Former Biafran commander, Col. Paul Ude Okonkwo (rtd) and the leader of the Movement for the Actualisation of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB), Chief Ralph Uwazuruike have defended Dim Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu for his role in the civil war, saying that the former Biafran leader never declared war on Nigeria.
Both condemned the opinion some people have advanced, that Ojukwu declared war on Nigeria. They insisted that it was the other way round, while Ojukwu rose to the challenge to defend his people, who faced extinction threat.
Speaking in separate interviews with The Nation, both of them held that the issue that sparked off the war was the 1966 pogrom in the North, where Igbo people were massacred and the subsequent declaration of the Republic of Biafra to give the Igbo a sovereign country of their own “since they were forced out of Nigeria.”
Okonkwo, who is the leader of veteran Biafran Army officers, said: “We the Ndigbo were the ones who asked Ojukwu to declare the Biafran Republic. It was Nigeria that forced us into war. There was never a time Ojukwu asked us to rise against Nigeria. We only defended ourselves against extinction since they wanted to extend the pogrom to our land.
“We were pursued out of Nigeria. And it was after seeing our people coming back humiliated that we prevailed on Ojukwu to lead us into freedom. If he had not declared the Republic of Biafra, we would have lynched him. He warned us against the consequences of war, telling us that war is not a child’s play. But we urged him to go on and give us the Republic of Biafra.
Okonkwo, who said he was in the war front throughout the duration of the war alongside the late Col. Timothy Onwuatuegwu, prayed that God would receive the great soul of Ojukwu who he described as a “great man, an Iroko and the only field marshal from Africa.”
MASSOB leader, Uwazuruike, said: “Ojukwu did not declare any war against Nigeria, unless those who do not understand history want to make some mischief.
‘’Remember that there was the Aburi Accord in Ghana where certain terms were agreed on, which Ojukwu came home to uphold. But unfortunately, Gowon jettisoned it on the advice of his permanent secretaries then.
“Not only did Nigeria turn down the Aburi Accord, they went on to divide the former Eastern Region into Rivers, South Eastern and East Central States. At the end of the exercise, it was frustrating to Ojukwu that the Nigerian government should come to divide us.
‘’Because of this, the 400-member Eastern Consultative Assembly empowered Ojukwu to make declaration for their own self determination because our people were being killed in the North. And there was no stopping the killing of Ndigbo in the North then.
“Ojukwu, being the military governor of Eastern Nigeria then, couldn’t have folded his arms and watch his people being massacred in the North. It was the people that persuaded him to declare the entire Eastern Region their own territory so that they would have a safe place for themselves because they were not protected under the Nigerian government.
Uwazuruike also fired a salvo at former President Olusegun Obasanjo who berated Ojukwu for not showing remorse.
Said he: “It is an insult for Obasanjo to say that Ojukwu did not show remorse for his role in the civil war. Ojukwu couldn’t have shown any remorse. Remorse for what? If what happened to Ndigbo had happened to his people, Obasanjo would have taken the position Ojukwu took or even a worse one. Unless he does not love his people.
“Should Ojukwu show remorse for protecting the lives and property of his people? Or didn’t Obasanjo see the pogrom in the North? There was even a point when Ojukwu persuded those who ran back from the North to go back; that every thing was under control, only for them to go back and got massacred.
“How do you make up all these and say that Ojukwu should show remorse? What he did in the first place was logical, legal and advisable. And that was what all other persons could have done under normal circumstances.”
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Ex-Biafran commander, MASSOB defend Ojukwu’s civil war role