Nigeria’s President-elect may commute the sentences of soldiers on death row, a lawyer, Mr. Femi Falana, (SAN), said on Friday.
Falana, in a telephone interview with our correspondent, expressed confidence that the country’s incoming President, Gen. Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), may not sign the death warrants on the 66 soldiers convicted for mutiny.
He said Buhari had promised to review the operations against Boko Haram militants in the North-East.
He said, “No democratically elected president in Nigeria has ever signed a warrant for the execution of anybody since 1960. He (Buhari) has repeatedly expressed concern over the collapse of the military institution and the war in the North-East.
“He has said the prosecution of the war on terror will be reviewed, that implies that the entire operations will have to be reviewed.”
The convicted soldiers had said they lacked adequate weapons to fight the Islamist insurgents.
The Nigerian Army has revealed that another 579 soldiers are facing trial over indiscipline.
Army spokesman, Sani Usman, said the courts martial, currently taking place in the capital, Abuja, were to ensure professionalism in the army.
The International Committee of the Red Cross has said that the Boko Haram insurgency, which began in 2009, had caused “one of the most serious humanitarian crises in Africa.”
Falana, a prominent human rights lawyer, who represented some of the 66 soldiers sentenced to death for conspiracy, cowardice and mutiny last year, said the Nigerian government had failed to adequately equip the units fighting the insurgency in the north-East.
“They (the soldiers) did not sign to commit suicide but to fight for their fatherland and since the government did not make weapons available, they were unable to fight,” he told the BBC’s Newsday programme.
“The sentences are awaiting confirmation but we are taking steps to ensure that no soldier, no officer in Nigeria is executed on account of the negligence of the Nigerian state in motivating the soldiers to fight and equip them.”
He said that outgoing President Goodluck Jonathan “had refused to grant the request of the convicted soldiers to review their matter.”
“So happily the incoming government of Gen. Muhammadu Buhari has promised to review the entire operations in the North-East region and we are confident that the cases of the officers and the soldiers will be reviewed so that justice will be done to them,” he added.
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