Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has stated that it is unjust to blame only the Igbo ethnic group for attempting to secede from Nigeria.
He pointed out that the country’s three major ethnic nationalities — Igbo, Hausa, and Yoruba — have all, at one point, tried to break up the nation through secession efforts.
Speaking during a meeting with a 20-man delegation of the League of Northern Democrats, led by former Kano State Governor Ibrahim Shekarau, at the Olusegun Obasanjo Presidential Library in Abeokuta, Obasanjo expressed his dismay at the persistent narrative that no Igbo individual could ever become Nigeria’s President due to the ethnic group’s involvement in the January 15, 1966 coup.
He said: “I think all of us in Nigeria have to rethink… It bleeds my heart when people say because the Igbo had carried out a secession, an Igbo man cannot be the president of Nigeria.
“I say what nonsense? There is no section of Nigeria that has not planned a secession. What is ‘Araba’ in the North? The North planned to break up Nigeria. Ahmed Jooda, a very good friend of mine, said that.
“What is treasonable felony? So, who among us can say I am better than the other? None! So, let us put our heads together and build a country together.”
