The Yoruba socio-cultural group, Afenifere, has called on the Federal Government to compensate both military and civilian casualties of Boko Haram insurgency.
In a statement in Lagos signed by its spokesman, Yinka Odumakin, Afenifere also urged the Presidential Committee on Dialogue and Peaceful Resolution of Security Challenges in the North to compile the data of victims of the insurgency and make recommendations.
“It would not be out of place to support the education of children of those who have lost their lives as well as granting vocational support to widows whose breadwinners are no more. We advocate a reasonable compensation which the country should be able to afford,” it said.
The group was reacting to a recent statement reportedly attributed to the chairman of the committee, Taminu Turaki that only security agents who died fighting the insurgents would be compensated.
But Afenifere said it would be insensitive to leave the victims to their fate warning, “Such an approach is likely to breed another generation of vengeance-seeking people who have been victims of terror. We hold strongly that the position of Turaki is quite untenable and insensitive to those who have been at the receiving end of Boko Haram attacks.”
Continuing, Afenifere asked, “How can we be dangling amnesty to those who have taken innocent lives and be telling their victims that we lack the capacity to compensate them.”
