By Rafiu Ajakaye
LAGOS
A prominent human rights lawyer claimed Thursday that hundreds of Nigerian soldiers had recently been dismissed without receiving a fair trial.
"I have just confirmed that a total of 290 soldiers were dismissed yesterday by the authorities of the Nigerian Army," Femi Falana, who represents several soldiers and army officers standing trial, said in a statement.
"The letters of dismissal were distributed in Jos, Plateau State, and Ibadan, Oyo state," he added.
The army, for its part, has declined to comment on Falana's assertions.
Hours earlier, however, army spokesman Sani Usman denied that any soldiers had been dismissed without a fair trial or due process.
"The Nigerian army has no preplanned outright dismissal of any soldier, let alone punishing any commander for not doing so," he told Anadolu Agency.
"Please also know that disciplinary processes or trials are never done with prior intention to dismiss anyone in the Nigerian Army," he insisted.
"The only intention is to dispense justice and, even at that, due process is normally followed," the army spokesman added.
"All accused are presumed innocent until proven guilty by a competent superior authority after a fair hearing or trial," he stressed.
Some local and international media outlets had reported that scores of soldiers had been summarily dismissed on charges of "cowardice and desertion" in the face of Boko Haram militants.
But Falana, for his part, insisted that the soldiers were dismissed without being tried by court martial.
"Even though they pleaded not guilty to the charges of cowardice and failure to fight the Boko Haram sect, the dismissed soldiers were not tried by any court-martial in line with the provisions of the Armed Forces Act," he added.
The lawyer said another batch of 200 soldiers had similarly been dismissed from the military last year December in relation to the counterterrorism operation in Nigeria's northeast.
Nigeria is battling a six-year Boko Haram insurgency, especially in its northeastern region, where tens of thousands of people have been killed and millions displaced.
Last year, Boko Haram militants seized several towns and villages – across a swathe of Nigerian territory the size of Belgium – while stepping up attacks in the northeastern Adamawa, Borno and Yobe states.
The Nigerian army, however, assisted by troops from neighboring Chad and Niger, has since managed to roll back much of the militant group's gains and retake most of the captured towns
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