ADE OBISESAN, Lagos | Tuesday
ETHNIC Igbo in southeast Nigeria are demanding more than $63bn in government compensation for alleged injustice and rights violations committed during the 1967-70 Biafran war.
The request has been submitted to a human rights panel which will begin sitting this week in the historic city of Enugu.
The panel, set up in 1999 to look into rights violations dating back to the country’s first military regime in 1966, began hearings across the country last year.
The head of Ohaneze Ndigbo, a group representing the ethnic group, said the request is a symbolic gesture aimed at drawing attention to the plight of the Igbo before, during and after the war.
“Not that we are actually interested in the money. It will be symbolic in redressing the injustices, violations of the Igbo people before, during and after the war,” said an official of Ohaneze Ndigbo.
Ethnic Igbos fought to secede from Nigeria and formed the breakaway ‘Biafra’ republic which was crushed in January 1970.
The 30-month war left more than a million people dead.
Poignantly, the man who accepted the battlefield surrender of the Igbo is Olusegun Obasanjo, Nigeria’s current president who at the time was a colonel in the army.
It is not yet known whether Emeka Ojukwu, the man who led the Biafran secession bid, or Yakubu Gowon, who led the Nigerian government’s opposition, will testify.
Some 40 cases are listed for the hearings in Enugu.
Other petitions deal with unlawful killing, mysterious disapperance, assault, unlawful arrest, detention and torture.
The rights panel, modelled on South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, is expected to present its final report to Obasanjo by October. – AFP