Current Biafra agitators are miscreants looking for money – Obasanjo

Former president Olusegun Obasanjo has said the current crop of Biafra agitators led by the radio personality, Nnamdi Kanu, are “boys who want to take people unawares and get money out of them in the name of Biafra”.

In a chat with The Punch, Obasanjo said of Nnamdi Kanu and the MASSOB movement: “Fake agitation; you people make a mountain out of a molehill. These are boys who want to take people unawares and get money out of them in the name of Biafra. These are people you should ignore, I don’t talk about Biafra. (Philip) Effiong came and said Biafra ceased to exist and since that day, Biafra has ceased to exist.

He said after the civil war, “we absorbed those we should absorb both into the civil service and into the military. Even those we didn’t absorb, who we initially regarded as being retired without benefit, later on we even gave them their benefits. Abandoned houses were returned. Within 10 years of the end of the civil war, an Igbo man became the vice-president of our country.

“It took the Americans 100 years before they got to that point. So, what are you talking about? They have held different ministerial positions existing in this country. We have Igbo as the Governor of Central Bank, Igbo has headed many parastatals in this country. That’s why these miscreants should be ignored. They want to get money and they go round and say, ‘We are still being victimised. We are still being treated badly in Nigeria,’ so that they can take money from people”.

Obasanjo also said he wasn’t going to blame the Igbo leaders for the present agitation.

“I won’t blame the Igbo leaders. I will ignore them (the agitators). The Igbo leaders that I’ve talked about, I mean the ones I’ve mentioned; Joe Irukwu won’t go out and do that type of thing, and many of them. The people who are doing this are the same people you will find in 419, they are the same people you will find in drugs. This (pro-Biafra agitation) is another source of money for them as far as they are concerned”.

The former president also said the December deadline given to the military by C-in-C Muhammadu Buhari to end the Boko Haram insurgency, was unrealistic.

“I’ve talked about that. You have to have an objective, otherwise, if you say go, and you don’t have an objective… An objective is not cast in concrete. Look, I want you to finish a job in two days though you know it could take probably four or five days, but you must give an objective. I believe that what the President will get and which he knows he can get, is that he can get the upper hand; the military will get the upper hand over Boko Haram and of course, I think we are working towards that. But we will not get the end of Boko Haram in three months or in six months. And even when you get the upper hand militarily, you have to do what you have to do – the socio-economic aspect”.

By Punch