A Special Court-Martial of the Nigerian Army has sentenced three soldiers to life imprisonment for illegally selling arms and ammunition to terrorists in the North-East.
The trial, convened by Acting General Officer Commanding 7 Division and Commander, Sector 1, Operation Hadin Kai (OPHK), Brigadier-General Ugochukwu Unachukwu, took place at the Officers’ Mess, Theatre Command Headquarters, Maiduguri.
Delivering judgment, the President of the Court-Martial, Brigadier-General Mohammed Abdullahi, declared Sergeants Raphael Ameh and Ejiga Musa, alongside Lance Corporal Patrick Ocheje, guilty of theft, unlawful dealing in ammunition, and aiding the enemy. Their offences, he said, directly endangered national security and military operations.
A fourth soldier, Corporal Omitoye Rufus, was handed a 15-year prison sentence for selling 40 rounds of 7.62mm ammunition to a police officer.
The court heard that Ameh, an armourer with 7 Division Garrison, conspired with a late colleague to steal weapons from the armoury, concealing them in bags of beans for transportation to Enugu and Ebonyi States. Bank records revealed over 100 suspicious transactions linked to the arms trade between July 2022 and June 2024.
Musa, while serving as armourer of 195 Battalion, was found to have collaborated with Ocheje and police officers to sell an AK-47 rifle and large quantities of ammunition, pocketing over ₦500,000 before his arrest. Ocheje, deployed at Forward Operating Base Molai, was convicted of diverting ammunition during communal clashes and stealing a colleague’s rifle.
Brigadier-General Abdullahi condemned the convicts as “bad eggs” who betrayed the trust, discipline, and honour expected of soldiers in the fight against insurgency. He reaffirmed the army’s zero-tolerance stance toward arms trafficking “in whatever form or guise.”
