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Nigeria: Arms Loot - Full Penalty Awaits Culprits - Army Chief
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Vanguard (Lagos)
17 January 2008
Posted to the web 18 January 2008
Kingsley Omonobi
Lagos
THE Chief of Army Staff, Lieutenant-General Luka Yusuf, has vowed that none of the army officers found to be allegedly part of the syndicate that stole arms and ammunition from the Army Central Ordinance Depot in Kaduna, will go unpunished.
Fifteen officers, including three Colonels, are currently facing trial at a court-martial in Kaduna over the disappearance of hundreds of AK-47 rifles, GPMGs and ammunition boxes from the depot.
Gen. Yusuf, Vanguard gathered, made the vow against the background of pleas for mercy for the affected officers by influential Nigerians.
Vanguard gathered that the Army Chief who visited the Central Ammunition Depot in Kaduna to see things for himself was shocked by the large quantity of the missing weaponry and the ease with which the crime was committed.
He reportedly found that senior officers put in charge of the ammo depot did not even cross-check the weapons holding for up to a year.
Vanguard gathered that even when the boxes containing the arms and ammunition were checked, old, expired and condemned weapons were stocked in the boxes with a few new weapons on top to give the impression that each box was complete as expected.
General Yusuf who until recently was the Chief of Staff of the Liberian Armed Forces was said to have lamented that arms belonging to the army were the same arms used to kill his soldiers in the Niger Delta. He vowed that nothing would stop him from applying the maximum punishment.
"Other than the death penalty for any offence which I will not want to be associated with, I will make sure that the maximum penalty is applied if those officers are found guilty of the offence of selling those missing arms and ammunition," he was quoted as having said. The punishment is either dismissal from service or jail sentence if found guilty.
The Army chief ordered investigations into allegations that hundreds of AK-47 rifles, General Purpose Machine Guns (GPMGs) and boxes of ammunition missing from the Central Ordinance Depot were sold to militant groups in the Niger Delta.
Fifteen army officers including three Colonels, two Lt. Colonels, one Major and about 9 NCOs are currently facing a court martial at the Infantry Centre and School in Jaji, Kaduna.
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The board of enquiry set up to investigate the disappearance of the arms, according to sources, discovered that large sums of money running into several millions are in the accounts of some of the officers facing the court martial.
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