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Obasanjo, Osinbajo and Ex-VP Alex Ekwueme at the Biafra event
Former President, Olusegun Obasanjo has indicated that Nigeria, under whatever circumstance, must mean something for everyone.
Speaking in Abujaon Thursdayat a conference commemorating Biafra at 50, with the theme: ‘Memory and Nation Building’, he said: “At independence, we had three nations in one in which the problem was never resolved and has not been resolved till today.” He added that “the war took us 30 months, and the federal side nearly lost it.”
Obasanjo recalled the book he wrote in 1970, entitled ‘My Command’, stating that “you will not see two words in that book – enemy or hate as we called them rebels while they called us vandals.”
At the event, he addressed the 3Rs, post-war Reconciliation, Rehabilitation and Reconstruction, saying that “The war was a creeping incident which crept on us.”
The Acting President, Yemi Osinbajo, speaking on ‘Greater Together Than Apart’, maintained that “we are greater together today than apart and secession would not have done any good.
“What if we have invested all the effort and resources we invested in the war into forging unity?” Osinbajo asked.
He thanked the organisers of the event, maintaining that they have done an enormous favour by offering a platform for national introspection.
“My argument is not that we simply forget the past and let bygones be bygones but every new generation can take a different and more enabling route than its predecessors. We should stop seeking into lazy comfort of homogeneity,” Osinbajo further admonished.
Chief Dubem Onyia, Board member ofShehu Musa Yar’Adua Foundation and associates of the late former President, in his welcome remarks, said that the foundation has a vision of an inclusive Nigeria.
The Regional Director, West Africa, Ford Foundation, in his remarks, said that this is the first national convening on this issue since 1970, when the war ended – that was not stopped. He commended Osinbajo for the courage to bring the presence of the Federal Government to such convening, and tasked the government to set aside one day in the year for citizens to ponder the experiences of the war.
