Former member of the Enugu State House of Assembly and ex-South-East spokesman for President Bola Tinubu, Denge Onoh, has stated that former Head of State, Yakubu Gowon should apologize to the Igbo.
Onoh criticized Gowon over his recent comments on civilian
casualties during the Nigerian Civil War, describing the remarks as a dangerous
minimisation of the human tragedy of the conflict.
Gowon had during an interview on Arise Television said that
after visiting former Biafran territories following the war, he noticed black
spots on palm trees and was informed they were bullet marks.
Gowon had reportedly concluded from the observation that
most of the bullets fired by the Nigerian army hit palm trees, not people.
Responding in a statement, Onoh stated that the claim
contradicted historical accounts, eyewitness testimonies and international
reports on the civil war, insisting that the comments failed to reflect the
true scale of suffering experienced during the conflict.
He said the war, fought between 1967 and 1970, claimed an
estimated three million lives, most of them through starvation and disease
linked to the federal blockade, in addition to civilian casualties caused by
combat operations, bombings and reprisals.
“Reducing these horrors to bullets harmlessly striking palm
trees does not withstand basic scrutiny.
“It ignores the well-documented humanitarian crisis,
including widespread kwashiorkor among children, mass displacement and the
devastating human cost of prolonged fighting across the South-East,” Onoh said.
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