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12 soldiers were on the 16th of September sentenced to death for mutiny, after firing gunshots at their General Officer Commanding (GOC), Abubakar Mohammed, in Maiduguri on May 14.
The Senate on Tuesday, after after a closed-door meeting with the nation’s service chiefs, led by the Chief of Defence Staff, Alex Badeh, said it would not plead with the Nigerian Army to spare the convicted lives.
While speaking in Abuja after the meeting, George Sekibo, chairman of the Senate Committee on Defence, said that the senate was not under pressure to intervene to save the lives of the soldiers because the judgement convicting them was in the best interest of the Nigerian military.
“No we are not (under pressure) because the Armed Forces is established by an Act of the National Assembly.
“The Act spelt out categorically the conduct of 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 (military) went through the necessary processes and they found them guilty,” he said.
Sekibo called on Nigerians to encourage the military to ensure that it discharged its duties effectively.
NLC pleads
Meanwhile, the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC) has pleaded with the Nigerian Army to lighten the death sentence passed on the convicts.
Acting President of the Union, Promise Adewusi, said that in view of the numerous challenges confronting the military hierarchy, the execution of the convicts would not in any way restore discipline in the army. But a rather harsh and unacceptable.
“We expect that the Military Council or the appropriate authority, whose responsibility it is to review sentences of this nature, should commute this sentence to a more tolerable or acceptable one.”
Adewusi stated that rather than restore discipline, the execution of the soldiers, “could sow the seed of a major security problem in the armed forces”.