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| Biafra Genocide: Gowon prepares to face ICC. I’m ready for ICC trial - Gowon |
With increasing rise of Biafra, former Nigerian military dictator Yakubu Gowon, who killed over 3 million Biafrans has began to consider the approaching prospects of his trial for war crimes in The hague. The Nation reports that Gowon told his critics recently that he is ready to face trial anywhere over allegation that he and Federal Government under him starved millions of Igbo to death during the Civil War.
He said Professor Chinua Achebe whose latest book ‘There was a country’, triggered the current frenzy over who played what role during the war, wrote out of ignorance.
“It was the Igbos that objected to the creation of corridor for movements of medical aid and food supplies to the civilian population at the period and on this I am ready to face the International Criminal Court of Justice at the Hague for prosecution over roles played by me when the war ended,” he told journalists in Minna, Niger State after a courtesy call on Governor Babangida Aliyu.
“Fortunately, some Nigerians are still alive to bear witness to the roles played by both the leadership of the secessionist group and the then Federal Military government under my leadership.”
Gen. Gowon who was in Minna for a two day prayer session organised by Nigeria Prays, said the secessionist leaders, more than anyone else, caused the massive deaths recorded in the defunct Biafra. He said contrary to allegations his government had no war policy to starve anyone to death.
The high death toll in Biafra, according to him, was caused by their own propaganda machinery which claimed that the ‘Northern invaders’ were coming to their camps and that caused panic and pandemonium among their people because some people were trying to move from one location to the other out of fear of imaginary attacks by the so called northern invaders and without foods.
“In fact, if there was no secession by the South Eastern part of the country, there would have been no civil war because right from the beginning of the crises the war would have been averted if not for the secession. It was something I believed we could have stopped,” General Gowon said.
He cited an attempt by the secessionists to smuggle in arms in a ship named “Josina”. He said when the ship which they had claimed was carrying Agricultural Implements was captured by the Federal Troops and was subjected to a thorough search it was arms and ammunition that were found in it.
He said he and the late Chief Obafemi Awolowo have no regret whatsoever for playing the roles they played in the war.
On Achebe, he said: “What role did Achebe play in the secessionist plans? Achebe must have been outside the country during the war and probably did not know what happened at the period otherwise he would not have written on what he was not sure of.”
Achebe in his book had said: “It is my impression that Awolowo was driven by an overriding ambition for power, for himself and for his Yoruba people. There is, on the surface at least, nothing wrong with those aspirations.
“However, Awolowo saw the dominant Igbo at the time as the obstacles to that goal, and when the opportunity arose – the Nigeria-Biafra War – his ambition drove him into a frenzy to go to every length to achieve his dreams.
“In the Biafran case, it meant hatching up a diabolical policy to reduce the numbers of his enemies significantly through starvation – eliminating over two million people, mainly members of future generations.”
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