For Ransome-Kuti at Court Martial, its one down, 2 to go

The General Court Martial sitting in Abuja has struck out one of the three charges against a former Commander of the Multi-National Joint Task Force, Brig. Gen. Enitan Ransome-Kuti.
The military court freed him of the charge of cowardly behaviour preferred against him, still leaving him to two other charges of failure to perform military duties and miscellaneous offences relating to loss of the army’s armaments still pending against him.
Reports indicate that the Maj. Gen. O.E. Ekanem-led court struck out the charge following a no-case submission application which the accused filed after the prosecution called three witnesses to prove its case.
Ransome-Kuti’s counsel, Mr. Femi Falana (SAN) and Maj. Femi Oyebanji (retd), had filed the no-case submission contending that the prosecution had failed to prove its case to warrant him opening his defence.
But the court was said to have upheld the argument of the defence lawyers only with respect to their objection to the charge of cowardice.
In their analysis of the charge of cowardly behaviour, the defence lawyers, argued that the evidence of the first prosecution witness which was to prove the allegation was incoherent.
The lawyers maintained that from the evidence adduced by the prosecution, it was clear that Ransome-Kuti never abandoned MNJTF in Baga on January 3, 2015.

Read also: Fela’s nephew, Gen. Kuti, 29 others to face court martial (See list)

The lawyers added that under the situation whereby the command lacked the needed equipment, the accused was justified “by the absence of hope or relief, inability to offer further resistance or the certainty or extreme probability that no further efforts could prevent the place, post or thing falling into enemy hands.”
The lawyers also denied the charge of failure to perform military duty, arguing that the prosecution failed to adduce evidence on their client’s schedule of duties to show which of them he performed negligently.
The senior army officer is a son of the late pro-democracy and human rights activist, Dr. Beko Ransome-Kuti, and nephew to the late Afrobeat maestro, Fela Anikulapo-Kuti.
He was arraigned before the court along with others in June this year for the charges which arose from the attack by Boko Haram terrorists on the Headquarters of the MNJTF, then in Baga, Borno State, on January 3, 2015.
Journalists had been barred from covering the proceedings of the court-martial.

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