Two months after promise, Nigerian govt has failed to pay us compensation, Biafra war victims cry out

Victims of the Nigeria/Biafra civil war have accused the Federal Government of playing politics in paying them the N50 billion compensation as entered in an agreement on October 30, 2017, before the ECOWAS Court of Justice in Abuja.

The Federal Government had during the said agreement accepted that it would release the sum of N88 billion to be used as compensation to the true victims of the war and for the completion of demining and destruction of abandoned explosives within the South-East, South-South and North Central regions of the country.

In the terms of that agreement, government had stated that N50 billion would be used to pay compensation to “true victims” of the civil war which occurred between 1967 and 1970, while N38 billion would be paid to contractors for total and complete demining and destruction of abandoned bombs and landmines within the regions.

However, about three months after the agreement was reached, the victims of the war in a statement released by their leaders, Egobudike Monday Ogbowu and Ndu Pedro, challenged the government to come clean on why it was yet to fulfill the compensation agreement if it was not playing politics with it.

The statement partly read, “On behalf of Biafra Civil War soldiers from Rivers State who were granted pardon and were promised to be paid off by the President Muhammadu Buhari-led government to permanently end the case in ECOWAS Court, we want to state that we have not heard or received anything.

“Federal Government had as part of the terms of agreement, promised to effect the payment through Chukwukadibia & Co and Deminers Concept Nigeria Ltd, but up till now we have not got anything and it is making us to wonder if the Federal Government and Chukwukadibia & Co and Deminers Concept Nigeria Ltd are playing politics with it?

“If they are not playing politics with us, we urge the Federal Government to come out open and tell us the situation of things and the reason behind the delay in the payment.”

The development followed a suit marked ECW/CCJ/APP/06/12, and filed before the ECOWAS Court on May 2, 2012, by one Vincent Agu and 19 others against the Federal Government and five others.

The Federal government had however opted for an out-of-court- settlement of the matter after four years negotiation period and had in an agreement document, which the ECOWAS court adopted as its consent judgment, said that two firms, RSB Holdings Nigeria Limited and Deminers Concept Nigeria Limited, have been contracted in 2009 to carry out demining exercise in the war affected areas.

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The government had further noted that after an exercise conducted by medical experts employed by the two contractors to screen and identify true victims of the war, “…that 685 persons were selected and classified as survivors, while 493 of them were confirmed as victims of either landmines or other dangerous military ordnance including locally fabricated weapons, hence entitled to compensation including their families and communities.”

“Whereas the parties also acknowledged that a total of over 17, 000 bombs were recovered and destroyed by the 4th and 5th Respondents (the contractors), while a total of 1, 317 are still in the stockpile located at the Mine Action Center, Owerri, Imo State, large quantity of live bombs still litter the Applicant’s communities”.

Among the state in the list to benefit from the deal were Anambra, Imo, Rivers, Akwa Ibom, Delta, Ebonyi, Cross River, Abia, Enugu and Benue.

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