CONCERNED stakeholders in Lagos engaged in acute reflection on Nigeria, 50 years after the end of the Civil War, last week. However, the war ended with the then Head of State Yakubu Gowon’s declaration of: “No Victor, no Vanquished.” It was a globally applauded rapprochement. This downbeat mood informed strident calls by participants at the 50 years after the war event: Igbo in Lagos, Gowon, Nobel laureate, Wole Soyinka, Afenifere leader, Banji Akintoye, civil society groups and the Director-General, Northern Elders Forum, Yima Sen, for the country to rediscover itself. This predilection for self-destruction has compelled not a few eminent Nigerians to warn that no nation survives two civil wars. Under 25 years, it has balanced justice, peace, security, truth and trial of genocide suspects with reconciliation after a most brutal civil war to become a model in post-war social re-engineering.

Source: Punch January 23, 2020 23:48 UTC