Connect with us

Hi, what are you looking for?

News

Biafra: We Did Not Plan to Wipe Out Igbos – Obasanjo

Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has said that it was not the intention of the Federal Government of Nigeria to wipe out Igbos during the civil war.

Obasanjo was speaking at an event tagged, ‘Memory and Nation Building: Biafra 50 Years Later’, which held in Abuja on Thursday.

The event was held to mark 50 years of the declaration of an independent state of Biafra by the late Dim Chukwuemeka Ojukwu on May 30, 1967.

Obasanjo was the Commander, Third Marine Commando Division during the war.

He was the military officer who accepted the surrender of Biafran forces led by Philip Effiong on January 12, 1970, after three years of war.

He said everything that the federal troops did was in a bid to unite the country.

Obasanjo added, “We had in our pocket the Geneva convention to guide us. In addition to that, we had a special code of conduct. Third, we had foreign observers. We had people who were like umpires.

“If it was a war to exterminate and we had no reconciliation in mind, what would foreign observers be doing? The foreign observers reported periodically and even had powers to investigate any allegation and they did.

“As one of the commanders in the field, I have said it before and I say it again. Civil war is more difficult than fighting in a foreign land.

“In a foreign land, you fight to exterminate and destroy but in civil war, you fight to unite and when you’re fighting to unite, how much do you have to do to prevent destruction and alienation.”

 

__________

Follow us on Twitter at @thesignalng                                                          

Copyright 2017 SIGNAL. Permission to use portions of this article is granted provided appropriate credits are given to www.signalng.com and other relevant sources.

Click to comment

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Advertisement

Related

News

Former President, Olusegun Obasanjo, on Wednesday, said mismanagement by the previous administrations had forced Nigeria into a debt burden the coming generations would have...

Big Story

Former President Olusegun Obasanjo, on Monday, in Abeokuta, Ogun State, said democracy has not been working as a system of government in Africa because...

News

Olusegun Obasanjo, Nigeria former president, declared on Friday that a democratic system that encourages a lack of safety and tranquility must be abandoned. At...

News

On Monday, former president Olusegun Obasanjo bemoaned the fact that the majority of those responsible for putting the Nigerian Constitution into practice are actually...

Copyright ©