Tension Over Civil War Center For Peace And Conflict Resolution Recognition

                                                        

Center for peace and conflict resolution, Amichi, Nnewi South Local Government Area of Anambra State have been abandoned, so said custodians of the center.  The center after being recognized as a national monument and visited by National Commission For Museum and Monument (NCMM) from December 2 to 6, 2013, have not had a federal government staff posted there as a step for full recognition.

The late Chief Benjamin Atuchukwu who house is hosting the center is crying out to the Federal Government for intervention with resources.

They are asking that the National Commission for Museum and Monument, NCMM, be mandated by the Federal Government to release some funds to ease the inconveniences the family is currently undergoing as a result of the visits of tourists, students and scholars at the center for peace and conflict resolution located inside their compound.
Theyb even want a post humous award to the late Chief Benjamin Atuchukwu from the Federal Government for allowing his home to be used to declare the war over.

In a press statement issued in Onitsha, Anambra State yesterday, jointly signed on their behalf, by Sir Joe Atuchukwu and Chief Nto Akuchukwu, sons of the patriarch, the custodians frowned at what they regarded as unwholesome act being perpetrated to their compound housing the center, several years after it was proclaimed the peace and conflict resolution house.

They recalled that the National Assembly had already passed a bill recognizing the center as a national monument and the NCMM visited the center from December 2 to 6, 2013, exhibited some rare artifacts at the center, such as the famous Ogbunigwe (Biafran bomb) and pictures of the devastating kwashiorkor and made various promises, yet the federal government has not released any fund or posted staff as part of moves to grant the center a full recognition.

They said it is most disgusting that NCMM may have deliberately turned down the efforts and promises of former President Olusegun Obasanjo who personally visited the center at Atuchukwu's compound on January 7, 2006, acknowledged, pronounced and declared the Obi Atuchukwu compound a national monument to be named National Center for Peace and Conflict Resolution, in reminiscence of negotiation of peace and the signing of the articles of surrender and end of the Nigerian Civil War which ended in 1970. 

They recalled that it was in Atuchukwu's building at Amichi, now renamed center for peace and conflict resolution that Col. Obasanjo for Nigeria and Lt. Col. Philip Effiong for Biafra negotiated the cease fire, suspension of hostilities and eventual declaration of the civil war ended on January 13, 1970.