Ozor Ndi Ozor@OzorNdiOzor
In 2014, 70 Nigerian soldiers were sentenced to death by a court-martial in December 2014 for demanding weapons when the general officer commanding the Seventh Division of the Nigerian army visited a military camp in the war zone.
A brief break down of event:
September 2014: 12 soldiers from the 7th Division in Maiduguri were sentenced to death for mutiny and attempted murder of their commanding officer, after a convoy incident where they protested unsafe conditions.
December 17, 2014: An additional 58 soldiers from the same division were sentenced to death by firing squad for conspiring to commit mutiny, stemming from complaints about being under-resourced against Boko Haram.
Endurance Kulukulu one of the Soldiers Sentenced to death, spoke about his experience in the Army in an interview:
“We went to Damboa, Goza, Polka, Atagara, Gawa One, Gawa Two. All those places we walk around. We went to Gamburu Gala, Maiduguri, Mariti, close to Chad.
We have been struggling with the lack of support from them, especially regarding the equipment they failed to provide us for our fight. As a result, we’ve only faced losses. What we urgently need is an APC (Armored Personnel Carrier). I am alive today, and I thank God for that.
We encountered an ambush where we lost about 21 men; specifically, 19 were killed that day. We have repeatedly requested the necessary weapons to combat these deadly groups, but they refused to supply them. We made it clear that unless they provide us with these resources, we cannot go into battle and risk our lives without proper support.”
Sunday Godwin who was a private at the time of the incident, but now a pastor said in his interview:
That's in 2014, December 17. We were given death penalty by firing squad. We were moved to Kirikiri prison. The death sentence was now commuted to 10 years imprisonment. With the effort of God and the effort of Femi Falana because he never give up all through this journey. He never give up. He made sure we get justice. If you see the kind of weapon those terrorists are having, in fact, we wish we are the one having this kind of weapon. If we did, those terrorists will not survive it. RPG have become some of them their personal weapon. You see them with NPMG, PNG. You see them with AK-47 with different type of bomb.”