Osinbajo at Biafra Colloquium, backs discourse on restructuring; Obasanjo says ‘FG nearly lost civil war to Biafra’

Acting President Yemi Osinbajo, on Thursday, said he believed in the call for the citizens to discuss  terms of their existence as people of the same country.
Osinbajo made this known while addressing a colloquium in Abuja tagged: “Biafra: 50 years after’’ organised by the Yar’Adua Foundation, the Ford foundation and the Open Society Initiative West Africa.
“Let me make it clear that I fully believe that Nigerians should exercise to the fullest extent the right to discuss or debate the terms of our existence.
“Debate and disagreement are fundamental aspects of democracy.
“We recognize and acknowledge that necessity and today’s event is along those lines – an opportunity not merely to commemorate the past, but also to dissect and debate it.
“Let’s ask ourselves tough questions about the path that has led us here, and how we might transform yesterday’s actions into tomorrow’s wisdom.
“Indeed our argument is not and will never be that we should ‘forget the past’, or ‘let bygones be bygones’ as some have suggested.”
Osinbajo recalled the writing of the late Prof. Chinua Achebe who “repeatedly reminded us of the Igbo saying that a man who cannot tell where the rain began to beat him cannot know where he dried his body’’.
He, therefore, noted that “if we lose the past, we will inevitably lose the opportunity to make the best of the present and the future.’’
Osinbajo warned that Nigerians should be careful that they did not focus exclusively on the narratives of division at the expense of the uplifting and inspiring ones.
He noted that “clearly our strength is in our diversity, that we are greater together than apart.
“Our frustrations with some who speak different dialects or belong to different religion must not drive us to forget that many share the same challenges.
“The individual affections and friendships we forge, some even deeper than family ties, must remind us that unity is possible, that brotherhood across tribes and faiths is possible.’’
The Acting President criticized the use of social media to fan the embers of division.
“And for every young Nigerian who sees the Internet as an avenue for spewing ethnic hatred, there is another young Nigerian who is falling in love or doing business across ethnic and cultural lines.
“They are the stories that remind us that the journey to nationhood is not an event but a process, filled with some bitter and some sweet experiences.
“The most remarkable attribute of that process is that a succeeding generation does not need to bear the prejudices and failures of the past,’’ he added.
Osinbajo said that every new generation could take a different and more ennobling route than its predecessors.
He said the greatest responsibility today was on the leadership of the country, not only political leadership.
“The promise of our constitution which we have sworn to uphold is that we would ensure a secure, and safe environment for our people to live and work in peace.
“That we will provide just and fair institutions of justice.”
Osinbajo said the citizens should not permit the leaders the easy but dangerous rhetoric of blaming the social and economic conditions on the coming together of the people in unity.
“It is their duty to give us a vision, a pathway to make our unity in diversity even more perfect,’’ he said.
He explained that many countries had suffered the same problems as Nigeria and also were multi ethnic but had placed such differences aside to make their nations great.
According to Osinbajo, every Nigerian should put their differences away and unite for a better and more prosperous nation.
Also, former President Olusegun Obasanjo, at the event, said that there was no need for any Nigerian to call for the breakup of the country.
Obasanjo said that those agitating for the creation of a Biafra state were not born during the war and did not know what it entailed.
He said that Nigeria must be loved and massaged by her citizens.
“Nigeria must be massaged by all of us. No exception. It’s like a husband and wife, and I will say that we should even appeal; if anybody says he wants to go, not that we will say, you can go if you want to go.
“There is enough cake for each of us.
“And, if what you are asking for is more of the cake, then ask in a way that is pleasant, not in a way that can make others feel that you are not entitled to what you are asking for,” Obasanjo said.
He said that though the military officers who masterminded the civil war in 1966 were naive, there was an element of nationalism in some of them.
He, however, added that their action set the country back to a great extent.
Obasanjo, who said that he was one of those who wrote the operation order for the civil war, said it was meant to end in three months.
He explained that it was, however, allowed to extend to six months but took 30 months, saying that the federal side nearly lost the war to Biafra.
He added that while the war lasted, reconciliation was on the minds of those on the federal side.
This, the former president said, was the reason foreign observers were allowed to file reports and empowered to investigate allegations.
He said that civil war was more difficult to fight than fighting in a foreign land or to exterminate, because it was a fight to unite.