The Nigerian army was soft on
Biafrans during the civil war, President Muhammadu Buhari said on Monday.
This, he said, was because the
then head of state, Yakubu Gowon, issued strict instructions to the army that
Biafrans were not enemies but “brothers and sisters of the rest of Nigerians”.
Buhari was speaking at his
investiture as Grand Patron of the Nigerian Red Cross Society (NRCS) at the
presidential villa in Abuja.
He said: “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.”
The civil war broke out in 1967 —
after eastern Nigeria declared “Republic of Biafra” — and ended in 1970 with
claims that millions were killed, mostly from starvation as a result of a
blockade by the Nigerian government.
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