The Rising Star Survival Group has faulted the claim of a former Military Head of State, General Yakubu Gowon rtd that the proponent of Biafra Republic, Sir Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu bungled the 1967 Aburi Accord because he wanted regional governors to control the military.
The group said that the allegations by Gowon was not only laughable but far from the true position of the Accord that would have prevented the 1967-1970 civil war in the country.
In a statement on Sunday, the global group expressed displeasure that General Gowon recently attempted to distort the true reasons behind the failure of the Aburi Accord of 1967.
The statement signed by Chief Maxwell Dede and Rev. Fr. Augustine Odimmegwa, President and Secretary General of Rising Sun, lamented that the Aburi Accord if faithfully implemented by Gowon’s leadership, would have averted the killings of over five million Biafrans, including women and children.
It read in part “The attention of the global family of the Rising Sun, has been drawn to a recent statement credited to retired General Yakubu Gowon, in which he attempted to distort the true reasons behind the failure of the Aburi Accord of 1967.
“His outlandish claim that the breakdown occurred because General Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu wanted regional governors to control the military is laughable as it does not represent honest.
“Let us be clear: General Yakubu Gowon, the military head of state who oversaw the genocide of over 5 million Biafrans, including women and children, has no moral standing to lecture Nigerians or the world on truth, unity, or federalism.
“His manipulations led Nigeria into an avoidable war, a war waged to maintain a fraudulent colonial structure forced not by the will of the people but by British fiat for the benefit of their Fulani proxies.
“The Aburi Accord, held on January 4–5, 1967 in Ghana, was a last-ditch effort to salvage what was left of Nigeria after the first military coup of January 1966 and the counter-coup of July 1966, which saw thousands of Easterners slaughtered in cold blood across the North.
“The agreement, which was documented in writing and tape recordings, was unambiguous: It reaffirmed the sovereignty of the regions, with each region to control its own affairs.
“It called for a loose federation, or confederation, where the center would be weak and the regions strong.
“It called for joint control of the armed forces, not central command. It agreed that appointments to the Nigerian Military Council must be regional and consensual.
“These positions were not Ojukwu’s invention, they were the collective resolutions agreed to by all Nigerian military leaders present at the meeting.
“Gowon’s later repudiation of the Aburi Accord upon return to Lagos was not due to disagreement with the terms, but under direct pressure from the British High Commission and the Northern oligarchy, who feared a return to the economically successful and politically autonomous regions of the first republic.
“Is General Gowon genuinely unaware that in the United States, the very model of federalism, state governors control their National Guards and can activate them independently of the federal government?
“Is it treasonous in a federal system for regional leaders to demand control over security forces in their territories?
“Ojukwu’s position was the position of reason, of justice and of true federalism. It is Gowon who betrayed that spirit and plunged Nigeria
into chaos.
“If Nigeria had followed the Aburi Accord in its true form, there would have been no war. There would have been no genocide. There would have been no famine used as a weapon of war. There would have been no carpet-bombing of villages.
“Instead, Gowon reneged, Nigeria reneged and the blood of millions was put on line.
“By confessing that the dispute at Aburi was over control of the military and not over oil or so-called secession, Gowon has inadvertently vindicated Ojukwu and all Biafrans.
“The world can now see that Biafra did not seek war, it sought autonomy, safety and self-governance in the face of an unrelenting genocidal machine.
“We also remind the world that it was the British government, through its High Commissioner in Lagos, Sir David
Hunt, that instructed Gowon to reject the Aburi Accord and ensure that power remained concentrated in the hands of the Northern establishment.
“Britain did not want a successful federation of autonomous regions, it wanted a unified, centrally-controlled Nigeria under Fulani dominance, to protect Shell BP and other colonial-era corporate interests.
“That is why Britain armed Nigeria with bombs, aircraft, and diplomatic cover to annihilate Biafra.
“The same Fulani-dominated structure that Gowon helped to consolidate is now responsible for the mass killings, land grabbing and ethnic cleansing in the Middle Belt, Southern Kaduna, Plateau, Benue, and even the Northwest.
“The Caliphate has turned on its own allies, and Gowon’s silence in the face of this ongoing bloodbath shows he has learned nothing and repented of nothing.
“Today, millions of Nigerians are living the consequences of Gowon’s betrayal of Aburi: insecurity, economic collapse,
fake federalism and a unitary state masquerading as a federation.
“His words are not just a distortion of the past, they are a dangerous attempt to sanitize tyranny and genocide.
“We call on all truth-seeking historians, scholars and lovers of justice to revisit the original tapes and documents of the Aburi Accord, many of which are publicly available, to expose distortions.
“The struggle for Biafra is a struggle for truth, justice, and freedom, the very ideals Gowon helped to murder.
“Rising Sun global family will continue to resist every attempt to revise history or justify genocide. Ojukwu stood on the side of justice. Gowon stood on the side of deceit”, the statement said.
