Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari must meet
with Biafran secessionist leader Nnamdi Kanu before violence between the army
and separatists escalates into a full-blown conflict, according to Nigeria’s
former President Olusegun Obasanjo.
Speaking to Newsweek in
London, Obasanjo—who served as Nigeria’s first elected head of state from 1999
to 2007—said that the heavy-handed tactics of the Nigerian state in against
pro-Biafra activists, a secessionist movement that is pushing for an
independent state, has not suceeded and a more concilliatory approach was
needed.
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| Former Nigerian President - Olusegun Obasanjo |
“I don’t see anything wrong in that [Buhari
meeting with Kanu]. I would not object to that, if anything I would encourage
it,” Obasanjo tells Newsweek
“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.”
Nigeria has witnessed an uptick in pro-Biafra sentiment in recent years,
resulting in deadly clashes between the military and secessionists.
Declaring itself an independent republic in
southeast Nigeria in 1967, Biafra was reintegrated into Nigeria in 1970
after a three-year civil war in which at least than one million
people died. Obasanjo fought alongside Buhari on the Nigerian side in the
war.
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| Nnamdi Kanu, IPOB Leader |
Kanu, a British-Nigerian dual national, has
risen to prominence as the leader of modern pro-Biafra separatists. Kanu was
arrested in Nigeria in October 2015 and held for almost two years without going
to trial. He was bailed in April but is facing trial for
charges of treason.
Kanu’s backers accused the Nigerian military
of invading his home and killing supporters earlier this week, a charge the
military denied.
While Buhari has largely avoided speaking
publicly on the Biafra issue, the Nigerian military has come under scrutiny for
what right groups say is a heavy-handed response to protests by Kanu’s group,
the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), and other separatists.
Nigerian security forces killed at least 150 pro-Biafra supporters between
August 2015 and November 2016—including some in extrajudicial executions,
according to a report by Amnesty International.
The number included at least 60 people who
were killed at a memorial gathering in May 2016, when security forces raided
homes and a church where IPOB members were sleeping. The Nigerian military
denied Amnesty’s allegations and said IPOB members had used “unjustifiable
violence” against soldiers.
Nigerian soldiers were recently deployed to
the southeastern state of Abia, where Kanu is currently living. IPOB
members alleged that soldiers surrounded Kanu’s home on
Sunday and killed several people, but the Nigerian Army said in a statement that IPOB members had blocked the road
while army vehicles were on patrol and thrown stones at soldiers.
The statement said that the soldiers fired in
the air to disperse the IPOB members and that no one was killed. The army
shared a video which it said supported their account.
Obasanjo says that the army’s “heavy boot”
response to pro-Biafra sentiment is “not the solution,” but adds that the
secession craved by IPOB is not the way forward either.
The former president, who was also military
head of state in Nigeria between 1976-1979, says that economic development in
the country is the only way to solve the issue. Some Igbo leaders have
complained that President Buhari, who hails from northern Nigeria, has
prioritized the development of other parts of the country to their detriment.
“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,” says Obasanjo. “There’s no easy way out.”
The Biafran war erupted in 1967 after Odumegwu
Ojukwu, a Nigerian military officer, declared independence. Biafra was largely
populated by the Igbos, a mostly Christian ethnic group; Ojukwu's declaration
of independence came on the back of pogroms against Igbos in northern Nigeria,
which is dominated by the mostly Muslim Hausa ethnic group.
Nigeria, which had a much larger military
force, blockaded the Biafran order leading to a famine that sparked worldwide
condemnation when images and footage of starving Biafran children seeped out
into the international media.
Ethnic tensions have again been boiling over
recently in Nigeria, a country of more than 180 million people and hundreds of
ethnic groups. A coalition of youth groups ordered Igbos to leave northern Nigeria in June and
while the demand was rubbished by the Nigerian government, none of the
leaders of the groups were arrested.
Obasanjo, a senior Nigerian commander during
the war, says Nigeria must avoid allowing the current tensions to escalate into
another conflict.
“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.
This story was culled from: Newsweek
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