Obasanjo Warns Against Second Civil War, Urges Nigerians to Learn from History

Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has warned that many of the factors that led to Nigeria’s three-year civil war in 1967 still exist, urging Nigerians to work together to prevent the country from sliding into another conflict.

Obasanjo made the remark on Wednesday while receiving books, research materials, videos and eyewitness accounts documenting the Asaba Massacre and related events from the Chairman of the Asaba Memorial Trust and the Asaba Image Branding and Project Committee, Chief Chuck Nduka-Eze, at the Olusegun Obasanjo Presidential Library (OOPL) in Abeokuta.

The former president described the prospect of another civil war as unthinkable, insisting that Nigeria had already fought “one civil war too many.”

According to him, understanding the mistakes of the past remains essential to preventing a repeat.

“What went wrong in the past is essential to preventing a repeat. We must do everything humanly possible to prevent its recurrence,” Obasanjo said.

He noted that many of the conditions that triggered the civil war remain unresolved and recalled former Head of State, General Yakubu Gowon, as saying Nigeria might not survive another civil war.

“I believe we have fought one civil war too many already. To say that we will have a second civil war, God forbid. We must understand what happened, condemn what should not have happened, and do everything humanly possible to prevent its recurrence,” he said.

Obasanjo urged Nigerians to adopt a collective “never again” resolve by learning from history, promoting national unity and addressing issues capable of threatening the country’s peace.

He also commended Chief Nduka-Eze for preserving historical records, describing the documentation of the civil war and the Asaba Massacre as vital for national healing.

The former president explained that one of the core objectives of the Olusegun Obasanjo Presidential Library is to preserve the past, document the present and inspire the future.

“We pride ourselves that we preserve the past, we capture the present, and we inspire the future,” he said.

Reflecting on his role during the civil war, Obasanjo acknowledged that he served as a military commander but said he could not provide detailed accounts of the Asaba incident because operations in that area were under the command of the late former Head of State, General Murtala Mohammed.

He disclosed that towards the end of the war, he was assigned responsibilities aimed at preventing further massacres, stressing that abuses committed by soldiers were never condoned.

Obasanjo recounted how he personally stopped a soldier from assaulting a civilian woman in Asaba, saying commanders had a duty to hold their troops accountable for misconduct.

He also noted that General Gowon had publicly acknowledged and apologised for the excesses committed during the war, maintaining that atrocities such as the Asaba Massacre were neither authorised nor endorsed by the country’s leadership.

The former president promised to study the documents and audiovisual materials presented to him, reiterating his commitment to ensuring Nigeria never experiences another civil war.

Earlier, Chief Chuck Nduka-Eze described the materials as a comprehensive collection of eyewitness testimonies, recorded interviews, archival documents, audio-visual evidence and historical research on the Asaba Massacre.

According to him, the evidence showed that after federal troops entered Asaba, civilians were assembled in public places and instructed to declare allegiance to “One Nigeria” before men were separated from women and children, after which many unarmed male civilians were killed.

He said the documented evidence, corroborated by multiple independent sources, points to the deaths of more than one thousand civilians and remains one of the darkest episodes of the civil war.

Nduka-Eze added that ethnic mistrust, unresolved grievances from Nigeria’s first military coup and the absence of accountability contributed to the Asaba Massacre and the civil war, warning that many of those underlying issues remain unresolved today