Fact Check Debunks Claims of Secret Execution of Nigerian Soldiers
An investigation by Penlight Center for New Media Innovation in conjunction with popular online news medium, Daily Nigerian has revealed as untrue, reports that six Igbo Christian Nigerian Soldiers were secretly tried and executed by the Nigerian Army.
According to findings of the report which made use of a two way verification technique such as speaking to independent inside sources and an undercover operation, there is no Prince Ukwuoma, Ebube Isaiah, Amos Azubuike, Ekene Ebere, Moses Anyim and Godwin Uchendu in the database of the Nigerian Army and the only related name to one of the alleged victims is a certain Lance Corporal Ukwuoma Princewill Chinedu, with Army number 2011NA/66/9180 in the Guards Brigade Unit of the Nigerian Army.
It further revealed that there was no evidence of any form of secret firing squad where people can be executed at the Abacha Barracks, Abuja where the incident allegedly occurred.
Emerging media report last week has alleged that six Igbo Christian Nigerian Soldiers were secretly tried and executed by the Nigerian Army under the watch of the immediate past Chief of Army Staff, Lt. General Tukur Yusuf Buratai.
The online report claimed that the said soldiers were denied legal representation, before their execution, after a hasty secret trial.
coalition of human rights activists from the South-East had alleged in a press statement that the victims were Igbo Christian soldiers attached to the Armoury Department of the Nigerian Army, in Abacha Barracks, Abuja.
Senior military intelligence officers have further disclosed that a general court-martial set up to try erring soldiers or Army officers is normally constituted and announced publicly and must be made up of a President and other members, who conducts trial publicly, and not in secret.
They wondered that if secret trials were not conducted secretly during military regimes, how then could the Army resort to same in a civilian and democratic dispensation.
“There have been instances where erring Army generals have been publicly tried at various court-martials, which were also legally constituted and doing same for erring junior officers, if any, ought to follow the same procedure,” said a senior military officer who preferred not to be named.
