Nigerian Army restore 3,032 soldiers fired for indisipline

3,032 dismissed soldiers were reinstated yesterday,after being convicted by military courts for various offences.In all, 5,000 were convicted, but only the 3,032 were lucky.

Army Public Relations Acting Director Col. Sani Usman, revealed this at a briefing in Abuja.He noted that,some of the convicted soldiers had their sentences upheld by the committee.

According to him, only soldiers with disciplinary cases have been reinstated as those with criminal cases were not even considered by the committee.

Col. Usman added that in some cases, the screening committee even made an upward review of years of imprisonment given to some of the convicted soldiers by the military courts.He said 

“You would recall that the Nigerian Army sometime ago instituted a committee to review the recent disciplinary cases in the service, especially of those soldiers in the defunct ‘Operation Zaman Lafiya’,

“The committee has concluded its initial sitting and has made certain recommendation that led to the reinstatement of 3, 0 32 soldiers out of 5,000 cases reviewed so far.

“The cases reviewed were only disciplinary as no criminal cases were considered, the review is ongoing but the bulk of the work has been done for the time being,’’ he said.The director said the reinstated soldiers have since commenced re-training at a military facility in Niger preparatory for their eventual redeployment to the operational bases.

The Army spokesman, however, said the cases of 66 soldiers who bagged the death sentence were not reviewed by the committee since their lawyers had appealed the verdict and the process was on.