FG must compensate Boko Haram victims –Group

[Punch]

The Ndigbo Unity Forum has condemned the recommendation by the Presidential Committee on Dialogue and Peaceful Resolution on Security Challenges in the North, that the victims of Boko Haram insurgence should not be compensated.

The committee's Chairman, Tanimu Turaki, recently ruled out any form of compensation for victims of the Boko Haram insurgency in some parts of the North.

But the Igbo socio-cultural organisation, in a statement by its President, Augustine Chukwudum in Onitsha, Anambra State, called on President Goodluck Jonathan to ignore the committee's proposal by compensating the victims.

The statement said that security meant freedom from danger and it remained the government's prerogative.

It said, "Any meaningful government knows it has to go the extra mile to ensure there is adequate security of life and property of its people. And so, the citizens' trust that the government would do whatever it takes to see that they move freely without fear of assassins, robbers, rapists, kidnappers and so on.

"This also applies to natural disasters like flooding as we have experienced in Nigeria. And in a situation where things get out of control, the government is expected to take necessary steps to support, comfort and compensate the victims."



The Punch

[Folami David]

I really think Boko Haram victims deserves this compensations because of what they've been through since the whole thing started.