PROMINENT NIGERIANS PUSH FOR N1.5BN COMPENSATION OF BIAFRIANS, WARNS BUHARI OF DANGERS AHEAD

A fresh move has been initiated by some prominent Nigerians from the South East to make the Federal Government pay N1.5 billion compensation to Biafran soldiers who fought in the 1967-1970 Nigerian Civil War.

The fresh campaign is be¬ing led by a group, Corruption Watch.
Briefing journalists in Nne¬wi, Anambra State on Tuesday, the National Coordinator of the group, Comrade Chuks Ogbu¬ka, said that the amount being demanded by the former sol¬diers is in line with the decla¬ration after the war that there would be reconstruction, reha¬bilitation and reconciliation to integrate every section of the country.

Ogbuka however observed that several years after the dec¬laration by former Head of State, Gen. Yakubu Gowon (rtd), the ex-Biafran soldiers had not ex¬perienced any form of rehabil¬itation.

He recalled that the amount his group is demanding was contained in the 2012 Budget but the money was mopped up and returned to the treasury due to what he termed the “Nigeri¬an factor”.

Ogbuka said that the Cor¬ruption Watch, in its efforts to get respite for the ex-Biafran sol¬diers, pushed a bill through the Ministry of Finance and Budget in December 2015 for the mon¬ey to be re-appropriated in the 2016 Budget.

He said: “Indeed, the social and economic situations and lives of the former Biafran sol¬diers have been a source of im¬mense concern and worry to us as fellow Nigerians and really calls for serious and urgent at¬tention of the Federal Govern¬ment in particular, and all Ni¬gerians in general.

“It is our observation upon close contact with the ex-sol¬diers who were mostly con¬scripted into the 

 Nigerian Army, that their lives are in very de¬plorable, miserable and pitia¬ble conditions as a result of the non-release of the fund meant for the compensation and reha¬bilitation of the soldiers by the Federal Government,” he said.
 

Ogbuka continued that the primary concern of his organ¬isation, in relation to the said fund, is to assist in alleviating the sufferings of the ex-Biafran soldiers who had rendered their social and selfless services to the nation.

He argued that the Niger Delta militants, immediately after they were granted amnes¬ty, got what belonged to them in terms of compensation and wondered why the ex-Biafrans would be put on hold since 1970.

He urged President Mu¬hammadu Buhari not to allow some corrupt officials truncate the government’s good intention for the former soldiers through crooked procedures and proto¬cols meant to lay hands on the funds when released.

Ogbuka said that the failure of successive administrations to do the needful for the ex-Bi¬afran soldiers is what had led to the clamour for self-determina¬tion by groups such as the Indig¬enous Peoples of Biafra (IPOB), the Movement for the Actualisa¬tion of Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB) and others.