Boko Haram: Army colonel convicted for mutiny • Court martial also demotes commander A serving Lieutenant-Colonel in the Nigerian Army has become the first casualty in the fight against Boko Haram. The court martial set up by the Army to try some officers for offences committed while on internal security operations in the North-East has sentenced him to one year in prison. Similarly, another officer who served as a commander of one of the battalions in the Boko Haram’s hotbed had been demoted in rank. The jailed Lt-Col has concluded arrangements to appeal. The court martial which sat in Kaduna, has since concluded its sitting when it tried officers in the 1 Division of responsibility. Meanwhile, it is also set to sit in 3Division, Jos to try an undisclosed number of officers for offences committed in the fight against insurgency. This is coming just as the court martial will soon try 18 soldiers for mutiny at the 7 Division of the Army in Maiduguri, Borno State. The court marshal resumes today. The court was forced to go on one week recess to allow lawyers appearing to attend this year’s conference of the Nigerian Bar Association(NBA) in Owerri, the Imo State capital. In an attempt to stop what it described as the “high rate of indiscipline”, by soldiers and lukewarm attitude by some officers in the fight against Boko Haram insurgency, the Nigerian army had in June, constituted a General Court Martial(GCM), to try erring personnel for offences committed in battle. . The offences, committed mostly by Army personnel on operation in the North- East, ranged from abandoning of military equipment and indiscipline.
Posted on: Mon, 01 Sep 2014 11:34:10 +0000
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