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President Goodluck Jonathan
Plans by the Federal and Benue State Governments to negotiate the
payment of N41.8 billion compensatory damages awarded the victims of
2001 Zaki-Ibiam armed soldiers invasion for loss of lives and
properties have been rejected by some of the victims.
The victims denied the knowledge of move by the Federal Government to
settle them with N8 billion through the state government in lieu of the
judgment and insisted that Benue State has no authority to act on their
behalf.
In a petition to President Goodluck Jonathan, the victims expressed
displeasure that they were not consulted before the alleged out of court
settlement was reached.
In the petition dated March 11, 2013, the victims represented by their
counsel, Chief Sebastian Hon (SAN), praised the move by the Federal
Government to honour the judgment but said no Benue State government
official had been given the authority to negotiate for payment of N8
billion as full and final satisfaction of the judgment sum.
A Federal High Court had six years ago awarded N41.8 billion damages
against the Federal Government for the loss of lives and property
incurred by the people of Zaki-Ibiam during the soldiers brutal attacks
on their communities in 2001.
The petitions signed by Chief Sebastine Hon (SAN) and delivered to the
Presidency Monday read in part: “Our clients are deeply worried that
over two weeks after they wrote to you through our office, there has
been no reply from your high office, in spite of the weight of the
issues we raised in our first letter on the matter.
“Rather, our clients have continued to read in the media about alleged
settlement between the Federal Government and the Benue State Government
for the judgment debt to be reduced from N41.8 billion to a mere N8
billion.
“More worrisome, is the fact that those media stories started surfacing
immediately after we wrote to your respected office demanding for
payment of the entire judgment sum.
“Our clients have instructed us to inform you in the strongest possible
terms, yet with utmost respect to your good and exalted self and
office, that they did not at any time brief anybody, particularly any
official of the Benue State Government, to negotiate for payment of the
sum of N8 billion as full and final satisfaction of the judgment sum
above-stated.
“The actual and collateral damage done to our clients and millions of
other persons who were directly or indirectly affected by the genocide
of 2001 cannot even be compensated in monetary terms; hence any
insinuation that the sum of N41.8 billion awarded by the Federal High
Court is too big an amount is, with respect, not well-grounded.”
“As we humbly pleaded with Your Excellency in our previous
correspondence, we hereby reiterate that as the father of the nation,
and given the enormous psychological and real damage caused the TIV
people by the rampaging soldiers in 2001, it is just fair, just and
reasonable that this entire judgment sum be paid to our clients through
our office and to other judgment creditors, to avoid a feeling among the
fourth largest tribe in Nigeria, the Tiv nation, of deliberate
government alienation.
“The blood of the victims of the Zaki Ibiam genocide, both living and
dead, is crying for justice, more than twelve years after the genocide;
and more than six years after the Federal High Court awarded
compensatory damages to the hapless victims of that infamy.”
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