Why we will not go violent over entitlements of ex-Biafra soldiers – Colonel Ossa
The soldiers told DailyPost that they were still licking their wounds, as they are left in the cold without their benefits released to them, stressing that in spite of the “No Victor, No Vanquished” policy of the Federal Government after the war, they were neither integrated into the Nigerian Army nor paid their pensions.
Worried by this development, some of the ex-soldiers led by one Victor Onah, met in Enugu recently, where they resolved to embark on a street protest in Abuja if the Federal Government refused to release their entitlements.
“We are dying every day of hunger, poverty, disease, frustration and abandonment and we have resolved and refused to accept the government’s further abuse of our human rights, abandonment and non-payment of our entitlements”, the group had stated.
However, speaking to DailyPost in Enugu on Tuesday, the National Coordinator of the War Veterans Social Welfare Association, WVSWA, Colonel Emmanuel Osita Ossai, said the association would continue to maintain its non-violent stand on the matter.
He maintained that although they were aggrieved by the neglect of the ex-soldiers by the Federal Government, his leadership was not in support of the planned protest in Abuja over the non-payment of the entitlements.