Biafra: Dialogue with agitators, civil war veteran advises Buhari

A 91-year-old ex-Biafran Cabinet member, Sir Bob Ogbuagu, has advised President Muhammadu Buhari to rather en­gage Biafran agitators in meaningful dialogue with a view to address­ing the immediate and remote causes of the agitation instead of using force on them.

Ogbuaku, who was the Director of Food Direc­torate all through the 30 months of the civil war, warned that the con­tinued use of force as a means of quelling the renewed agitation for Biafra would be counter­productive.

He told The AU­THORITY in an exclu­sive interview that dia­logue remains the best option to solve the Biafra equation.

“Cracking down on the agitators is not the best. What I think the Federal Government should do is to engage the agitators in a dialogue because it is better to jaw, jaw than to war, war.

“Government should bring them in and dis­cuss with them because it is the best way to resolve problems. Who believed that today America and Russia will be friends?

“Buhari should realise he is no longer a military Head of State but a civil­ian President. He should listen to the agitators and find out their grouses and give them a sense of belonging.”

He regretted that all the injustices perpetrat­ed against Biafrans in­cluding the 1966 pogrom had not been addressed by any Nigerian Govern­ment, hence the renewed agitation for the inde­pendence of the break-away republic.

“I don’t think that any­body has addressed them in the first place. What­ever we have been doing has just been a palliative measure.

“Biafrans are very en­terprising. That is why despite the pogrom, they survived and still went back to the North.

“The injustices against them by the Federal Government is still there. Federal appointments are still lopsided in fa­vour of the North.

“So, those indices that led to the war are still there. They are so obvi­ous. Officers of Northern extraction are promoted ahead of their Eastern counterparts; it is unfair”, he said.