Mutiny: TUC condemns Senate’s position on convicted soldiers

NLC faulted Senator Thompson Sekibo, Chairman of Senate Committee on Defence who maintained that the “Senate would not intervene because the penalty is as prescribed in the Military Act and must be carried out to maintain discipline.”The TUC, in press statement jointly signed by its President Comrade Bobboi Bala Kaigama and Secretary General Comrade Musa […]

NLC faulted Senator Thompson Sekibo, Chairman of Senate Committee on Defence who maintained that the “Senate would not intervene because the penalty is as prescribed in the Military Act and must be carried out to maintain discipline.”
The TUC, in press statement jointly signed by its President Comrade Bobboi Bala Kaigama and Secretary General Comrade Musa Lawal said, “It is bad enough that the military tribunal issued such a sentence against ill-equipped gallant soldiers who battled the sect with unequalled bravery, but worse and totally bewildering for the Senator to say what he said.
“We ordinarily might have agreed with the Senator if the soldiers’ mutinous acts and refusal to fight had been informed by cowardice, but the undisputed evidence adduced and reported show that they are all brave, willing combatants who only requested that they be sufficiently equipped for the task at hand and protested the avoidable death of their buddies because of the negligence, recalcitrance and misjudgement of their commanding officer.”
“Surely these circumstances that prompted the soldiers’ alleged offences need to be considered and are weighty enough to serve as mitigating factors in the consideration of any punishment to be meted out to them. Any contrary view would amount to nothing but sheer wickedness and a clear example of man’s insensitivity and inhumanity to man,” the statement said.