Leadership (Abuja)
Christiana Esebonu
20 November 2008
Abuja — Human Rights Writers Association Of Nigeria (HURIWA), a Non-Governmental Organisation yesterday applauded the Brigadier-General Bala Usara-led ten-man military Court Martial that recently slammed various prison sentences to six military operatives for supplying sophisticated weapons illegally to militants in the Niger Delta even as the rights group charged the State Security Service and other security agencies to comprehensively unravel those behind the spate of abductions and kidnappings around the country and especially in the South Eastern region of Nigeria.
Essentially, the military court martial which sat in Kaduna had on Tuesday convicted the six military personnel including Major Suleiman Alabi Akubo for supplying illegally, 7,000 various sophisticated weapons valued at over N100,000,000 (one hundred million naira) to the militants currently waging arms rebellion on Nigeria in the oil rich but heavily impoverished Niger Delta region of Nigeria.
The military court martial president said he handed the stringent life imprisonment sentences on the convicts to serve as deterrent to others who may want to endanger Nigeria's national security by stealing military weapons kept in their custody to sell to alleged enemies of the nation.
HURIWA in the media release made available to journalists in Abuja and endorsed by its National Co-ordinator, Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko, stated that "though as a Human Rights platform, we are skeptical about the Human Rights standing of most military court martial sessions and the quality of legal representations of the defendants at such proceedings."
He stated that because of the sensitive nature of the alleged crimes of stealing sophisticated weapons kept in their custody and illegally supplied them to groups of fighters in a part of Nigeria to cause maximum chaos to the rest of the country and therefore endangering the national security of Nigeria, we commend the proceedings at this Brigadier-General Bala Usara-led court martial because it met the international best practice demands of justice delivery."
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It is a good news so far. I hope similar maximum jail term could given to civilians found guilty in other areas of ATROSITIES.