For years, the Federal Government of Nigeria avoided the issue of compensation for the Nigerian Civil War victims despite the proven cases of criminal engagement by the Federal Army in Asaba and other parts of the South Eastern States. Recently, the Government announced its decision to pay the war victims N88 Billion as ruled by West African Court of Appeal. Here, Emma Okocha, Human Rights Crusader and Author of the book “Blood on the Niger” speaks with OSA AMADI, analyzing this development:

His reaction to Government’s decision to pay war damages:

I was not surprised. On the strength of our work, shouting out, uncloaking the hidden 50 years old genocide story to the world, we were sure that before long the ship would find its anchor. Whatever, I must admit that the Asaba 50th year Genocide Anniversary event shook the land and coupled with the expert foreign and Nigerian leading Human Rights participation in the event the country and her leaders felt for the long suffering Asaba and the other forgotten Igbo war victims.

On memories and forgiveness

My few brothers and sisters who betrayed our over 30 years strident campaign to identify the perpetrators, bring them to justice, and push for the victims’ overdue indemnities have because of the latest development, confessed their sins. I’m a proselyte and a chronicler of the Non-Fiction Prose. Unfortunately, I’m fascinated and interested in reversing the fables that thread the actual true stories of the Nigerian civil war. Most of the plot lines are cluttered in blood, and the genocide chapters are overwhelming stories in human pathos. I don’t strive for popularity or heroism researching on the gruesome death of my kith and kin. In this terrible journey, I have witnessed death centers like Buchenwald, Mauthausen, and Dachau in Europe. These centers of death are always imprinted in my mind’s eye and each time I go to sleep the deadly visions are reincarnated like the Ogbeosowa procession of the dance of the dead. I cannot sleep or forget the Isheagu crematoria aglow with the fire of burning flesh. I have sniffed and peered into the Cable Point inferno and have experienced the hell fire that is Hell! To me the heroes of that Asaba event no doubt should be Professor Wole Soyinka and Archbishop Mathew Kukah. As far as I’m concerned, I think the speed by which the Federal Government reacted to these lingering Igbo civil war compensation after that Asaba event, testify to the courage of these two internationally celebrated Literati and writers of conscience.

Wole Soyinka’s contribution

First of all, it may be true I wrote the first book on the genocide and the civilian bloody travelogue during the civil war… but it was the Professor who initially in his book, The Man Died, drew the eyes of the world to the massacre when he wrote about the Yoruba soldier boy who massacred people in Asaba prison simply because they were speaking Ibo. Wole Soyinka is influenced by his life revolutionary inclination which in dedicating his struggle to the Nigerian people, hopes he would affect revolutionary changes for the country in his life time. Hence when Segun Sowemimo, was brutally beaten up by soldiers on the orders of the then Military Governor of the West, he followed Sowemimo’s case with keen interest. When the poor Journalist died of his wounds, the news came back to him with the title of his celebrated book, The Man Died. With that revolutionary aptitude, he was the first Nigerian that asked the question; what community of intelligentsia is it that accepts without a squawk, the disappearance of a Trade Union Leader without a trace? What sort of Labour solidarity is exhibited when the Secretary General of the huge Army of the Post and Telegraph workers is allowed to die like a dog in the dungeon of Dodan barracks, without a voice raised in protest? Soyinka, for the records, told Nigeria for the first time how the handsome Gogo Nzeribe was starved to death in 1967! It was the same Professor Wole Soyinka who reported of the disappearance and death of an Ibo photographer, Emmanuel Ogbonna, at Odo Ona, Ibadan. Ogbonna was murdered and thrown into the bushes. Two soldiers of the 3rd Battalion, Ambrose Okpe and Gani Biban were later charged to court and somehow the Army authorities intervened for the case to be dropped. Subsequently, for everything he did for opening up the case of our people’s genocide in the hands of the Second Division of the Nigerian Army, Asaba has in gratitude renamed the Professor, Asabamaka.

“Let the sinners confess before forgiveness” – Kukah

On Archbishop Kukah, he was the Secretary at the Oputa Human Rights and Justice Tribunal. The Asaba massacre case file is not foreign to him. He was the one who when he started his opening address mentioned my name. He was also the one who admonished the forgiving disciples of the town not to run before crawling. As a Roman Catholic Priest, he would prefer sinners to confess their sins before the victims may consider forgiveness. The Reverend gentleman in the Catholic Church would always offer the perpetrators the listening ear for them to confess their sins before bringing the perpetrators and the victims together for reconciliation.


Read more at: https://www.vanguardngr.com/2017/11/n88-billion-war-compensation-soyinka-kukah-writers-conscience/

Soyinka was sent to Prison because of his stand against the Gowon’s regime during the civil war.
I do not believe money should be the best way to compensate those who were killed unjustly during the civil war. You can not exchange cash for the soul of those who died, an admission and the building of a monument by the Federal Government in their remembrance should have been pursued. I am afraid, once cash compensation is made, then a full closure would have been secured by the Federal Government , no wonder no attempt has been made by the FG to appeal the ruling.

Yanminri will not get one kobo of that money. I dey come choke the survivors, make we kuku know say every bifran don yamutu yakare finish. No need for compensation.

what shock me most,is the young soldier that killed people in the prison, because they spoke igbo,igbo man is not save in naija,the hatred started in the days of adam.God pls save your chosen race.

About 38billion of that money, if FG will ever bring it, will be administered by an Man owned company that will be engaged to removed Mines and other weapons within the Communities where the war was fought. So the money is to be shared.

This is a step in the right direction. The Nigerian state had lived in a state of continual and perpetual denial of the attrocities commited during and after the war and this had dangerously deterred the nation's healing process.

Healing is very possible but we must first acknowledge the wound. That's what this payment represents for lives cannot be truely compensated with money. I think this is really key in fostering the healing process.

Wars are always humans vs humans and not snakes vs cats or Tigers vs Lions. History and the present should teach us that no one truely wins a war. No matter how each region/tribe attacks the other, no matter how we despise each other, no matter the offence, no matter the greiviances... one thing still remains, Nigeria will never see true progress until EVERY part of this nation is carried along.

We were here.

ImperialYoruba:
Yanminri will not get one kobo of that money. I dey come choke the survivors, make we kuku know say every bifran don yamutu yakare finish. No need for compensation.

How do you even breathe

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