Biafra: There was no plan to wipe out Igbos – Obasanjo

Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has said the Federal Government had no intention of wiping put Igbos during the civil war.

Obasanjo said this at an event tagged, ‘Memory and Nation Building: Biafra 50 years later’, which held in Abuja on Thursday.

The event was in commemoration of 50 years of the declaration of an independent state of Biafra.

Obasanjo said the government never thought of annihilating the Igbo tribe.

Obasanjo said, “We had in our pocket the Geneva convention to guide us. In addition to that, we had a special code of conduct. Third, we had foreign observers. We had people who were like umpires.

“If it was a war to exterminate and we had no reconciliation in mind, what would foreign observers be doing? The foreign observers reported periodically and even had powers to investigate any allegation and they did.

“As one of the commanders in the field, I have said it before and I say it again. Civil war is more difficult than fighting in a foreign land. In foreign land, you fight to exterminate and destroy but in civil war, you fight to unite and when you’re fighting to unite, how much do you have to do to prevent destruction and alienation.”