Culled from Thisday
Chief of Army Staff, Kenneth Minimah
A Court of Appeal sitting in Abuja has stayed the execution of the
death sentences passed on two of the twelve Nigerian soldiers
court-marshalled by the Army authorities last September.
The soldiers were tried under the General Court Marshal which sat at
the Army Headquarters Garrison, Mogadishu Cantonment in Abuja, on
sundry allegations of offences ranging from attempts to commit offence,
disobedience to particular order, insubordination, false accusation
criminal behavior, conspiracy to commit mutiny and mutiny under the
Armed Forces Act 2004.
All the twelve soldiers who stood trial before the General Court
Marshal were convicted on 15th September 2014 variously sentenced to
life imprisonment and death for the respective charges following the
trial which commenced earlier on last July.
Three of the convicted soldiers, CPL Stephen Clement, CPL Igomu
Emmanuel and PTE Andrew Ngbede, however approached the appellate court
through their lawyer, Chief Godwin Obla, SAN, to challenge the decision
of the Court Marshal which convicted and sentenced them to life
imprisonment and death.
The convicted soldiers raised eleven grounds of appeal each in their
separate appeals alleging many fundamental irregularities and
improprieties characterizing the entire trial at the General Court
Marshal and asked the court to stay the execution of their sentences
pending the hearing and determination of their appeals.
Upon the institution of the appeals by the convicted soldiers, an
apparently incensed Nigerian military authority which had earlier
acknowledged the receipt of the application by the convicted soldiers'
lawyer for the release of the record of proceedings at the court marshal
to enable him compile the record of appeal, blatantly ignored the
application and vehemently refused to release the record of proceedings
at the General Court Marshal, all in the bid to frustrate the appeals.
A series of correspondence by Obla to both the Chief of Army Staff and
the President and Commander In Chief of the Nigerian Armed Forces,
wherein he expressed apprehension on the likelihood of the Army to
execute the death sentence on the three soldiers following their refusal
to release the record of proceedings of the General Court Marshal, also
failed to attract any response from the military authorities.
In a desperate bid to save the lives of his clients, their lawyer,
Obla, last February initiated another correspondence with the Executive
Secretary of the National Human Rights Commission, seeking the
commission's intervention to prevail on the Army to release the record
of proceedings to enable him prosecute the appeal of his clients.
The effort yielded no positive result as the army still refused to release the document.
However, while delivering its ruling on the application for stay of
execution filed before it by Cpl Igomu Emmanuel and Pte Andrew Ngbede,
two of the convicted soldiers on Monday, the Court of Appeal restrained
the Nigerian Army or its agents from carrying out the execution of life
imprisonment and sentence if death imposed by the General Court Martial
and ordered that the convicted soldiers be granted access to their
lawyers.
The court presided by Justice Abubakar Jega Abdulkadir, also ordered
the Nigerian Army to avail the convicted soldiers of the record of
proceedings of the General Court Martial which tried and convicted them
to enable them compile records for their appeal.
The application for stay of execution filed by the third convicted
soldier, Cpl Stephen Clement, is yet to be heard as it was not listed
on the court’s list on the day those of the other convicted soldiers
were heard.
Culled from Thisday
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