According to a report by Vanguard Newspapers on Saturday, 19 July 2025, former Minister of Health and Biafran Army officer, Dr. ABC Nwosu has said that the late Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu had no option but to declare the Biafra secession in 1967, insisting that failure to do so would have led to his death at the hands of his own people.
Speaking in an interview published by Vanguard, Nwosu explained that the mood in the Eastern Region after the Aburi Accord collapsed and Nigerian troops launched attacks at Gakem left no room for indecision on Ojukwu’s part.
“And after Aburi, if Ojukwu had failed to respond once the shots rang out at Gakem, people would have got rid of Ojukwu, they would have killed him,” Nwosu stated bluntly.
He described the war not as Ojukwu’s personal ambition, but as a collective resistance by the Eastern people against what they saw as targeted violence and injustice following the mass killings of Igbos in Northern Nigeria.
“I was an officer in the Biafran Army and if anybody tells you that it was Ojukwu’s war, it is arrant nonsense. It was the Biafran people’s war in response to being shot at by the Nigerian troops and ‘Operation-do-or-die’,” Nwosu said.
He noted that contrary to claims of forced conscription, many young men eagerly volunteered to defend the region. According to him, the people were united in the belief that they were fighting for survival and dignity.
Nwosu’s statements offer new insight into the internal pressures, public sentiment, and military realities that led to the declaration of Biafra. The Nigerian Civil War, which lasted from 1967 to 1970 remains a painful chapter in Nigeria’s history, claiming over a million lives.
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