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Nigeria’s National Human Rights Commission has asked the government to rebuild the southeastern town of Odi which the army destroyed almost two years ago in an effort to arrest policemen’s killers, a member of the body told IRIN on Wednesday.
The commission’s governing council decided at a meeting in Yenagoa, in the southern state of Bayelsa, to prod government into rebuilding homes for the hundreds of residents made homeless by the attack. “Council called on the federal government to live up to its promise,” Lambert Opara, chief of the commission’s Media Unit, said. The government had promised to build homes for 500 people, but has done nothing, he added.
President Olusegun Obasanjo had ordered the army into Odi in November 1999 to arrest gang members who had killed 12 policemen. He visited the town in March but failed to publicly commit himself to rehabilitating it.
The commission, a quasi-governmental body, has also called on the government to provide schools, clinics and cash for the affected people.
This article was produced by IRIN News while it was part of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Please send queries on copyright or liability to the UN. For more information: https://shop.un.org/rights-permissions
