BY Dotun Ibiwoye

Access to Justice, a civil society group, has said that the perpetrators of the genocide committed against the people of Odi in Bayelsa State in 1999 should be brought to justice, in spite of the recent court judgment.

It will be recalled that Justice Lambo Akanbi of a Federal High Court, Port Harcourt, Rivers State, had ordered the Federal Government to pay N37.6 billion as compensation to the people of Odi for the invasion of their community, 12 years ago on the orders of former President Olusegun Obasanjo.

Executive Director, Access to Justice,  Mr. Joseph Otteh, in a statement said that the court judgment was predicated on the need to curb the excesses of the executive and to send a clear message that the days of tyranny were gone forever.

He said: “Since 1999, the genocide against Odi community had been held up by those who perpetrated the abuses as a benchmark of how government should deal decisively with communal restiveness and agitation, and the fact that thousands of innocent people lost their loved ones, were maimed and lost everything they had, including their dignity and sense of self-worth mattered so little.”