Posted by By NICHOLAS OHWO on
The people of Onogbokor community in Ndokwa East Local Government Area of Delta State who were paid compensation recently by the local government authority for the January 8, 2003 violent attack on them by armed mobile policemen have cried foul over the amount paid to them.
The people of Onogbokor community in Ndokwa East Local Government Area of Delta State who were paid compensation recently by the local government authority for the January 8, 2003 violent attack on them by armed mobile policemen have cried foul over the amount paid to them.
One of the recipient, Mr. Diamond Ezuzu, a Mathematics teacher at Iyede Ameh Grammar School who escaped death by the whiskers when he was viciously attacked by men allegedly loyal to the embattled traditional ruler (name withheld). While thanking the authority for putting smiles on the faces of the impoverished people of the community, he raised alarm over the amount paid to each of the victim on March 23, 2005, which he called short payment.
According to Mr. Ezuzu, while he was receiving and signing for his own, he discovered through his eagle eyes that there were some irregularities in the payment voucher. 'I saw that there were discrepancies in the amount written against each of the names. Those who were killed were supposed to be paid N50,000, but N30,000 was paid to their families while those injured received N20,000 instead of N40,000 written against their names. Likewise those who lost property were also paid N9,000 instead of N15,000 as indicated in the voucher.
'When I drew the attention of the paying officer to the glaring irregularities and to explain what it means, he told me to forget about what was written, adding that the balance was used for the treatment of victims. That statement further heightened the suspicions that the voucher was ‘doctored' because none of the victims, to the best of my knowledge, was treated by any government official."
All effort by Daily Sun to get across to the local government chairman on phone to confirm the story proved abortive. However, when contacted, the Special Adviser on Media Matters to Governor Chief James Onanefe Ibori at the state liaison office, Lagos, Mr. Sheddy Ozorne, simply denied knowledge of the compensation.
It would be recalled that armed mobile policemen who were drafted from Asaba, the state capital on January 8, 2003 to the volatile area at the heat of the hostility between the traditional ruler and the community over ownership of a fishing lake, sacked the community while many people were killed, injured and property worth millions of naira destroyed.
Daily Sun authoritatively gathered that the community remained a ghost village as those who are believed to be loyal to the monarch are yet to return to their homes after two years of desertion for fear of possible reprisal attack.