Femi Fani-Kayode (FFK) has reacted to a statement by president Buhari which he made while speaking at his investiture as Grand Patron of the Nigerian Red Cross Society (NRCS) at the presidential villa in Abuja.
President Buhari insinuated that the Nigerian army showed lots of restraints on Biafrans during the civil war.
“Earlier in my profession, during the civil war, I know how much sacrifice members of the Nigerian Red Cross and their international counterparts did both in the real front of operations and at the rear, on both sides. I think it is a lot of sacrifices because anything can happen to you in the operational areas.
“The risks they faced were real and I admire their courage and commitment to helping people who were in distress and were virtually in millions. Those photographs of people from the Biafra enclave spoke a lot.
“I remember with nostalgia the performance of the commander-in-chief, General Yakubu Gowon. Every commander was given a copy of the commander-in-chief’s instructions that we were not fighting enemies but that we were fighting our brothers. And thus, people were constrained to show a lot of restraint.
“The international observer teams were allowed to go as far as possible within and outside the front and I think this was generous and very considerate of General Gowon. He is a highly committed Nigerian” he said.
Reacting to the statement, Femi Fani-Kayode (FFK) labeled president Buhari as a liar as he spoke of the Asaba massacre which took thousands of innocent lives of Biafrans.
His social media post:
”One of the most wicked and despicable lies that President Muhammadu Buhari has ever told is that the Nigerian Army was restrained when fighting the Biafrans during the civil war.
This is a lie from the pit of hell and it is insulting and deeply offensive. We must learn from our history and never repeat its mistakes.
Was the Asaba massacre in which thousands of innocent and defenceless young boys and old men were slaughtered an act of restraint?
Or was the killing of 2 million innocent and defenceless Biafran civilians and the premeditated and contrived starving to death of 1 million innocent Biafran children an act of restraint?For God sake where is our humanity? Must we lie even about our history and must we always deny the truth and attempt to revise it? No wonder they banned the teaching of history in our schools. Too much to hide!
The truth is that if not for the fact that the same group of people have been calling the shots in our country since 1966 every single commander of the Nigerian Army during the civil war, including Muhammadu Buhari, would have been charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity at the International Court of Justice at the Hague by now for the atrocities they commited against the Igbo race and the Biafran people during the civil war.
I don’t need to be an Igbo to say or admit that. I just need to be an honest and objective historian and a God-fearing citizen of the world.
We must ask God to forgive us for what we did to the civilian population in Biafra and we must NEVER allow such a thing to happen again. Until that is done Nigeria will neither know peace or meaningful progress.War is one thing but the targetting of innocent and defenceless civilians, including women and childen, for ethnic cleansing, genocide and mass murder is quite another!”
Share your thoughts