Tell Biafra agitators to stay, there’s enough cake to share –Obasanjo

Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has said that it will be more appropriate to appeal to agitators of Biafra to drop their call for a separate state because there is enough “cake to share” in Nigeria.

He said the agitators should not be told to leave but made to understand the reason it will be better Nigeria continues to exist as one country.

Obasanjo stated this when he spoke in Abuja on Thursday at a forum “Biafra, 50 years after”, an event that took place at the Shehu Musa Yar’Adua Centre.

Obasanjo blamed the major problem of Nigeria on the lack of a national leader and said, “We never had a national leader. Our leaders at the beginning were mindful of their regions. That is our problem till today.”

Making reference to the coup of 1966, the former president said, “I have maintained that the young officers who struck in 1966 were naive but there were some element of nationalism in some of them. Be that as it may, it set us back.”

On the subsequent war that ensued afterward, Obasanjo said that the war showed the bad side of the country, adding, that “The language used in the war did not help matters, the people on the Biafra side called us vandals and we called them rebels.

“We thought we would end the war in three months, but it took us 30 months, and the federal side nearly lost it. ‎Civil war is more difficult than fighting in a foreign land because we are fighting to unite. ‎

”‎Even a soldier of mine who tried to rape a woman… I had to chase him with a gun. He did not succeed in raping the woman, and I did not have to gun him down.”

Read also: Why Niger Delta militants, Boko Haram became monsters –Obasanjo

On the present agitation for Biafra he said, “Some of the people agitating for Biafra today were not even born then. They don’t know what it entails.

“But I think, we should even appeal to those saying they want to go, we should not tell them to go, we should make them understand that there is enough cake to share. We should massage Nigeria just like in a love relationship.”

Obasanjo’s comment on agitation for Biafra is coming as he also on Wednesday blamed the monsters Boko Haram and Niger Delta militants metamorphosed into on government’s neglect to address the issues that brought them up as early as possible.

 

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