President
Muhammadu Buhari has spoken to serving Igbo members of the National
Youth Service Corps about the struggle for Biafra.
President Muhammadu Buhari
President Buhari has recently urged the Igbo members of the
National Youth Service Corps members to tell their colleagues that there
is no hope of having a sovereign ‘Biafran State’.
According to The Punch, Buhari made this statement when over 100
corps members serving in Katsina State came to visit him at his Daura
residence on Tuesday.
A statement by his Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity,
Mr. Garba Shehu, said the President urged the corps members to do
everything to ensure the unity of Nigeria.
Speaking specifically to corps members from the south-eastern states, the President said, “Tell your colleagues who want Biafra to forget about it.”
The President said as a young soldier during the Civil War between
1967 and 1970, he fought hard to ensure the unity of the nation.
He, therefore, maintained that Nigeria would never disintegrate under his watch.
Buhari added, “As a military commander, I walked from Degem, a
border town between the North and the East, to the border between
Cameroun and Nigeria. I walked on my foot for most of the 30 months that
we fought the Nigeria-Biafra Civil War, in which at least two million
Nigerians were killed.
“We were made by our leaders to go and fight Biafra not because
of money or oil, because oil was not a critical factor then, but
because of one Nigeria.
“Thus, if leaderships at various levels failed, it was not the
fault of the rest of Nigerians who had no quarrel with one another. So,
please tell your colleagues that we must be together to build this
country. It is big enough for us and potentially big enough in terms of
resources.
“Those who work hard will earn a respectable living. I have
seen this country, I fought for this country and I will continue to work
for the unity of this country.”
Buhari hailed a former military Head of State, Gen. Yakubu Gowon, for inaugurating the NYSC scheme in 1973.
He said the scheme had helped to foster national integration by
exposing young people to the uniqueness and cultural diversity of
Nigeria.
The President said, “I asked for those from the other end of
Nigeria because I very much appreciate the NYSC scheme and whenever I
see General Gowon, I always thank him for that.’’
In his remarks, Mr. Egbewumi Adebolu, the Corps Liaison Officer in
Daura, thanked the President for the honour of receiving them and making
their stay in Daura memorable.
He said the youths strongly believed in the programme of the
President to reduce unemployment and create jobs for more Nigerians.
Adebolu thanked the President for his personal gifts of cows, bags
of rice and cash to corps members in the community for Sallah
celebration.
However, reacting to the directive of the President to the corps
members, the Movement for the Actualisation of the Sovereign State of
Biafra said Nigeria had never been a nation.
According to The Punch, a MASSOB spokesman, Comrade Samuel Edeson,
who spoke in an interview, insisted that all Igbo, including those NYSC
members that met Buhari, were Biafrans.
“Every Igbo man is a Biafran. Biafra has come to stay and Buhari should know that 95 per cent of Igbo want Biafra.
“We are not going to take up arms against the Nigerian
government but we will make the country ungovernable until we actualise
Biafra.
“There is no way we will forget Biafra and there is nothing the government will do that will make us to give up the struggle.
“Even if they continue to oppress and intimidate our members, we will continue to push ahead with the struggle,” he said.
The MASSOB spokesman advised Buhari to call a meeting of all ethnic nationalities where Nigeria’s future would be discussed.
He said, “Rather than telling the NYSC members to tell their
people to forget Biafra, he should call the Biafra agitators and other
ethnic nationalities to a roundtable meeting to discuss how Nigerians
would continue to live together.”
Also reacting to the development, the Ohanaeze Ndigbo said Buhari
should restructure the country, if he really wanted the pro-Biafra
agitation to go away.
The President of the Ohanaeze Youth Council, Mazi Okechukwu
Isiguzoro, also said Buhari should set free all detained Biafra
agitators, particularly Ben Onwuka, the leader of the Biafra Zionist
Movement.
He said, “Buhari should ask himself why the Biafra agitation
resurrected during his tenure. He should also explain what he meant by
95 per cent and five per cent.
“The people of the South-East are angry and there is hunger in
the land. There is a total collapse of infrastructure in the zone;
federal roads are no longer passable.
“The South-East zone has the highest number of unemployed
youths in the country. Those NYSC members that went to see him will be
unemployed tomorrow.
“The only solution to the agitation for Biafra is
restructuring. Ohanaeze Ndigbo is not calling for secession but we are
calling for restructuring. The North-West has seven states but the
South-East has only five; it is not acceptable.
“If Buhari fails to restructure the country, we are afraid that
those calling for secession may succeed so if he really wants Igbos to
forget Biafra, he should restructure the country.”
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