Alleged Secret Execution: Produce Six Identified Soldiers Alive and Well - Group Dares Nigerian Army

 

The Nigerian Army has been asked to produce the six Igbo soldiers alleged to have been executed and secretly buried under former Chief of Staff, Tukur Buratai.

 

The Coalition of Civil Societies which claimed that the Nigerian Army secretly tried and executed six soldiers of the South-East extraction in Abuja challenged the army to prove them wrong.

 

The coalition, in a release on Wednesday obtained by SaharaReporters, tackled the army for its alleged complicity and silence, saying the coalition stood by their earlier claims that the soldiers, whose names and photographs were also made public, were tried and executed.

 

Some of the groups which signed the release by the coalition are International Society for Civil Liberties and Rule of Law, World Igbo Congress United States, Ala-Igbo Development Foundation, Concerned Elites for Better Society Initiative, and Igbo Board of Deputies, United Kingdom.

 

The army had on Tuesday described as false, a report that it secretly tried and executed six soldiers in Abuja who were of the South-East extraction after they were found to have committed an infraction.

 

The Director, Army Public Relations, Brig. Gen. Sagir Musa, in his characteristic manner, had labelled the media reports on the incident as “fake news and mischievous publication” but failed to give details of the whereabouts of the soldiers and what truly transpired.

 

The coalition had alleged in a press statement on Tuesday that the six soldiers were denied legal representation before their execution, after a hasty secret trial.

 

The soldiers were said to have been attached to the Armoury Department of the Mogadishu Cantonment, Asokoro, otherwise known as Abacha Barracks, Abuja.

 

The activists had given the names of those allegedly executed as Prince Ukwuoma, son of a traditional ruler; Ebube Isaiah, Amos Azubuike, Ekene Ebere, Moses Anyim and Godwin Uchendu.

 

In its reaction, the army tagged the news report as fake and mischievous, although Nigerians have been asking the army authorities to come out clean on the names of the soldiers and the incident in contention.

 

In another release on Wednesday, the coalition posed 13 questions to the army authorities, noting that it would stand by its claims.

 

The release partly reads, “The Nigerian Army’s anonymous denial of its involvement with its immediate past Chief of Army Staff, Retired Lt Gen Tukur Buratai, in the secret and most horrendous execution of six soldiers inside the Abacha Barracks in Abuja our purposive admission of criminal responsibility. If it is in criminal court trial, it becomes ‘mens rea proven’. “Barr E.R. Okoroafor, a member of the coalition, challenges the army to not only produce them alive, hale and hearty, but also tell Nigerians and the world what actually happened, including where the army kept them and why they were kept as well as whether they were tried in secret and condemned for secret execution.