– Describes Him, As A Hypocrite
Former President, Olusegun Obasanjo’s recent comments that the appointments of Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala and Charles Soludo were the best appointments he made when he was President, have continued to generate conversations.
Joining the conversation, the Africa Action Congress, AAC, Presidential candidate, Omoyele Sowore, described the former President, as a hypocrite, over the Igbo-phobia comments.
Obasanjo had at a ceremony meant to mark Governor Charles Soludo’s one year in office, said the appointments of Okonjo-Iweala and Soludo were “probably the best of the appointments that I made when I was president”.
The former President, who had openly supported the Presidential candidate of the Labour Party, Peter Obi, in the February 25 election, also frowned at how the Igbos are persistently discriminated against in Nigeria.
To explain what he meant by one being an Igbo-phobian, the 85-year-old former President recounted how an unnamed close associate reacted when he made Soludo and Okonjo-Iweala CBN Governor and Finance Minister respectively.
Reacting to Obasanjo’s remark, Sowore during an interview on Mic On Podcast with Seun Okinbaloye, accused the former President of hypocrisy towards the Igbos.
The political activist said he had not seen any Nigerian, who probably killed more Igbo people than Obasanjo.
He recalled how Obasanjo, as a top officer in the Nigerian Army, during the Civil War led a massacre that resulted in the death of 3.5 million Igbo people.
According to him, the former President is yet to apologize to the Igbos over the massacre, yet exploiting their emotions to gain undeserved praise.
His words, “I was reading a headline; Obasanjo was saying Igbo phobia. This is a guy who went to the east and shot people dead because they wanted Biafra.
“He was one of the officers that obtained the surrender of Biafrans. They were asking for a nation. Obasanjo and others, (Theophilus) Danjuma, (Muhammadu) Buhari, (Ibrahim) Babangida; they went to the east and killed up to 3.5 million people.
“They did not even apologize for it. Maybe 60 years later, you are saying you suddenly find out that people hate Igbos when you in Nigerian uniform went and killed children, women, men, boys who are of Igbo extraction.
“I was really livid that he suddenly found out that there is Igbo phobia. When the Nigerian Army carried out a massacre and because he wants to play on the intelligence and emotions of Igbos, they will be clapping for him. Oh! Obasanjo is now our human rights defender. He is fighting for Igbo. I have never seen anybody among Nigerians that has probably killed more Igbos than Obasanjo. They killed people during the civil war.”