Nigeria: Buhari gets lashes for threatening South-East with civil war

 

Buhari gets lashes for threatening South-East with civil war

Nigeria’s President, Muhammadu Buhari responded to insecurity building up in the South-Eastern part of Nigeria with a warning, stoking civil war sentiments. The Nigerian government took war to the South-East between 1967 and 1970 when more than 3 million Igbo people were killed for asking for a republic of Biafra.

Analysts viewed Buhari’s latest comment as a threat to the Igbo people of another civil war.  The three-year war was declared no victor no vanquished by the then military head of Nigerian government, Gen. Yakubu Gowon.

 

A social media user, Gimba Kakanda wrote: “For a President who, just a few weeks ago, “appealed” to a cult of murderous kidnappers to free the students they abducted in Kaduna, Buhari’s words on the insurrection in the Southeast were poorly chosen. There’s a reason the then Head of State, Yakubu Gowon, wanted us to remember the civil war as one with neither victors nor vanquished”

“Buhari isn’t being carpeted for threatening to neutralize the escalating threat in the South, the problem is his resort to waking the ghosts of Biafra to make that point. Biafra was a largely acknowledged regrettable episode. The fact that even Buhari’s principals then agreed to call it a war with no winner just to calm frayed nerves, is enough to not cite it as proof of some victory or reduce it to the actions of these caricatures who fool themselves around Nnamdi Kanu. They are two entirely different events, despite originating from the same place, and should be remembered, interpreted and handled differently.

“No President should pause to recite this long poem before going after bands of criminals disrupting the joy of his country. Imagine telling criminals who’ve destroyed lives and livelihoods that “We’ve given them enough time.” Like, we could’ve intervened earlier but decided to do nothing and watch the number of lives and properties they were capable of destroying? This is one unnecessary performance”, he said.