By Austin Ogwuda
Former Delta State Commissioner for Information, Mr. Chike Ogeah said that until proper explanation is offered it remained suspicious why Asaba masacre occurred in the first place.
Ogeah, a prominent Asaba indigene stated this while speaking to our reporter at Asagba’s palace during the annual memorial anniversary of October 1967 massacre.
He maintained that although the Asaba people were in the process of healing “the truth is that no other town not even in Biafra land which was the subject of the pogrom suffered this kind of masacre.
“Even in Nsukka, Enugu, Orlu, Uga, Owerri the hot beat of the war were never killed in the manner the people of Asaba especially young were massacred”.
He added it will remain a suspect because the over 1000 men mauled down came out in peace to welcome the federal troops in peace.
“Nigerians”, he went on, “should ask themselves why was it so?
Chairman of Asaba Masacre Memorial Anniversary Committee, ChiefΒ Chuck Nduka Eze , who is also the Isama Ajie of AsabaΒ also lamented that “it remains the only massacre in the world of this magnitude to be treated with silence and impunity.
“Asaba people have continued to cry out for an explanation for what happened to their people and continued fittingly to remember them and to remind the country about the value of upholding the principle that all Nigerian lives matter.
“And so we do this to preserve their voices, the voices of the many sentenced to their untimely death and forgotten by our indifference and silence.
“This new cenotaph is a belated attempt to salvage meaning out of a meaningless tragedy.
“We must teach our country that there may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice but there must never be a time when we fail to protest”, he added.
The two day event featured symposium aimed at fostering and sustaining a conversation of truth telling towards reconciliation, healing and nation building.
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