Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, the ex-president of Nigeria, has urged Nigerians to give up with the agitation for the Biafra independence.

The former president was speaking during the public discussionon Biafra issue in Abuja organized by Nextier Advisory on January 15, Friday.

Obasanjo said: “Biafra as a secession issue is dead, and nobody should follow that way. I see it as a platform rather than a cause.”

The ex-president, who said that he was careful of getting into a debate on Biafra, added: “The agitation was born in error and ignorance.”

He further stated that the agitation had become profit-making, an industry through which some people made money from naive people.

Chief Obasanjo quoted the problem of the Biafran passport, “which takes one nowhere”, by a certain group as an example of some people making business out of the protests.

“There is the commercialisation of the Biafran agitation, which is criminal – for example, the issuance of sold-called Biafran passport which takes on nowhere,” the former president noted.

 “Biafra agitation is as an industry; a means of making money. Biafra agitation is a hopeless and futile exercise of which nobody should embark on.”

Recently while speaking on the Biafra issue Obasanjo called on Nigerians to understand the need to embrace peace and dialogue instead of beating drums of second Biafran war.

The Nigerian civil war, popularly known all over the world as the “Biafran War” was battled from July 1967 to January 1970.

The war was between the then Eastern Region of Nigeria and the rest of the country.  The Eastern Region declared itself an independent state which was regarded as an act of secession by the Federal Military Government of Nigeria.

Source: Naij