Former President Olusegun Obasanjo warned Wednesday that the conditions that sparked Nigeria’s 1967 civil war still persist, and said the country must do everything possible to avoid a repeat of the conflict that claimed massive lives and property.
He spoke in Abeokuta at the Olusegun Obasanjo Presidential Library while receiving books, research materials, videos, and eyewitness interviews documenting the Asaba Massacre, compiled by Chief Chuck Nduka-Eze, Chairman of the Asaba Memorial Trust and the Asaba Image Branding and Project Committee.
Describing another civil war as unthinkable, Obasanjo said Nigeria had “fought one civil war too many already.”
“What went wrong in the past is essential to preventing a repeat. We must do everything humanly possible to prevent its recurrence,” he said. “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 called for a collective national commitment to “never again,” asking: “Some of the things that led to the Civil War are still with us. How long will this remain so? And then, for us to be able to say, ‘never again,’ what are we going to do to make that possible?”
Obasanjo recalled a conversation with a colleague when former Head of State Gen. Yakubu Gowon said Nigeria would not survive a second civil war as a country. “I believe we have fought one civil war too many already,” Obasanjo added. “I will do everything possible to ensure that there is never again a civil war in this country.”
Commending Nduka-Eze’s work, Obasanjo said documenting the past is vital for national healing and to help future generations learn. “At OOPL, we pride ourselves that we preserve the past, we capture the present, and we inspire the future,” he said. “Thank you very much for making people know about it, for people to learn from it, and for people to take a vow that it should never happen again.”
The former president, who served as a soldier during the war, said he could not give detailed accounts of the Asaba incident because operations in that area were under the late former Head of State, Gen. Murtala Mohammed. He noted that toward the end of the war he was tasked with preventing further massacres and stressed that abuses by soldiers were not condoned.
He recounted personally stopping a soldier from assaulting a civilian in Asaba, saying such conduct would have created vicarious liability for him as a commander. Obasanjo added that Gen. Gowon had publicly acknowledged and apologised for wartime excesses, and that at the highest level, actions like the Asaba massacre were neither ordered nor condoned.
Providing insight into the compiled materials, Nduka-Eze said the work includes eyewitness testimonies, recorded interviews, archival documents, audio-visual records, and scholarly research. He said independent sources present a consistent account of events after federal troops entered Asaba, then a civilian population centre in the Mid-West Region.
“The evidence establishes a recurring pattern. Civilians were assembled in public places under conditions of fear and uncertainty. During these assemblies, residents were required to proclaim allegiance to the Nigerian state, including being instructed to declare ‘One Nigeria’ and otherwise demonstrate loyalty,” Nduka-Eze said.
“In a setting where identity and suspicion had become dangerously intertwined, these acts were understood by those present as affirmations of belonging and safety. Men were then separated from women and children. Thereafter, unarmed male civilians were killed in a manner consistently described across multiple independent accounts.”
He noted that compliance with those demands did not guarantee protection, and that the sequence is corroborated by testimonies and documentary materials. While exact casualty figures remain uncertain, he said credible evidence points to more than a thousand civilian men killed, causing “a profound rupture in the fabric of the Asaba community.”
Nduka-Eze added that deep ethnic suspicion, unresolved grievances from Nigeria’s first military coup, and lack of accountability were among factors that led to the Asaba Massacre and the 1967 civil war. He said ethnic mistrust predated independence and that many issues that triggered the war remain unresolved, with groups still relating to one another with suspicion.
Obasanjo maintained that teaching the history of the civil war and the Asaba Massacre is vital for national unity and reiterated his commitment to ensuring Nigeria never experiences another civil war.
