Extend Boko-Haram Pardon To Convicted Soldiers – Falana To Buhari

• Femi Falana (SAN), has written a letter to President Muhammadu Buhari, demanding that the pardon given to repentant Boko Haram members should be extended to 70 soldiers convicted for mutiny during the Goodluck Jonathan administration. Falana expressed this in a letter titled ‘Request to grant pardon to 70 convicted soldiers.

EkohotBlog reports that the human rights lawyer in his argument to the President indicated that in prosecuting the war on terror, the Federal Government deployed thousands of ill-equipped and ill-motivated members of the armed forces to the North-East region to fight the well-armed insurgents from 2013 to 2014.

Femi Falana (SAN)

Falana mentioned that in the course of defending Nigeria, the troops requested arms and armament from the military authorities but they were instead punished rather than their need and demands be granted.

According to the letter, Falana intimated to the President that “Instead of attending to such legitimate demand, the military authorities accused scores of the soldiers of sabotaging the counter-insurgency operations of the Federal Government and proceeded to set up courts-martial to try them for mutiny.”

“We defended 58 soldiers while the remaining 12 were defended by other colleagues before the Courts-Martial which sat in Abuja. At the end of the trials in August and December 2014, the Courts-Martial jailed some of the soldiers and sentenced 70 others to death for mutiny,” Falana said.

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The human rights lawyer said in convicting the 70 soldiers, the Courts-Martial failed to acknowledge the demand for weapons by the troops was consistent with section 179 of the Armed Forces Act, (Cap A20) Laws of the Federation of Nigeria, 2004 which permits a soldier, rating or aircraftman to make a complaint to his commanding officer.

The senior advocate urged President Buhari to grant full and unconditional pardon to the 70 convicted soldiers pursuant to section 175 of the constitution – recalling the attention of the President to the admittance of the then Nation Security Adviser, Col. Sambo Dansuki (retd) and Chief of Defence Staff, Alex Badeh that the troops truly lacked enough weapons to combat the insurgent groups.

Falana reiterated that a probe instituted by the President exposed the diversion of $2.1bn meant for weapons, argued that it is sufficient evidence that the 70 soldiers were justified in their demand for weapons.

Falana stressed that the Court of Appeal had upheld the appeal of four soldiers out of the 70 convicted, discharged, and acquitted them while the remaining soldiers lost their appeal at the Court of Appeal had since taken the legal battle to the Supreme Court.

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