Biafran agitation borne out of ignorance, frustration - Obasanjo

The renewed agitation for Biafra yesterday came under attack from former President Olusegun Obasanjo who dismissed it as a product of error,ignorance and frustration.

Obasanjo who said he ‘very cautious’ in  getting involved in any debate or conversation with “the Movement for the Actualisation of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB), its many hydra-headed iterations and its resurgent Biafra agitation” said : “at best, the agitation was at regional level and that no inadvertent helping hand should be lent to it, to make it national.”

He spoke at a Development Discourse  organised by Nextier Limited on the Biafra issue Abuja.

Reading from his  prepared speech and speaking extempore at times,the former President said it is also wrong to say that the South East  is marginalised in the scheme of things.

He hailed  South-East leaders who,at a stakeholders’ meeting on December 17, 2015 dismissed the Biafra agenda and called for improvement in their region’s socio-economic situation.

He advised them  to ensure sanity among their youth.

“No right-thinking person who has experienced the horror of war will ever agitate for more war… If the elders abdicate their responsibility to the immaturity, inadequate experience, unrealistic idealism and the frustration of the young, it will no doubt lead to disaster.

“Biafra as a secession issue is dead and nobody should follow that way. It can again, only lead to disaster.

“The devil finds work for idle hands and fills empty minds; there is even some suspicion that the agitators embarked on the act in order   to extort   money from outsiders and to also extract financial support from the government.

“The commercialization and exploitation of Biafra agitation is obscene to the point of criminal fraudulence; or, how do you explain the issuance of Biafran passport that takes no one anywhere and for which unwary people are being charged exorbitant prices.

According to Obasanjo, Biafra agitation is “a hopeless and fruitless exercise on which nobody in seriousness should embark”.

“Proffering solutions, the ex-President stated that the resurgent Biafra agitation should be treated as “a cry for attention, amelioration and improvement of socio-economic conditions” of South East youth and their counterparts in other parts.

“Above all, good governance at all levels is the key solution. The welfare and well-being of the citizenry with equity, justice and fairness must be the main pre-occupation of government at all levels”, he added.

On alleged marginalisation of the Igbos,he said: “When I became an elected President, an Igbo man was made the minister of finance;an Igbo man was made the governor of Central Bank;an Igbo man was made the minister of transport.

“One day some people came to me and said that the civil war is not over yet and I asked why. They said since the end of the civil war no Igbo man has been the minister of Defence and explained to them that what matters is the service chiefs and we have had Igbos in that position. And I appointed Thompson Aguiyi- Ironsi  (as Minister of State for Defence).”