Igbo Board of Deputies a pan-Igbo Organization plans to sue the federal government of Nigeria in a class actions lawsuit over disbursement of $22.7billion loan from a Chinese bank, China Exim Bank.
In a 6-page letter written to the Bank’s Johannesburg office, the Igbo non-governmental body claims that while all the 5 geo-political zones have been allocated funds for projects from the $22.7billion loan, none has been allocated to the South-East zone where the Igbo people belongs.
According to the lawyers of Igbo Board of Deputies, out of the $22.7billion loan South West was allocated $200,000,000.00, South South- $4,270,000,000.00, North West- $6,372,000,000.00, North East- $300,000,000.00 and North Central-$6,531,000,000 while $5,853,900,000.00 was allocated to general projects. The body alleges that the allocations of these loans are fundamentally and constitutionally flawed both in substance and in form.
Igbo Board of Deputies expressed grievances over the planned disbursement of the loan saying that since the Igbo people have been excluded as beneficiaries of this loan, they should not be expected to participate in the servicing and repayment of it.
The group went down memory lane citing historical marginalisation of the Igbo people by the government of Nigeria through adverse and deliberate policies of deprivation and impoverishment directed against the Igbos since the end of the Nigeria Biafra Civil War in 1970.
Quoting from the Nigerian constitution, Igbo Board of Deputies claims that the Federal Government of Nigeria is in violation of the Federal Character Principles.
Based on the alleged suppression of the Igbos and constitutional violation, Igbo Board of Deputies has decided to join forces with other interested parties from all over the world to bring Class Actions lawsuit against the Nigerian government.
According to the instructions given to their lawyers, Igbos Board of Deputies demands that China Exim Bank suspend or cancel the approval of the loan to the Nigerian government.
They threaten to join the Chinese bank as a Defendant party to the planned law suit against Nigeria government as well as pursue the case up to the International Court of Justice “ICJ”,if the bank refuses their demands.
