Muhammad Tanko Shittu
The Igbo community in Jos has said that it has lost 36 members, with 42 others injured in the May 20 twin bomb blast that rocked Jos market, just as they condemned secret mass burial by the Plateau state government.
Leader of the community, the Eze Igbo of Jos, Prof. Jerome Obilom, who addressed newsmen in Jos on Monday, said that the community vehemently abhorred the mass burial secretly conducted by the state government without informing members of the community since Ndigbo are not wont to burial their dead outside their homestead.
The community further said that many others are still unaccounted for while Igbo traders lost goods worth millions of naira.
He said that some hospital authorities were very hostile when the community led by the Chairman of the Igbo Community Association, Chief Jonah Ezekwueme, visited them to identify victims of the blast who were of Igbo extraction.
Obilom said that there is the need to compensate victims of the bomb blast, adding that in the past incidents Ndigbo were neglected and made to bear the cost of burying and rehabilitating their members alone.
The community, he said, was able to identify the dead through town and community who took roll calls of their members.
The Ezeigbo deplored a situation where Ndigbo were neglected in the distribution of relief materials and urged the authorities to send such materials to aid the victims and their families.
He also asked the Plateau state government to hasten efforts in the relocation of streets traders to the Satellite Market in Rukuba road area of Jos, adding that the cognition caused by the traders along the busy road was responsible for the heavy losses caused by the bomb blasts.