A military court in Abuja on Monday found 13 out of 18 Nigerian soldiers guilty of mutiny and other offences.
As reported by punchng “Twelve of the convicted soldiers were sentenced to death, five were discharged and acquitted while the remaining one was jailed for 28 days with hard labour.”
The military court found 13 of the charged 18 guilty of “criminal conspiracy, mutiny, attempt to commit murder (shooting of the vehicle of the GOC); insubordination to a particular order; insubordination and false accusation.”
The guilty soldiers were identified as Jasper Braidolor, David Musa, Friday Onuh, Yusuf Shuaibu, Igonmu Emmanuel, Andrew Ugbede, Nurudeen Ahmed, Ifeanyi Alukagba, Alao Samuel, Amadi Chukwuma, Alan Linus, and Stephen Clement.
They were all sentenced to death, while five others; David Robert, Mohammed Sani, Iseh Ubong, Sebastine Gwaba and Naaman Samuel were discharged.
One of the guilty 13, Jeremiah Echocho was sentenced to 28 days with hard labour.
The soldiers had on May 14, 2014 visited the General Officer Commanding the newly created 7 Division of Nigerian Army, Maj. Gen. Ahmed Mohammmed, cantonment in Maiduguri and fired shots at him (the GOC) and his men. Following the incident, they were charged with mutiny (Open rebellion against constituted authority, especially rebellion of sailors against superior officers), an extremely punishable act in the Military.
Pathetic stories about the family backgrounds of the convicted were lurched by their legal representatives who pleaded to the court martial to tamper justice with mercy.
The defence team argued that giving them the maximum sentence would do more harm than good, adding that it would increase the agony of their defendants.
12 out of 18 convicted Nigerian soldiers receive the death penalty on charges of mutiny
