By Emeka Nze
Abuja
Arising from the derivation principle which for one week running has continued to defy solutions at the national conference, the South-East zone of the country under the auspices of its socio-cultural organisation, Ohanaeze has put forward demands to the federal government for reparation to the tune of N2.4 trillion to be paid to the five South-East states as well as Delta state for the atrocities and injustices meted out against Ndigbo during the Nigerian civil war.
The breakdown of sum being demanded by the zone is that the sum of N400 billion to be paid to each of the five South-East states including Delta State because of the Igbo speaking areas otherwise known as Anioma, as compensation to those who lost their beloved ones and property as well as those still suffering dislocation in the country due to the war which ended in 1970.
In a document signed by Chief Mbazulike Amechi and Chief Ralph Obioha, as Chairman and Secretary of reparation committee entitled: Ohanaeze Ndigbo: Atrocities and Injustices against Ndigbo, which contains a letter dated February 15, 2014, addressed to President Goodluck Jonathan, circulated to delegates at the conference, the group said Igbos have suffered gross injustice which culminated in an imposed civil war which lasted 30 months.
According to the letter, millions were killed, millions suffered grave injuries, property damaged and seized, and families dislocated while mass starvation was imposed as an instrument of war in the course of the horrendous war.
The letter stated that although it was established that Igbos as a people never conspired nor planned any mutiny against the Nigerian state in 1966, it noted that the actions of the officers of the Nigerian army could not and should not have been visited on a people on the scale perpetrated against Ndigbo.
It described it as “calculated exercise of annihilation, pogrom, and planned tribal cleansing of magnitude of extermination on the pretext of resolving ‘Igbo question’”, noting that “it is heinous that rather than to protect, the state turned its weapons on its defenceless citizens, waged war against them, deliberately imposed policies that marginalised them, refused to atone for the injuries caused and pretended that all is well.”
The authors of the letter wanted to know why Igbos are frequently killed in Nigeria, where the South-East has the least number of states, why there is no major Nigerian government project establishment in any part of Igbo land and why the Igbos are the only group that have dwindling number of census figures.
They also called for the establishment of a Federal Territory in the zone as demanded by the maiden address of Gen Murtala Mohammed when he took over from Gen Yakubu Gowon in a military coup.
The letter also called on the federal government to invest in massive re-planning of Igbo cities with proper structures of provision of urban water works, which they called a sort of marshal plan often devised for a ravaged area.
The letter equally called for an open apology to Igbos for the wrongs the Nigerian state had visited on them.
The letter stated that the people of the zone were looking up to President Goodluck Jonathan to continue to do the right thing and pay an adequate reparation to the Igbos in their right saying that doing so would put the president in the right side of history.
