A Nigerian soldier has been jailed for seven years for killing a man at a market in the northeast, the army has announced.

According to the Nigerian Army spokesman, Colonel Sani Usman on Wednesday, 1st January 2017 evening, he stated that the panel rule the solider had used was “disproportionate force”. Therefore, the army announced in a rare sanction of military excesses against civilians.

Consequently, human rights groups repeatedly accused Nigeria’s military of abuses against civilians during the Boko Haram conflict, including arbitrary arrest, torture and extrajudicial killing.

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