{"id":292555,"date":"2017-02-09T15:05:19","date_gmt":"2017-02-09T15:05:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=292555"},"modified":"2017-02-09T15:05:19","modified_gmt":"2017-02-09T15:05:19","slug":"nigerian-soldiers-filmed-beating-up-disabled-man","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/2017\/02\/nigerian-soldiers-filmed-beating-up-disabled-man\/","title":{"rendered":"Nigerian soldiers filmed beating up disabled man"},"content":{"rendered":"
Two Nigerian soldiers have been arrested and charged with assault after they were filmed beating a disabled man with sticks in a busy street.<\/p>\n
The army said the reason for the assault, in Onitsha in Anambra state on Tuesday, appeared to be because the man was wearing a camouflage shirt.<\/p>\n
It said the soldiers had been charged “in line with our zero tolerance for acts of indiscipline”.<\/p>\n
Many Nigerians complain that soldiers are rarely punished for excesses.<\/p>\n
Human rights groups have persistently accused Nigeria’s military of abuses against civilians, especially in north-east Nigeria, where it has been fighting a long-running insurgency by militant Islamist group Boko Haram.<\/p>\n
Wearing camouflage clothing is a sensitive issue in Nigeria because militants and criminals have often worn camouflage clothing either to carry out attacks or impersonate soldiers for other criminal purposes.<\/p>\n
Section 110 of the Nigerian criminal code says it is an offence to unlawfully wear uniform of the armed forces or dress “having the appearance… of such uniforms”.<\/p>\n
Footage of the assault on the disabled man in Onitsha, in southern Nigeria, had been circulating on social media before the army commented.<\/p>\n
It said the “ugly incident” was “an isolated case which is not [a] true reflection of the Nigerian army”.<\/p>\n
News of the soldiers being charged came a week after another soldier was jailed for seven years for shooting dead a civilian at a market in the city of Maiduguri, in the north-east, last year.<\/p>\n
The soldier, who was not identified, was found guilty of manslaughter.<\/p>\n
In court, he argued that he acted in self-defence after the man he killed, named as Umar Alkali, tried to wrestle his rifle from him. The military court rejected this argument, deciding that he had used disproportionate force.<\/p>\n
–<\/p>\n
Source: BBC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Two Nigerian soldiers have been arrested and charged with assault after they were filmed beating a disabled man with sticks in a busy street. The army said the reason for the assault, in Onitsha in Anambra state on Tuesday, appeared to be because the man was wearing a camouflage shirt. It said the soldiers had […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[107],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\n