By Cajetan Mmuta, Awka
The Indigenous People of Biafra (IPoB) has condemned the recent statement by former Head of State, General Yakubu Gowon, on the 1967-1970 civil war.
It described his remarks as a provocative, insensitive, and shameless attempt to whitewash the atrocities of the Biafran genocide he orchestrated.
IPoB Director of Media and Publicity, Emma Powerful, stated this yesterday in a statement to reporters in Awka, the capital of Anambra State.
He noted that the claim by Gowon that the Nigerian Civil War was fought for “unity, not hatred” is not only a grotesque distortion of history but a deliberate insult to the millions of Biafrans slaughtered under his command and an affront to all victims of his premeditated genocidal campaign.
Powerful said, “Gowon’s crocodile tears over the violence in Jos and his hollow lamentations about Nigeria’s disunity cannot erase the bloodstains on his hands.
According to him, “His words are a painful reminder of the unrepentant arrogance of a man who presided over the massacre of over 5 million Biafrans—men, women, and children—whose only crime was seeking self-determination in the face of systemic marginalisation and state-sponsored pogroms.
“To compare his genocidal war to a quest for unity is to spit on the graves of our ancestors and mock the suffering of survivors. Gowon’s legacy is not one of unity but of unparalleled brutality, second only to Adolf Hitler’s slaughter of six million Jews.
“We demand that Gowon answer the following questions, which he has dodged for decades: What happened at Aburi? Why did you renege on the agreements reached with Dim Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu, which could have averted the war?
“Why did you repeatedly seek guidance from a certain diplomat during those negotiations, betraying Nigeria’s sovereignty to neo-colonial interests?
“Why did you perpetuate the falsehood that the January 1966 coup was an “Igbo plot” when evidence clearly shows it was a military action by officers from across Nigeria?
“Why did you refuse to return Nigeria to regionalism, a system that fostered unprecedented economic growth, in favour of a unitary structure designed to exploit Biafra’s oil and gas resources?
“What transpired during the late Sir Ahmadu Bello’s visit to Sandhurst, where he addressed Nigerian cadets in Hausa, sowing seeds of division?
The group maintained that, “As a self-proclaimed “born-again Christian,” why have you refused to publish your account of the Aburi Accord? What truth are you afraid to reveal to posterity?
