Soldiers Have Right For Mutiny - APC Campaign

The All Progressives Progress (APC) presidential campaign head, Rotimi Amaechi, says that soldiers have the right for mutiny.

According to ThisDay, speaking Tuesday, December 23, on the issue, Amaechi claimed:

“The soldiers have the right to protest for the federal government’s failure to fully equip them.”

While it is considered to be a significant deviation from the Nigerian Armed Forces’ doctrine, the Rivers State governor endorsed the mutiny incidents.

The APC presidential candidate Gen. Muhammadu Buhari (rtd.), who is a former military head of state, is expected to be conversant with the Nigerian Armed Forces Act.

However, the official position of the party, as provided in the recent statement, is that the 54 soldiers sentenced to death had the right to protest their conditions.

“The challenge of the Nigerian military is not funding but corruption. Now they want to kill some 50 officers for their own failure to equip them properly to fight terrorism. The soldiers have the right to protest for the federal government’s failure to fully equip them.”

Amaechi also promised that Buhari, if elected, will handle Boko Haram insurgency:

“I hope that Nigerians will hear the message. The message is simple. Buhari is a strong leader who chased away the Maitatsine terror group. In the same manner, he will chase away Boko Haram.

“Borno was attacked once by Chadian rebels and Buhari then chased them away, even into the border of Chad. He will do that again with the Boko Haram sect. The issue of Boko Haram is not religious but poverty is what will make people go and register with any terrorist group.”

When asked why they were waiting to take up office to tackle terrorism in the North-East, Amaechi responded:

“If we had the power to stop the insurgency we would have done that to salvage the three North-East states presently under emergency rule.”

“State governors do not have the power to end the insurgency but the federal government does. The issue of security is in the exclusive list. APC as it stands cannot do anything to end the insurgency because we are not in power.”

Regarding the issue of campaign funding, the governor said:

“We are launching a campaign fund for Buhari and we are talking with the general to make him the only signatory to it. We cannot fight the president with money. Look at how he has raised his own funds through people he was supposed to prosecute for engaging in the fuel subsidy fraud but didn’t. We can only fight the president with the people clamouring for change in every corner of Nigeria.”

It would be recalled that Buhari received N54 million from Nigerians in support of his 2015 campaign. Meanwhile the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) candidate, Goodluck Jonathan, gathered over N21billion during a special Fund Raising Dinner.

The fundraising event sparked anger among the Nigerians.

People lamented that  in the course of serious problems in economy and amid unpaid salaries, those governors owing the citizens salaries, still found money to support Jonathan’s re-election bid.