BY JACOB BRIGHT
Modeled after the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa at the end of apartheid in 1996 and The Human Rights Violation Investigation Commission of Nigeria (Oputa Panel) by the administration of former President Olusegun Obasanjo in 1999, to investigate human rights abuses during the period of military rule from 1984 to 1999, the newly elected Governor of Anambra State, Chukwuma Charles Soludo, last week, established, a Truth, Justice and Peace Committee in Anambra State. It is to restore peace and promote healing in the violence-ridden state.
Anambra had been at the centre of violence purportedly carried out by members of the proscribed Indigenous People of Biafra, together with their armed wing, the Eastern Security Network.
Though IPOB often distanced itself from the series of atrocities and violence that engulfed the state and threatened economic, social and cultural activities, the wanton destruction of lives and property had gone on unabated.
Government facilities like the INEC building in Awka, various Police formations and the Department of State Services Headquarters were not spared the orgy of violence as they were attacked and burnt down.
News also abounds about “unknown gunmen” who cut promising lives short and turned the state into a theatre of war. The governor himself almost fell a victim, as he was attacked at a town hall meeting held during one of his campaign tours. In that incident, he lost three police orderlies.
Last week, many were feared killed when gunmen attacked his Local Council Secretariat in Aguata.
Another prominent individual, Chike Akunyili, widower of the late former Director-General of NAFDAC and Minister of Information, Dora Akunyili, was gruesomely murdered in the state along with his driver and police orderly. Apart from all the high profile cases recorded, many ordinary sons and daughters of Anambra State also fell victim and left behind families seeking justice and healing.
“You see, the attractive aspect of this Truth Commission is that anyone who comes out and says what he has done would no longer be prosecuted for it, provided he is ready to reconcile and he regrets his actions. When he asks for forgiveness, the victims will accept
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Reacting to the establishment of the Truth Commission, a former Chairman of the Presidential Advisory Committee Against Corruption, Itse Sagay, told The Point that contrary to the widely held belief, the committee was not saddled with the responsibility of addressing all the problems in Anambra State.
According to him, the governor was also on track with the establishment of the Commission, whose aim is to primarily address incidents of violence in the state.
“My view is that this is not directed at confronting all the issues disturbing Anambra State. I think it is directed at one single issue, and from what I can gather, that is the issue of IPOB and violence, destabilisation (in the state) and all the stay-at-home issues. I think that’s what he (Soludo) is trying to resolve.
“I don’t think it’s a general attempt to resolve all the problems in the state. For instance, the committee won’t be resolving economic and employment problems in the state,” he said.
Continuing, Sagay, who exclusively told The Point that there would be a public presentation of his autobiography on May 12, 2022, at the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs, noted that Governor Soludo wanted a way to bring IPOB, ESN, and all other people linked with the violence in the state, to reconcile with the majority of people like the Ohanaeze Ndigbo.
He explained that bringing them together would address the violence and every antagonism so that they could all work together towards “obtaining common Igbo objectives.”
The committee includes renowned scholar and former Nigeria’s Human Rights chief, Chidi Odinkalu, as its chairman, Bianca Ojukwu, wife of the late Biafra leader, Odumegwu Ojukwu, serving as its Secretary, and entertainment gurus in Charles Oputa (Charley Boy) and Onyeka Onwenu, as well as a priest, Jerome Madueke. Others include Joe Nwaorgu, Udenta Udenta, Uju Agomoh, Okechukwu C. Obi-Okoye, John Otu, Ngozi Odumuko, Joe Abah, Chukwuma Okpaka Ezeukwu, Sam Egwuatu and Joseph Ikechebelu.
Describing its composition, Sagay said members of the committee were credible and “a clever mixture”.
Giving further insight, he noted that there were those who could be described as “serious-minded” and those who were loved because of their craft.
His words, “I think it’s a clever mixture. You have a person like Odinkalu who is a serious-minded person. You also have quite a number of other professors who are serious in terms of being well-respected and distinguished men of integrity.”
Speaking further, he said, “Then, there are those who are loved by the masses because of what they do, people like Onyeka Onwenu, who is loved by everyone in the country, I would say. She is very much loved by the masses in Anambra, including IPOB. She is such a wonderful and polished singer who has a broad mind and positive philosophy.
“Then, Charley Boy, again you may laugh at that, but Charley Boy has a lot of followers, and I have watched him on television. He has a serious side, too. So, it’s a clever mixture, and I hope it works,” he explained.
The Senior Advocate of Nigeria also added that people who didn’t believe in the intellectual heavyweights in the committee would be happy because there would be some light-heartedness from the people who could create fun and entertainment.
Sagay believed everyone would like somebody there in the committee, which according to him was the whole idea of the selection of its members.
In comparison with other Commissions, Sagay said “they are all the same”.
He was of the view that their aim was always to forgive perpetrators of their sins, and promote forgiveness and reconciliation, thereby making healing possible.
“You see, the attractive aspect of this Truth Commission is that anyone who comes out and says what he has done would no longer be prosecuted for it, provided he is ready to reconcile and he regrets his actions. When he asks for forgiveness, the victims will accept what has happened with regards to themselves or their relatives who might have been killed, and forgive those people, and come together with the absolute condition that things like that would never happen again,” he stated.
He hoped the successes of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa would be replicated in Anambra, and decried the absence of peace and stability in the state badly shaken by IPOB, ESN and unknown gunmen, and agreed it had prevented the state from reaching its potential.
“Igbos are businessmen of excellence all over the world, and if you stop them from going to the market, from doing business, not only would you drastically reduce the income of the average Igbo man, you would also cut down on the economy of that part of the country,” he said.
The legal luminary also encouraged all the “critical elements” in the state to participate in the hearings willingly. Anything short of this, according to him, would spell failure for the committee.
“The refusal to participate by critical elements in the state would bring failure. Their refusal to participate would mean that the Truth Commission cannot even take off. Everybody must be ready to come out of the shadows and participate willingly,” he concluded.
A senior lecturer in the Faculty of Engineering, Petroleum Engineering Department, University of Benin, Oduwa Onaiwu, also lent his voice to the conversation.
He said Soludo was on the right track with the setting up of the Truth Commission.
However, in his opinion, it was hastily done by the governor.
“The governor was a little bit too hasty in setting up the panel. Why don’t you do some town hall meetings first with the people at the grassroots, people at the centre of the agitations, to actually understand what the problems are?
“When you have an idea of what the problem is, then you can now set up a committee to find a solution to it. But now, you are setting up one (committee), and that means you’re going to start working from the scratch. Jonathan, while addressing the Niger Delta issue didn’t start with any committee. He started by making enquiries about what the agitations were before he set up the Amnesty Committee,” he said.
Regarding the fracas which took place during Soludo’s swearing-in when a member of the Truth Commission, Bianca Ojukwu, slapped former Governor Obiano’s wife, Ebelechukwu Obiano, and the subsequent call in some quarters for Bianca’s name to be removed from the list of members, Onaiwu said no politician in Nigeria was morally right in any way, and Bianca Ojukwu was needed in the committee because of her “political sagacity”.
According to the University don, “You have to get a balance between technocrats and politicians. Technocrats are those who bring experience and technical know-how to a subject matter. Politicians are those who will use their political sagacity to navigate their way through all the social aspects of their work. The way a technocrat would relate to the people is not the way a politician would relate with the people.”
He concluded that Bianca was the perfect fit to tell the people what they wanted to hear from the government and that was why the committee was a combination of “the good, the bad and the ugly”.
