579 Nigerian soldiers facing court martial

Nigeria's military said Wednesday that 579 officers and soldiers were facing two separate trials over indiscipline, after 66 troops were sentenced to death last year for mutiny.

"We have about 473 officers and soldiers being tried at the Army Headquarters Garrison and 106 in 81 Division," said army spokesman Sani Usman.

He did not specify the charges against those currently facing court martial but Femi Falana, a human rights lawyer working on the case, said some had been accused of mutiny.

Many Nigerian troops based in the northeast have defied orders to battle Boko Haram Islamists, citing a lack of adequate weapons and other essential equipment.

"The essence of all these trials is just to emphasise on discipline, professionalism and some other things," Usman told reporters in Abuja, without giving further details.

Falana, who defended the 54 soldiers sentenced to death last year and was familiar with the fresh cases, told AFP the charges included "cowardice, mutiny and disobedience to authorities".

The military and independent sources have said conditions for soldiers in the northeast have improved over the last six to eight months, with Nigeria securing additional weaponry needed to tackle the rebels.

Experts say the new hardware has helped troops liberate a series of Boko Haram strongholds in an operation launched in February with backing from neighbouring armies.

Despite the reported improvements, complaints of soldiers being underpaid or poorly equipped persist.

Last year, soldiers based in the northeastern city of Maiduguri set up a protest camp after being ordered to deploy to a remote part of the region to fight Boko Haram.

Wives of soldiers launched a separate protest outside a barracks, claiming their husbands were being used as cannon fodder and were being sent to battle insurgents who had vastly superior weapons.

A military court last December sentenced 54 soldiers to death for refusing to deploy and take on Boko Haram in the northeast.

Twelve received the same sentence in September last year for mutiny after shots were fired at their commanding officer.

Falana said the death sentences had not yet been approved by military top brass and there was still hope of a reprieve.


AFP

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Suicide bomber kill 9 in Nigeria

A suspected male suicide bomber yesterday afternoon attacked the Garkida Cattle Market in Gombi Local Government Area of Adamawa State, killing no fewer than nine persons and wounding several others.

Reports from the area indicated that the incident occurred in the afternoon when the suspect who posed as a cattle dealer detonated the explosives on entry into the market.

Another version of the story however, had it that the bomb had earlier been planted within the area of vegetable sellers in the market from where the explosive went off. Garkida town shares borders with Borno State and the Sambisa forest, the dreaded base of the Boko Haram insurgents.

The member representing Gombi constituency in the Adamawa State House of Assembly, Jerry Kumdisi confirmed the incident even as the police authorities could not confirm or deny the attack, saying that the incident fell within the purview of the military.

Garkida, where the early missionaries settled in Adamawa State and had witnessed series of Boko Haram attacks in the past.

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British Nigerian John Boyega and Star Wars lead actor talks about growing up in England

John Boyega has risen to fame by reason of his acting talent and a will to succeed — shooting as far as the biggest roles in Hollywood.

This came after another Nigerian, David Oyelowo, featured prominently in the 2014 Selma, a chronicle of Martin Luther King’s campaign to secure equal voting rights through an epic march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama in 1965.

Defying the odds in a notorious Peckham neighbourhood in England, Boyega, 22, would be playing a lead role in one of Hollywood’s biggest blockbuster films, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens.

He had featured in a number of movies, including Attack The Block, The Whale, Imperial Dreams, the film adaptation of Chimamanda Adichie’s Half of a Yellow Sun as well as popular TV series 24: Live Another Day.

But Boyega’s story tells of a life pitched with the harshest of conditions in Peckham, a rough area, where surviving as a young Nigerian was difficult. The area has remained a black spot in the minds of Nigerians living in the United Kingdom since 2000 when 10-year-old Abimbola Taylor was stabbed to death in the neighbourhood.

Boyega was born to Nigerian parents in Peckham, where “gangs, guns and knives were part of everyday life.

“To us that was normal; it was just how we grew up,” a friend who was raised on the same estate as Boyega and his two older sisters, Grace and Blessing, told The Daily Telegraph.

“But theatre kept John out of trouble completely. The theatre was his second home, it was the only place I saw him,” he continued.

Damilola was about the same age as Boyega when he was discovered bleeding to death in a stairwell of North Peckham Estate, just before his 11th birthday.

He had left Nigeria with his parents for England, where his sister was to seek medical care for epilepsy. The trial of his murderers lasted almost 10 years, with two brothers eventually convicted of the crime and sentenced to eight years in prison.

Another Nigerian, Samuel Ogunro, when he was 17, was found shot in the back of the head in a burning car in Peckham in 2010. His murder allegedly had been ‘arranged’ by a South London gang member, who was in prison at the time.

Boyega’s friend said that “not a lot of people knew” about Boyega’s acting because he kept it quiet.

“Everyone else does football when they’re young,” he explained to the newspaper, adding: “John didn’t play football, he was more interested in acting, so he didn’t want to make a big fuss about it.”

He noted: “It was a rough area but he had a nice family, I saw him going to church with them every Sunday.”

Another friend, 22-year-old Daniel Ross, said that the area had been “very, very violent” when he and Boyega were teenagers.

“There were drugs, stabbing, a lot of gang affiliation. You would never see John on the street or hanging around gangs though. I only saw him in church or in acting school,” he stressed.

Demi Rump, 22, was a close friend of Boyega’s during their school years. He went to Westminster City School while she attended a girls’ school next door.

“A lot of boys in his year are now in prison or dead. Everyone was going down one route towards the end of school – taking drugs, selling drugs, gangs, that sort of thing – but John went down another. I am so thankful he got out of it,” she said.

Boyega found solace in Theatre Peckham, a performing arts centre on the corner of his Fifties Estate.

Teresa Early, the theatre’s artistic director, recalled the first time she saw Boyega act, aged nine, in a play at Oliver Goldsmith Primary School, saying she knew he was talented at the time.

She invited Boyega to join the theatre school, a special programme for talented children aged nine to 14, and, after securing financial assistance from a hardship fund, he enrolled.

Boyega spent almost every day after school at the theatre, as well as weekends, Mrs. Early told The Daily Telegraph. “He was (at the theatre) 24/7, it was what he thrived on. His father was a preacher and he wanted him to be a preacher too,” she said.

His father, Samson, mother, Abigail and Blessing are all trustees at the Wall of Praise Christian Centre in South Bermondsey.

Ms. Early said: “I had a chat with John’s father when he was about 12 or 13. As long as John stayed out of trouble they were quite happy. And as John made his way, his father began to think there was some wisdom in it.”

At 16, Boyega moved to South Thames College to study Performing Arts, and joined the Identity School of Acting in Hackney, which helps aspiring actors from multicultural backgrounds.

Guardian