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.
Sun Newspaper
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