Outrage In Military Circles Over Plan To Court Martial Lt. Colonel, 37 Others

SOME soldiers and officers are said to be outraged and bitter over the decision of the General Court Martial, convened by the Army authorities, to try a Lieutenant-Colonel (names withheld) and 37 soldiers for mutiny.

This was as they claimed the authorities shunned the heroic operations of the officer and his men, daring to storm Sambisa forest in search of the abducted Chibok schoolgirls.

Military sources disclosed this to the Nigerian Tribune on Tuesday.

According to sources, the officer, as commander of the battalion in Konduga, also led troops to halt attacks from Boko Haram terrorists rearing to enter Bama several times, before the last attack that led to its fall, when the Brigadier General in charge of the 21 Brigade took to his heels with his men.

The Lieutenant-Colonel and his men, the military sources said, successfully held Konduga and stoutly provided the leadership that enabled his troops to lead from the ground, while Air Force jets provided air attack, killing over 50 Boko Haram terrorists in Kawuri.

The development, it was gathered, also helped in the seizure of a cache of arms and ammunition from the terrorists.

Giving an account of how the officer stormed  Sambisa, a source said “during the operation to locate and rescue the Chibok girls, four different battalions were programmed to enter Sambisa from the North, East, West and South.

“The officer and his men entered from the Konduga axis and took out enemies on sight, destroying seven camps while the terrorists ran away.

“For that singular feat of entering Sambisa and coming out alive, many soldiers and officers feel the Lieutenant Colonel and soldiers would have been rewarded, rather than sent to face court martial.”

Nigerian Tribune gathered that some officers at Army headquarters and his colleagues on the battlefield were not happy with the way he pays out allowances to troops timely, as well as the way he shows concern for their welfare.

“So they feel the best way to get him out is to send him to a court martial” a source said.  

It was also gathered that the operation to rout out the Boko Haram insurgency would have long been concluded, if not that most of the equipment being used by the terrorists were taken from the Nigerian troops.

Also it was gathered that with the arrival of the modern warfare equipment for the armed forces, the tide will soon change.

  - Tribune