Politics
Eastern Nigeria’s Rights and Intelligentsia Coalition, a human rights group, has declared that, a ‘floating’ Nigerian Army’s purported anonymous denial of the recent secret killing of six Igbo soldiers by Rtd Lt. General Tukur Buratai and others, is tantamount to a purposive admission of complicity and total failure in providing answers to 13 key questions.
“The Nigerian Army’s anonymous denial of its involvement with its immediate past Chief of Staff, (COAS), Retired Lt Gen Tukur Yusuf Buratai in the secret and most horrendous execution of six Igbo Christian soldiers inside the Abacha Barracks in Abuja on Monday, 25th Jan. 2021, is a clear case of ‘purposive admission of criminal responsibility’. If it is in criminal court trial, it becomes ‘mens rea proven,” said a statement by the group made available to Realnews on Thursday, February 4.
The group recalled that one of its members and originator of the information on the six killed soldiers, had in his phone interview with the Abuja correspondent of the Int’l Center for Investigative Reporting, ICIR, on February 2, insisted that the six Igbo Christian soldiers were secretly tried and executed and challenged the Army to produce them alive or declare why they were tried in secret and why they were condemned for secret execution.
The groups’ statement came in the wake of the Nigerian Army denial of media reports on the incident, describing them as fake news.
Realnews reports that a statement, which SaharaReporters credited to Brig. Gen. Sagir Musa, director, Army Public Relations, labelled the media reports as ‘fake and mischievous publication’, but failed to disclose the whereabouts of the soldiers.
However, the Coalition noted that, “uploading montage pictures of the slain soldiers with ‘Fake News’ written over same or hiring a consultancy firm to write a statement signed by ‘an anonymous senior Army officer’ is in no way a credible and concrete reply and ordinarily should not be taken serious; but owing to psychological terrorization and chronic censorship which media practitioners in the country have undergone and are still undergoing, any crab from the Army or Government is now capable of making big headlines. That is to say that the Nigerian Army has not issued any concrete and provable denial statement as far as the Coalition is concerned.
“As a matter of fact, the Nigerian Army has ended up indirectly admitting criminal responsibility in the matter. The Coalition also did not issue that aspect of the statement for Nigerian Army to accept or deny because falsehood, lying, cover-ups and evidence destruction have been its routine and modus since 2015.”
The coalition pointed to a similar case of denial, a massacre of hundreds of defenceless easterners in 2015 and 2016.
“The same Nigerian Army set up a kangaroo panel in 2017 and in the end claimed that “no single citizen was killed in the East. Same Nigerian Army has kept mute over its abduction of over 400 Obigbo residents in Rivers State. This is despite concretely evidential court processes and decisions including the release of 145 of the abductees, secretly and inhumanly thrown into solitary captivity for more than three months or since 21st Oct. and early Nov. 2020.”
It noted that “Till today, the Nigerian Army has refused to speak or release the remaining abductees unconditionally or remorsefully apologize to the victims and Nigerians and hold the perpetrators tightly accountable. On the other hand, the Army is hereby mockingly ‘commended’ for not declaring the names of the slain soldiers as “fake names”, ‘not belonging to Nigerian Army’; or declaring their pictures as having “originated from Congo DRC or Central African Republic or Burundi”.
The Coalition raised 13 key questions that the Nigerian Army has failed to answer.
And these being: whether the six slain Igbo Christian soldiers and their names, religion and ethnicity exist in the Army or on its records; whether the four pictures as produced belong to the ascribed serving personnel of the Nigerian Army; whether they were made to undergo any form of trial within the Army; whether they were tried in any manner with the stated allegations; whether their trial, if true, was conducted in the presence of their family, legal and medical representatives including allowing them access to lawyers of their choice; whether the six Igbo soldiers were defended by lawyers of their choice; whether they were allowed to exercise their right of appeal to Court of Appeal and Supreme Court and whether the Nigerian Army issued any public statement concerning their trial or notified their beloved ones and the public.
The rest are: if they were executed, whether it was done secretly or in the open and if in the open, whether their lawyers, physicians, faith priests and family members were present-these, if true, should have been attached with audio-visual evidence showing same; where the Nigerian Army and its immediate past Chief of Army Staff, Retired Lt Gen Tukur Buratai derived powers to order the execution, whether in secret or in the open, of soldiers including the six slain Igbo Christian soldiers, convicted by Army Court Martial; if they are still alive and detained as ‘death row inmates’, where they are being held, condition of their health and circumstances leading to their present fate; why the Nigerian Army failed to produce them publicly, if they are still alive, hale and hearty.
The group also asked why the Nigerian Army, has not updated Nigerians regarding whether it has secretly executed or still keeping alive another Igbo soldier convicted and sentenced to death by firing squad in Maiduguri, Borno State in Jan 2021, by name: Trooper Azunna Mmadubuchi.
-Feb 4, 2021 @ 6:21pm
Tags: Secret killing of 6 Igbo soldiers: Army’s anonymous denial is admission of complicity - Rights group
