corruptive slumber
when Muslim militias started beheading these naive Pastors one by one in Mubi, Gwoza,
Michika and Madagali.

The whole cause of Nigeria’s crisis is the ideology of Islamism spun by the Nigerian Muslims
who firstly re-defined themselves as separate from all other Nigerians, and then, declared
themselves in that separateness, brazenly superciliously, as superior to all other Nigerians.

That is the cause of Nigeria’s fall to grass. The Nigerian Muslims must take 100% blame for it.
They are the only group in Nigeria who declare themselves as born to rule others on the basis
of Islam, and that baleful and backward thinking is common to both Yoruba and Fulani Muslims.

Until Islamism is thoroughly defeated as a dangerous ideology incompatible with democracy,
there will never be peace or comfort for all other Nigerians – that is the inconvenient truth.
Islamism is the worst benighted ideology in all of world history in the ranking order of fascism.
America, Russia and Europe must come together, militarily, to defeat this Islamism worldwide
and save humanity from a Muslims’ scourge which advances its cause by wholesale genocide.
- Al Jihadi
  
  “Fighting is obligatory for you (Muslims), even if you dislike it” – Quran 2:216.
  “O believers make war on the infidels (non-Muslims) who dwell around you,
  and, let them find harshness in you” – Quran 9:123 “When the sacred months
  are over, kill the unbelievers wherever you find them” – Quran 9:5.
  
  Fight against Christians and Jews that believe neither in Allah nor in the last day…
  and who do not embrace the true faith [Islam]” – Q 9:29. Believers, take neither Jews
  nor Christians for friends or helpers” – Q 5:51. Fight in the name of Allah and in the way
  of Allah. Fight against those who disbelieve in Allah. Make a holy war…- Sahih Muslim 19:4294.
  
  I will cast terror into the hearts of those who disbelieve. Therefore strike off their heads,
  and strike off every fingertip of them (Koran 8:12), And fight with them until there is no more
  fitna (unbelief) that religion should be only for Allah [Koran 8:39].
  
  Fight those who believe not in Allah; nor in the Last Day, nor hold that forbidden
  which hath been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger [Mohammed], nor acknowledge
  the religion of Truth (Islam) – even if they are of the People of the Book (i.e Christians) –
  until they pay the Jizya (submission tax) with willing submission and feel themselves subdued.
  [Koran 9:29].”
  - Abu Qaqa
    
    “We are fighting a religious war. We are fighting against the Christians in Nigeria.
    We are fighting against Christian President – Goodluck Jonathan – and his Christian brethren.
    We are not fighting any ethnic war. Those saying we are fighting an ethnic war are telling lies
    to the public. They try to brainwash the people. No, we are fighting a religious war. We are fighting
    against Christians. We are fighting the Christian President Jonathan, and his Christian brethren”.
    
    .………..Abubakar Shekau
    
    (Leader of Boko Haram)
    
    [December 28, 2013]
    - Cornelius
      
      “We are calling on all Christians to defend themselves through any means possible.
      We call on President Goodluck Jonathan to declare Boko Haram a terrorist group
      and make it officially known that we are in a state of religious war in Nigeria,
      so that Nigerian Christians could be armed to defend themselves”.
      
      …….…..Ndi-Igbo Peace Movement (NPM)
      
      May 7th, 2013
  - Dave
    
    @ Al Jihadi:
    
    Muslims destroyed national unity in Nigeria and destroyed the Nigerian Army alongside.
    The history of Nigeria will not be complete without whole chapters devoted to the Muslims’
    thorough-going destruction of all that is fair and decent in a peaceful multi-religious country.
    On the blood of Nigerians, Muslim Jihadists are marching on in Islamist genocide and homicide.
    - For the Records
      
      “[On this clamour for a Christian as Lagos state governor]….
      we should not introduce something that will start affecting
      the consciousness of the people. We shouldn’t put in the
      people’s consciousness what they were not thinking about
      before. Even if you look at it closely you will find that the
      dominant people in Lagos state are Muslims”.
      
      ……..Alhaji Tola Kasali
      
      (Lagos Commissioner for Rural Affairs under Bola Tinubu)
      
      [October 25th, 2014]
      - Ms. Vivian
        
        What kind of nonsense statement is this for God’s sake? When did Muslims become the dominant people in Lagos state? What exactly is the problem with these rabid Yoruba Muslims? They are not behaving normally as reasonable human beings. Maybe it is true that Christian leaders allowed this nonsense, actually, by not warning church members on time. After 16 years of the Christians voting an Islamist ACN/APC into government, non-stop, why would the Muslims not say they are dominant?
      - Ahoy Seadog
        
        “Look at the histories of the world: Boko Haram, if not contained and eradicated,
        will be found in the heart of Lagos before you know it. Those who unleashed Boko Haram
        on the nation [Nigeria] are not poverty stricken. They are politicians …desperate for power,
        intelligent enough or perceptive enough to recognise that the cocktail of politics and religious
        fundamentalism can only yield them dividends. They think they have nothing to lose.
        
        But the foot soldiers have been indoctrinated for years, from childhood. And they believe
        that their religion [Islam] is in danger… but Islam is not in danger. It is the pervert followers
        who are being used and who use others and proclaim that they are fighting for Islam.”
        
        …………Professor Wole Soyinka
      - Ladi
        
        Madam, you better convert to Islam to be dominant and stop asking question.
- Akor
  
  So if the Pastors are naive should the Christians themselves be naive?
baeniang

The Nigerian Army is doing the needful to instill discipline without which the current campaign against insurgency cannot succeed. The current trials and sentencing of defaulting officers and troops are accepted provided that justice is served transparently. The soldiers complaints and allegations about the unethical, unprofessional and criminal conduct of their officers must also be investigated and appropriate action taken against those indicted.

On the 54 soldiers tried and condemned to death by firing squad, I join others in pleading for conversion of the sentences. I am informed that the law must be followed, that under the circumstance, the Chief of Army Staff, General Minimah can do very little, so I renew my earlier appeal to the President and Commander in Chief to intervene and give the condemned soldiers a second chance to regain their lives and prove their renewed faith and loyalty to him and the Nigerian Army.

As stated in an earlier post, to earn their lives back and be reabsorbed into the Army, after renewing their pledge, the soldiers should be retrained, redeployed to the Army’s TEWT (Tactical Exercise Without Troops) for special assignments for the number of years equivalent to terms of imprisonment approved by the Commander in Chief. They should also be required to earn their superiors’ commendation coupled with 3 medals each for bravery and gallantry. HE. President G.E. Jonathan, please consider mine and others’ humble requests and recommendation in appreciation of this season of peace on earth and goodwill to all men. Dr Doyin Okupe, recently compared Your Exellency with Jesus Christ. Well, GOD Himself has provided you with the opportunity to provide proof/evidence because our Lord’s Ministry, healing, deliverance and restoration was founded on grace and compassion not judgment which is the requirement of the law.