103 Gombe post-election violence victims protest omission from compensation

One hundred and three victims of the 2011 postelection violence are contending with the committee constituted by the Gombe State Government over the N746 million fund provided by the federal government to compensate people who lost their properties during the incident.

The affected people who are yet to be paid accused the compensation committee of deliberately omitting them. The committee said they were omitted because they are not authentic victims of the violence.

There is also speculation in some quarters that the 103 people yet to be paid were members of the opposition party, the All Progressives Congress (APC), an allegation which contrary voices even among the victims regard as untrue.

The Secretary of the Gombe State PostElection Violence Victims Committee, Alhaji Abubakar D. Buba, told our correspondent that the 103 victims who were omitted cut across different political parties.

Alhaji Buba narrated to Daily Trust how the fund was released to the state government and subsequently disbursed, saying, “A list containing 509 names of the victims who either lost relative, or had their houses, shops or vehicles vandalized, was compiled by the State Emergency Management Agency (SEMA) and submitted to the Federal Ministry of Finance in Abuja. The ministry sorted the names and the Office of the Accountant-General of the Federation released N746 million to the Gombe State Government for onward payment to the victims. The state governor, Ibrahim Hassan Dankwambo constituted a committee under the chairmanship of the state Commissioner of Land and Survey, Alhaji Abubakar Shehu Durbi, to disburse the money to the affected people.

“The Shehu Durbi committee disbursed the money to some in February and May 2015, but as I am talking to you now, 103 people are yet to be paid. My committee wrote a petition to the Ministry of Finance on behalf of the 103 people that were not paid. The ministry verified our claims and directed the Shehu Durbi committee to pay us in December 2015. But when we appeared before him, he demanded that we must show him the properties that were destroyed before he could release the money to us. We rejected the demand and insisted that he should pay us as directed by the Federal Ministry of Finance. Presently, there is the sum of N138 million in the state government account and is yet to be disbursed.”

Daily Trust’s investigations revealed that the Federal Ministry of Finance pegged the number of the victims from 509 to 191 in a letter to the Shehu Durbi’s committee. In the letter, the federal government directed the committee to pay only those whose houses and places of worship were affected, excluding people who lost shops, vehicles, got maimed or had their relatives killed, a development that reduced the number from 509 to only 191, out of which 184 people were paid.

Chairperson of the Women’s Wing, Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), Mrs. Ruth Ramadan Madugu, who is also one of the victims of the violence, said after the verification and the screening, “only few of us were paid and since December 2015, it has been one story or another whenever we ask for the payment.”

On his part, Mr. Ikechukwu Enweaso, a resident of Sabon Layi quarters of Gombe metropolis, said he lost his two shops to the violence, but that the committee said they would only pay people that lost their houses.

Malam Umar Musa, said his house was burnt at Pamtami quarters of the metropolis, but he was excluded from payment by the committee. “The committee has evaluated my house more than two times, yet for over a year now I have not been called to collect the money and no reason has been given to me,” Musa said.

The committee chairman, Shehu Durbi, has debunked the allegations, including the one that the 103 people not being paid are members of the APC.

On the allegation of adding people who were not in the list, Shehu Durbi said, “Under the terms of reference, we were mandated to treat omitted cases. We formed a committee comprising the deputy chairmen of the affected LGAs with one traditional ruler each. We sat down with them and screened those names and we found that some of them were not genuine and we paid all those with genuine cases.”

He said the remaining money was safe in the account of the state government, adding that the committee report was ready and would be submitted to the state government within the next two weeks.