Senate Committee on Reparations and Repatriations has recalled the horror of the slave trade in former years and vowed to mobilise Civil Society Organisations and other stakeholders to make contributions to ways to demand restitution.
Chairman of the Committee, Senator Ned Munir Nwoko speaking with journalists after the inauguration of the Committee on Tuesday, expressed the hope the Committee which is novel in the legislative history of the nation would go into public orientation for the public to key into efforts for slave masters to do restitution.
He said the proposed restitution was never late, hence, the 10th Senate would do all it could to engage other stakeholders to enhance proper sensitization on the responsibilities and objectives of the Committee.
“We are working towards having a stakeholders’ meeting early next year where we can have all the stakeholders invited at least to unveil the committee to the public where we will be telling the public what we are here for”.
“It is a novel committee but certainly there is a need for it both locally and internationally. We are all aware of the efforts of the late MKO Abiola in dealing with reparations. That specifically deals with the quest for some form of apologies and restitutions by those who plundered our nation and created untold hardship for our people through the slave trade.”
He further hinted that the Committee will focus on internal crises, identify injustices from any quarter against individuals and groups across the nation and appropriately deal with them.
The other leg of reparation, he said, has to do with the internal crisis, So many communities and families in Nigeria who suffer brutalization will fall within the attention of the Committee to take action in terms of restitution
“We have the Odi example, the Asaba massacre, we have other areas of inhuman treatment where the whole villages were razed down”, adding that the Committee was actually meant to receive a memorandum from those communities and families.
“We are all Nigerians, we don’t need to litigate over so many things that were inhumanly done to our own people and we take evidence from them as to the level of damage.
“It could also be that the community has been devastated by oil exploration through pollution. We will be asking all of them to come talk to us about what they want and we can make recommendations to the government for compensation”, he noted.
Senate committee recalls horror of slave trade, insists on restitution
