Nigeria should apologize to Ojukwu over 1966 Pogrom against  Igbo   – Uwazuruike

By Cyprian  Ebele, Onitsha 

Chief Ralph Uwazuruike, founder and leader of Movement for Actualization of Sovereign State of Biafra, MASSOB, otherwise called Biafran Independence Movement, BIM, on Wednesday demanded that Nigeria should apologize to the ex- Biafran warlord, late Chief Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu, over the pogrom committed against the Igbo in 1966 coup.

Uwazuruike said he made the demand after listening to the confessions of some of the retired Nigerian Army generals who played active roles and fought against Biafra during the unwarranted war, stating that Ojukwu was right for defending his own people when the rest of Nigerians committed pogrom against  Ndigbo  in 1966 and later 1967 till 1970.

In a press statement signed and issued to newsmen in Onitsha by the Director of Information of MASSOB, Mazi Chris Mocha, Uwazuruike emphasized that the  confessions of former head of state, Ibrahim B.Babangida, and others  after 55 years of the said Nigeria/Biafra civil war,  had justified Ojukwu’s actions.

Uwazuruike therefore demanded that Nigeria should posthumously apologize to the  people’s general, Ojukwu, for the unjust war against Ndigbo where his Igbo tribe lost over three million lives and properties.

Uwazuruike restated that one of the major reasons why MASSOB came up again to agitate for Biafra Independence on September 13, 1999 was because Nigeria did not implement the 3RS of Reconciliation, Reconstruction and Rehabilitation policy of Gen. Yakubu Gowon, as agreed in Aburi,  Ghana Conference.

He told his members that non-violence methodology is the only key and the gateway to achieving the Self-Determination struggle for Biafra’s freedom.

According to.him, “Whether Nigeria likes it or not, Biafra must be actualized”, stressing that  no  genuine revolutionary struggle across the world has ever ended without achieving its desired objectives or goals no matter how long it lasted.”

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The MASSOB leader who pledged to follow the Mahatma Gandhi’s  footsteps to the end, dropped  a  bombshell at the just concluded monthly meeting in Owerri, the Imo state capital, by reminding them  for the 3rd time in 25 years of the Biafra struggle how he would wish to be buried after his  death.

Hear him,”Whenever I die, gather tyres to burn my body to ashes. I give you 10 days to enable you to gather as many tires as possible. After burning  my dead body, gather the ashes and throw the ashes into the flowing rivers.”

Insisting there is no patriotism among the different peoples of Nigeria, he stressed ‘nobody including the Yorubas of the South West and Hausa/Fulani in the North believe in one Nigeria.’