BIAFRA: Obasanjo says Python Dance not solution to quell agitation

Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has said that the Federal Government’s use of the Army in a bid to quench the agitation for Biafra in the South East would not solve the problem.

The Nigerian Army is currently in five states of the South East conducting an exercise codenamed “Operation Python Dance.” The exercise has witnessed serious tension in Abia State, home of Nnamdi Kanu the IPOB leader. Several persons have been allegedly killed by the army following clashes between it and the pro-Biafra group.

But Obasanjo, who spoke on the matter in London with Newsweek, disagreed with President Muhammadu Buhari’s use of Nigerian Army’s “heavy boot” to address the agitation for Biafra.

According to him, there is need for Nigeria’s President to meet with Nnamdi Kanu to avoid clashes between the army and separatists escalating into a full-blown conflict.

“I don’t see anything wrong in that (Buhari meeting with Kanu). I would not object to that; if anything, I would encourage it,” he said when confronted with the question on possibility of Buhari meeting with the IPOB leader.

Read also: South East governors proscribe IPOB activities

Speaking further on the issue he added, “I would want to meet Kanu myself and talk to people like him, people of his age, and ask ‘What are your worries?’ Not only from the southeast but from all parts of Nigeria.”

While he argued that the Nigerian Army’s “heavy boot” answer to pro-Biafra sentiment is “not the solution,” he however said that the secession craved by IPOB is not the way forward either.

“We need to satisfy the youth in job creation, in wealth creation, in giving them a better, fulfilled life, in giving them hope for the future. There’s no easy way out. Those who fought in the war in Biafra will not want to fight any other war. I have fought one war too many in Nigeria; I don’t want to see another,” he said.

 

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