Matthew Kukah, bishop of Sokoto Catholic diocese, says
Nigeria has not recovered from wounds of the civil war 51 years after it ended.
Speaking at the second edition of the ‘Never Again
Conference: 51 years after the Nigerian-Biafran civil war’ on Thursday, the
bishop said the country failed to adopt resolutions that were meant to heal the
wounds of citizens.
The ‘Never Again Conference’ is the brainchild of Nzuko
Umunna, a pan-Igbo socio-cultural organisation, which organised the first
edition in Lagos in 2020.
Kukah said some of those resolutions came from the Human
Rights Violations Investigation Commission popularly known as Oputa panel, which
was set up by the Obasanjo administration.
He also said while the military laid the foundation for
Nigerians to begin a process of rebuilding the nation, “things somehow went
wrong” along the line.
“I have met a lot of people who fought the war who are full
of regrets. There is a lot of resentment, anxiety and frustration that we have
not learnt any lessons,” he said.
“Fifty-one years after the war, we are still hearing the
kind of agitations that ordinarily, with commitment, dedication, focus and the
right leadership, we should have put a lot of the anxieties behind us.
Unfortunately, they are still with us.”
The bishop described the Oputa panel which he was part of as
“the best school I would ever hope to attend”.
“Oputa panel managed to generate quite a lot of data and
information that academicians and policymakers would have used to ensure we
erect the signpost saying, ‘Never Again’, because it gave us an opportunity, a
mirror to look at ourselves after hearing from all sides but we didn’t have the
discipline to follow through,” he said.
“We have not been able to forgive ourselves as a people. The
wounds of the civil war have not been able to heal. Coups and counter-coups
that followed were more or less miniature civil wars by themselves because they
threw up the same contradictions, anxieties and feeling of divisiveness across
the country.”
‘A BETTER UNDERSTANDING OF THE CIVIL WAR WILL HELP CORRECT
PAST MISTAKES’
In his remarks, Pat Utomi, chairman of the conference
planning committee, said the initiative started as an advocacy “in trying to
bring a better understanding of the civil war and its aftermath to the Nigerian
people”.
According to him, this is being pursued in a way that “it
will become a source of energy for bringing a new nation”.
“We know that if people learn enough from errors of
yesterday, they can, in fact, make more progress than they are currently
making,” he said.
“One of the biggest challenges of nation-building is the
kind of trust deficits that exist which make policy implementation very
challenging.
“A better
understanding of the civil war will make it become a ladder that people can
climb to higher levels of growth.”
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