FG yet to compensate Asaba people, 50 years after Civil War

Asagba of Asaba, Prof. John Chike Edozien yesterday said former Head of State, Yakubu Gowon has tendered unreserved apology for the massacre of Asaba people in the 1967 civil war, with a promise to offer a Federal University to cushion their pains, but the gesture is still hanging in the air, 50 years after.

Edozien, who spoke to Journalists at his Palace in Asaba, Delta State, immediately after the conferment of posthumous of Ikemba Ahaba on late Prof. Emma Okocha, a journalist and author, who died two days before the conferment, expressed concern that the Federal government had since abandoned “us for no just cause”.

“After Emma Okocha’s book, ‘The blood of the Niger’, Gowon came to Asaba and apologized to us over what happened in 1966. I told him the apology is not enough, and asked him to do it publicly. He promised to give us a university, but till date, we are still waiting for it”, he revealed.

Okocha was billed to be traditionally decorated as the Ikemba, having perfected all arrangements including traditional chalking, before his death last month.