Presidential candidate of the Labour Party in the 2023 election, Peter Obi, has responded to the barrage of attacks he received at the weekend for congratulating a former Head of State, Gen Yakubu Gowon, on his 90th birthday anniversary, saying Nigeria must move on with love and not in hate or anger.
But a former presidential aide, Reno Omokri, has said the former Nigerian leader was not an enemy to be forgiven.
Writing a long response on his X titled: ‘Why I Congratulated Gen. Gowon at 90’, Obi said “My felicitation with Nigeria’s former military Head of state, General Yakubu Gowon, on his 90th birthday anniversary, which was celebrated by a cross-section of Nigerians, has been received with mixed feelings by some Nigerians, and some have expressed their sentiments publicly, and privately to me.”
According to statement by Ibrahim Umar, Obi said, “I share in some of them, and I feel that as a leader in the vanguard of providing direction for our country to shift base away from all our shortcomings, including the issues that caused our avoidable cruel civil war, I needed to show to the World that the ultimate heroism is forgiving the enemy and moving forward.
“Indisputably, the darkest part of our 64-year journey as a nation is the 30 months of civil war from 1967 to 1970 and God almighty whose way is not our way must have a reason why he kept the Chief Prosecutor of the war who is General Gowon alive to be 90 years today and the man who saw the end of the war, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo to be there at 87 years super-heading all the moves to see a reconciled and just Nigeria.
“There was also a developing new spirit why the same country, Nigeria, gave the Biafra leader, Dim Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu, a heroic national burial on 2 March 2012, when he joined his ancestors, coincidentally under my tenure as Governor of Anambra state.
“The status of the burial given to Dim Ojukwu remains the boldest indication to the World that Nigeria as a country is disposed to moving forward in the spirit of reconciliation.
“There are various ways human beings can respond to acts of evil, especially one that claimed millions of lives; one is the tragedy of revenge, and another offers the hope of forgiveness in an attempt to forget. The latter conforms neatly with the template I adopted in greeting Gen Gowon at 90 years old.
“In all my dealings with human beings, I tried to be guided by my faith as a Christian in a strong message preached by Jesus Christ himself and underscored in reflections in St Paul’s letter to the Colossians 3:13: ‘Bear with each other and forgive one another: if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.’ And to Ephesians 4: 31-32 ‘Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice.’
“Whatever reason I will give for joining the rest of Nigerians to greet General Gowon, May never truly conform with some persons, especially direct victims of the war, but anger, hurt, and bitterness are the commonest responses to cruelty.
“It fuels sectarianism, it leads to resistance and avoidable blood feuds that we are witnessing across the globe, and even in our country and it does not abate.
“There is something about forgiveness, it sets the person doing it free. Forgiveness is more a process than an instinct. It’s hate that has put our society, blessed by God to be the greatest land in the black World, down, but this hate has to stop.”
But Omokri in his reply said, For years, Peter Obi has been romancing Professor Wole Soyinka and celebrating him on his birthdays. But when Mr Soyinka turned ninety on Saturday, July 13, 2024, Mr. Obi ignored him completely.
“Why? Because on Thursday, September 14, 2023, Mr. Soyinka had exposed him as an ethnic bigot who directly controls his Obidient hordes and unleashes them on his political enemies.
“Peter Obi is a tribal leader who cannot afford to upset his sectional base. And that is why he had to release a lengthy statement explaining why he congratulated General Gowon on his birthday.
“Because a huge chunk of his base, who are sympathetic to the cause of secession from Nigeria being championed by the Indigenous People of Biafra movement, are very diametrically opposed to General Gowon, who they blame for scuttling their 1967-70 dream of seceding from the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
“And in his verbose explanation, Peter Obi described General Gowon as an ‘enemy’ to be forgiven. My question to Nigerians is this: is the unity of our country safe in the hands of a man who sees a person who fought a war to preserve Nigeria’s unity as an ‘enemy to be forgiven’?
“Peter Obi also described what General Gowon did as ‘acts of evil’. If a man believes that it is evil to fight to keep Nigeria united, how can you trust that man to be President of a united Nigeria? Would he not have an agenda to undo the ‘evil’ that General Gowon did in keeping Nigeria as one nation under God?”
Chuks Okocha
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