Following the recent Tinubu Presidential Pardon, here is a look back at how Maj. Alabi Ajubo Stole and sold 7,000 Military Firearms to Terrorists.
Between 2000 and 2006, over 7,000 military weapons disappeared from two Nigerian Army armories in Kaduna State, the Command and Staff College, Jaji, and the One Base Ordnance Depot.
Investigations later revealed that Major Alabi Ajubo, a senior officer at the time, masterminded the theft and sale of the weapons to criminal buyers linked with the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND), a militant group that terrorised the Niger Delta region for years.
During the trial at a Nigerian military court, military judge Bala Usara said the weapons were worth around N100 million (about $850,000 at the time).
During the trial at a Nigerian military court, military judge Bala Usara said the weapons were worth around N100 million (about $850,000 at the time).
One of the buyers of the stolen weapons was Sunny Okah. He is a brother to Henry Okah and Charles Okah, both of whom have been linked with terrorism and other criminal activities.
Charles Okah is considered the mastermind of a 2010 Independence Day car-bombing that killed 12 people and injured several others in Abuja.
In 2013, a South African court convicted Henry Okah on 13 counts of conspiracy to commit terrorism and detonation of explosives.
Sunny was referenced in South African court records for helping Henry with logistics to load firearms at military barracks in Kaduna State.
Although the public records of the case are redacted because Akubo was tried in a military court (court martial), reports show that he, alongside the five accomplices, was sentenced to life imprisonment.
What the Armed Forces Act (2004) Says
In Section 45 of the Armed Forces Act, which generally address the crime of ‘aiding enemy’, subsection 1 (D) states that the offence is punishable up to a death sentence pronouncement.
A person subject to service law under this Act who, with intent to assist the enemy — furnishes the enemy with arms or ammunition or with supplies of any description, is guilty of an offence under this section and liable, on conviction by a court-martial, to suffer death or any other punishment provided by this Act.
Subsection 2 of the same further describes the act, and also prescribed up to a death sentence penalty as punishment.
A person subject to service law under this Act who, knowingly and without lawful excuse—
(a) abandons or delivers up any place, post or thing which it is his duty to defend or induces any other person to deliver up any place, post or thing which it is that person’s duty to defend.(d) furnishes the enemy with arms or ammunition or with supplies of any description.
is guilty of an offence under this section and liable, on conviction by a court-martial, to suffer death or any less punishment provided by this Act.
In reference to 2 (a), the act states that ‘thing’ includes “A vehicle, ship, gun, tank, vessel, craft, boat, an aircraft, a radar and an ammunition”.
However, Festus Ogun, a human rights lawyer, had earlier told FIJ that, with Bola Tinubu’s presidential pardon granted Akubo on Thursday, his criminal records have been wiped clean and he has been forgiven.
