The Chairman, Senate Committee on Defence, Senator George Sekibo, disclosed this in Abuja yesterday, after a closed-door meeting between the senate committee and the nation’s service chiefs.
Briefing journalists after the meeting, Mr. Sekibo said the senate was not under pressure to intervene to save the lives of the soldiers because the judgment convicting them was in the best interest of the Nigerian military.
“The Armed Forces are established by an Act of the National Assembly. The Act spelt out categorically the conduct of the soldiers and the way they are to behave wherever they are.
If you join the military, that Act is to guide you and your conduct. If you go contrary to any of the prescribed sections of the Act the punishment prescribed for the Act you violated will come on you.
So the military did not just wake up one day and say that they are going to kill Mr. A or Mr. B. They went through the necessary processes and they found them guilty."
The committee chairman however said that those found guilty could go on appeal and the rulings from the appeal would be binding on them.
Sekibo called on Nigerians to encourage the military to ensure that it discharged its duties effectively.
The 12 Nigerian soldiers were on September 16, sentenced to death for mutiny after firing shots at their commanding officer, Abubakar Mohammed, in Maiduguri on May 14.
The condemned soldiers are: Jasper Braidolor, David Musa, Friday Onun, Yusuf Shuaibu, Igomu Emmanuel, Andrew Ngbede. Nurudeen Ahmed, Ifeanyi Alukhagbe, Alao Samuel, Amadi Chukwudi, Allan Linus and Stephen Clement.
A nine-member military tribunal, sitting in Abuja, convicted the soldiers.
The President of the Court, C.C. Okonkwo, while announcing the sentences, however, said that the decisions were subject to “confirmation’’.
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