Civil war: Gowon should apologise to Igbo – Onoh

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.