Falana demands compensation for Southern Kaduna victims

The state has a duty to compensate victims including the family members of those who have lost their lives in Southern Kaduna, Human Rights Activist and Lawyer, Chief Femi Falana (SAN) told Elombah Television in a video conference anchored in the United Kingdom (UK) .

“Whenever anybody loses his life on what they call ethno-religious crisis or whatever, the state has a duty, because it has failed to provide security, the state has a duty to compensate victims including the family members of those who have lost their lives”, Falana stated.

The human rights lawyer while contributing to the discussion on Elombah Television blamed the elites for inciting violence in the country.

“I appeal to the elite of our country to stop inciting our people to violence and that is why the talk of this nature is important, it must go beyond the elite.

“We must now move and begin to reconcile our people, we must have this type of discussion among our people and encourage them to live together as they have always been and we also must adopt scientific solutions to some of the problems confronting our people.

“It is primitive in this age and time for the people to be talking of grazing, we should be talking about ranching which is what has solved some of these problems in some other African countries like Botswana, Mozambique, Ethiopia and so on”, Falana stated in his submission on the Southern Kaduna crisis.

He added that the ruling class in the country are not bothered about ethnicity and religion, but about their interests.

The human rights lawyer said, “Members of ruling class do not talk about ethnicity or religion when they are allocating oil block or selling the assets of this country, either in the name of privatization or concession or whatever they call it, even when they are sharing money and they call it intervention fund, they never give the money to the poor or the marginalized people of our country.

“So when people are fighting each other it is for the benefit of the ruling class not for the masses whether in southern Kaduna or Northern Kaduna, people are the same, poverty is the same everywhere that is why am going to say the duty Nigerian state, section 14 of the constitution is to guarantee the security of everybody and the welfare of everybody, section 33 has prescribed that the right to life is fundamental, and so if anybody loses his life, it simply confirms that the state is incapable to guarantee the right of every person to live in our country.”

For Diaspora Digital Media Updates click on Whatsapp, or Telegram. For eyewitness accounts/ reports/ articles, write to: citizenreports@diasporadigitalmedia.com. Follow us on X (Fomerly Twitter) or Facebook