Odi: Justice At Last

Fourteen years after the military invasion of Odi, a Bayelsa State community, its belea-guered people got justice at last as Justice Lambo Akanbi of Federal High Court, sitting in Port Harcourt awarded N37,618 billion damages against the Federal Government for the killings on the N100 billion suit filed by the community against the Federal Government.

Justice Akanbi who awarded N17.618 billion as general damages and N206 billion as special damages as pleaded by the plaintiffs in the judgement delivered penultimate Wednesday also ordered that the money be paid by the Federal Government within three weeks.

We recall that Odi, a community in Kolokuma/Opokuma Local Government Area of Bayelsa State, was invaded by soldiers on November 20, 1999, on the orders of then President Olusegun Obasanjo over the alleged killing of security personnel on duty in the town by armed gangs on November 4 and 5, 1999.

The military invasion, during which every building in the village-except the bank, the Anglican church and the health centre – was razed, followed the refusal of the community to identify and handover those responsible for the killing of the security men.

Thoroughly exasperated by the overwhelming evidence against the Federal Government, Justice Akanbi, in the salutary and symbolic judgement, described as ‘worthless’ the government claims and counter affidavits, saying that “the destruction of Odi was comprehensive and complete (as) no aspect of the community was spared by what (he) saw in picture showed here.”

Akanbi continued: “the rspondents violated the fundamental rights of the people of Odi, by the massacre. The people are entitled to fundamental rights to life, dignity and fairplay. The destruction of Odi was not as a result of gun battle but clear bombardment, the destruction was malicious.”

Awarding the cost against the Federal Government, the judge noted that no amount could be adequate to solve the pains and trauma of the people in the community. The Tide cannot agree less.

For sometime, the Nigerian government, even under civil rule had ordered the invasion of some communities where citizens were killed, whole communities sacked and so many unprintable things done. Yet, like the case of Umuechem and the others, the people did not know what hit them and got no justice.

The Tide is not unaware of the fact that some persons in those communities took laws into their hands and even provoked the military, a thing that should never happen.

Nevertheless, while we strongly condemn any act of lawlessness in any community, especially, the temerity to attack or kill security personnel sent there to maintain peace as in the case of Odi, it is rather unfortunate that a civilian government could conclude that everybody including women, children, houses and even animals were culpable and should be destroyed. That government could seek to punish a terrorist act by terrorising an entire community, killing over 100 people, is to say the least reprehensible and can hardly be justified. That the Nigerian military could shoot and kill harmless villagers cannot be supported.

The Tide recalls that under President Obasanjo, the people of Zaki-Biam suffered similar destruction, following the alleged killing of soldiers on a peace mission to warring communities.

In sane climes, government, rather than employ excessive force to quell these obvious cases of civil disobedience, would openly take bold steps to hold the dramatis personae accountable through an official enquiry to ascertain the facts as to who instructed the troops to act the way they did, or whether they are entitled to kill and destroy as it pleased them. But this is not so in the Odi case as in others.

The most unfortunate, and indeed, regrettable aspect of the whole scenario is that the civilian population has paid dearly for the misconducts of probably the lunatic and trigger-happy fringe of our security agencies as in the Odi case where “only innocent people, including women, children and the very weak that could not escape were killed” as stated by Justice Akanbi who quoted President Goodluck Jonathan, to underscore the award of damages.

Since the loss of innocent lives and the destruction of properties of Odi people are irreplaceable, the option left for the court is fair restitution which Justice Akanbi has courageously done by the award of damages. Although, no amount would be enough to pay for the lives of the people as the judge rightly observed, The Tide believes that the judgement, commendable, significant and instructive as it were, would serve to keep the nation’s security personnel in check in the face of provocation and make them to investigate cases of civil unrest more deeply to avoid shedding innocent blood.