The Chief of Army Staff (COAS), Lieutenant-General Tukur Yusuf Buratai, has arrested men of the Nigerian Army who killed some civilians and destroyed their property worth millions of naira at the North Bank area of Makurdi, Benue State and handed them over to the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) for prosecution.
Executive Secretary of the commission, Prof. Bem Angwe, disclosed this in Konshisha Local Government Area of the state during a programme to sensitise the people on their rights organised by a House of Representatives member representing Vandeikya/Konshisha federal constituency, Hon. Iorwase Hembe, in collaboration with the state government.
Angwe said all the soldiers, who in July this year, killed and destroyed people’s property, were arrested on the orders of the COAS and had been brought to the commission’s secretariat in Abuja for prosecution.
He vowed that all the affected officers would be punished according to the laws of the land and compensation paid to the victims.
He warned the people against the violation of human rights such as extra-judicial killings, domestic violence, child abuse, kidnapping, sexual harassment, child labour, unlawful detention and all forms of discrimination as well as denial of rights of education, health and water, constitutes abuses.
The NHRC boss said the commission was poised to collaborate with the National Assembly to educate Nigerians on human rights across the country.
While commending the House of Representatives member and the state government for organising the enlightenment campaign in the area, Angwe urged the people to report anyone that violate their rights to the commission without any cost.
The United Nations Declaration of Human Rights booklet, which has been translated into Tiv vernacular was distributed to the people.
Meanwhile, the Deputy Chairman of the Northern Elders Forum (NEF), Paul Unongo, has called on the Federal Government under President Muhammadu Buhari, to release the N8 billion judgement debt owed victims of the 2001 Zaki Biam military invasion in Benue State.
Former President of the defunct Benue Development Movement (BDM), the late Dr. Alexander Gaadi, had dragged the Federal Government to court, claiming the initial sum of N41.8 billion as compensation for victims of the invasion of Zaki Biam, Gbeji, Vaase and Katsina Ala towns during which thousands of people were massacred.
