The family of the youth corps member, Grace Ushang Adie, who was raped to death two weeks ago, has rejected the N2 million compensation paid by the Borno State government.
The family also said they were not in a hurry to collect the National Youth Service Corps statutory death gratuity of N500,000. They said the important thing to them is not money, but justice for their dead daughter.
NEXT learnt that shortly after the state burial of Miss Adie on October 5, the Borno State government had offered the money as a compensation, but the family refused the sum. The event also saw the entire Kakum Community, in Obudu Local Government Area of Cross River State, where the deceased came from, demanding for justice.
Chairman of the council, Justine Ikor Ugbe, who was at the state burial, said as a result of the position taken by the family, the cheque has been deposited in a bank until justice is done.
"The family is insisting that no amount of money can compensate for human life, hence they have impressed it on the state government to fish out and bring to book all the hoodlums that participated in the beating, raping, and stabbing to death of their daughter, to serve as a deterrence to others," he said.
Miss Adie was abducted on September 26, 2009 in Maiduguri by a gang of men who raped and later killed her. She had reportedly left her residence to go and look for food when she ran into the gang.
Although the federal and state governments have promised to investigate the killing, there is yet no known leads about the killers.
Strange history
Miss Adie's death was particularly galling to the people of Obudu because this was the third time such a thing is happening to them.
Mr. Ugbe, the council chairman, said she was the third indigene of Obudu to have been killed during the National Youth Service. Bizarrely, all the deaths occurred in Maiduguri.
"In 1973, a youth corps member was mobbed in the town for knocking down a pedestrian while riding a bicycle," Mr. Ugbe said. "About 15 years ago, a daughter of the famous Iklaki family in Obudu was dragged out of her room in Maiduguri and killed during a religious uprising. The death of Ushang Adie was, therefore, one death too many."
There would have been a total break-down of law and order in the town following the news of this latest death, were it not for the quick intervention of government officials who drafted policemen from Calabar to the community. The combined security team helped to cordon-off the quarters inhabited by northerners in Obudu.
Amend NYSC law
Prominent Muslim figures in the local government have also been pleading with the youths not to take up arms and to wait for justice to be done.
Some indigenes of the area called for an amendment of the law establishing the NYSC scheme to enable youth corps members to serve in only their geopolitical zones.
"It has become necessary to amend the law because recurring incidents of murder of those on national assignment have defeated the noble objectives of the scheme, as the envisaged unity and cross-cultural pollination were no more there," a member of the Adie family who did not reveal his name, said.
Late Ushang Adie, the fifth child in her family, was born on October 27, 1984 in Obudu. She lost her father about 15 years ago, leaving her education and that of other siblings to her mother, a cleaner with the Federal College of Education, Obudu. She graduated from the Faculty of Education, University of Calabar, last year. In school, she was fondly called Ashanti by her friends and classmates.
Her burial early this month drew a large crowd of sympathisers to Kakum, including a large contingent of youth corps members serving in Obudu.
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