‘Life has no duplicate’ Reps demand N390m in compensation for extrajudicial killings by custom

The House of Representatives on Tuesday called on the Nigeria Customs Service to pay N390,000,000 as compensation to victims of extrajudicial killings and injuries caused by its officers across the country.

This is sequel to the recommendations in the reports by the House Committee on Customs and Excise after investigating two incidents in Oyo State and one incident in Katsina State.

Chairman of the Committee on Customs and Excise, Leke Abejide, had last week presented the reports, which the House considered and adopted in plenary on Tuesday.

This is after the committee probed the unrest in Iseyin Local Government Area of Oyo State due to the killing of indigenes by men of the Nigeria Customs Service.

In upholding the committee’s recommendation, the House agreed that “life has no duplicate and cannot be replaced once lost, as such, the families of the deceased should be compensated in monetary terms, each soul lost at the Iseyin incidence be compensated by the Nigeria Customs Service with the sum of N20, 000,000 each. The number of souls lost being four; the value of total compensation for the four deceased is N80, 000,000 only.”

“For the person who sustained a gunshot injury in the Iseyin incident, the sum of N2,000,000 only be paid as compensation for the treatment of the injuries sustained,” the recommendation further read.

“The grand total for compensation for both the deceased and the injured is the sum of N82,000,000 only.”

Rtn. Victor Ojelabi

Ojelabi, the publisher of Freelanews, is an award winning and professionally trained mass communicator, who writes ruthlessly about pop culture, religion, politics and entertainment.