Delegates from South-East on Monday demanded N2.4tr reparation and compensation “for atrocities and injustices committed against Ndigbo in Nigeria over a long period.”
The renewed call for reparation was made as the delegates went into intense lobbying over how the proposed National Intervention Fund would be shared among the six-geopolitical zones.
In an amendment to the proposed National Intervention Fund, which was submitted to the conference, the South-East delegates said the former Eastern region and part of the former Mid-West region were theatres of war, which devastated the two regions and brought untold hardship on their citizens.
“The case of the South East, which bore the full brunt of the civil war for 30 months, is particularly tragic. Most of it remained a wasteland, despite General (Yakubu) Gowon’s declaration of the three ‘Rs’, Reconstruction, Rahabilitation and Reconciliation,” the delegates said in their proposed amendment.
In a document titled ‘Atrocities and Injustices against Ndigbo: Ohaneze’s demand for Reparation’, which was circulated with the amendment to the proposed National Intervention Fund, the delegates said it was incalculable to put a price on the death of millions of Igbos who were killed in the civil war and other occasions.
The group said, “The Federal Government should pay N400bn each to the five states of the South-East as compensation to those who lost loved ones, lost property and those still suffering dislocation today in Nigeria. The same amount should also be paid to the government of Delta State for the benefit of Anioma area of the state.”
They explained that the Boko Haran insurgency in parts of the country, especially in the North East zone, had brought up the issues of reparation and reconstruction in whatever guise to the fore and the National Conference, though its committee on Devolution of Power had tackled it headlong. Punch
