By Uche Mbah
The Nigerian Military High Command has refuted the allegation that they executed six officers of Igbo extraction after a secret trial. It is fake news, the Army emphasised.
An Abuja-based lawyer had raised the alarm that the Nigerian army has secretly tried six military officers of Igbo extraction, sentencing them to death without legal representation as part of their investigations about missing guns in the armory.
the lawyer, who led a group that called themselves The Coalition Of Rights Activists And Scholars, had said he, as the Legal Counsel to one of the soldiers was denied access to the trial on the grounds that it is only military lawyers that are allowed at such trials.
The story has gone viral and has been greeted with outrage.
This followed on the heels of a viral video of some alleged camps of Fulani herdsmen being destroyed by people alleged to be members of the Eastern security networks. this, however, has not been confirmed.
But the Nigerian Army, in a swift reaction, called the report fake, false and malicious news.
Agency reports quoted military sources as saying it is impossible for the Army to have secret trials of soldiers. According to him, court martials are done publicly.
“There is no iota of truth whatsoever that six soldiers were tried secretely and executed by Nigerian Army on January 25 as alleged.The promoters of that allegations are enemies of Nigeria who are trying hard to instigate tribal or ethnic crisis in the Coutry”, NAN quoted the source as saying.
In a related developement, a group that alls themselves a coalition of youth groups challenged the purveyors of such allegations to show proof of the execution.
