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‘Genocidal undertones’: Nigerians react to Buhari’s civil war reference
Last night, President Muhammadu Buhari said a rude shock awaits those fanning the embers of insurrection and those burning down critical national assets.
He gave the warning after he received a briefing from Chairman of Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Prof Mahmood Yakubu, on a series of attacks on facilities of the electoral body round the country.
He said those misbehaving in certain parts of the country were obviously too young to know the travails and loss of lives that attended the Nigerian Civil War.
“Those of us in the fields for 30 months, who went through the war, will treat them in the language they understand.
“We are going to be very hard sooner than later.”
The statement, shared on the President’s Twitter handle @MBuhari has since set tongues wagging and stirred outbursts among Nigerians who have alleged that the statement had some genocidal undertone.
They claim that the reference to the civil war just a day after the Biafra remembrance day, on May 31st amid the threat to deal with criminals further proved the President’s dislike for the Igbo people.
They said it is an example of the institutionalised Igbophobia and has formed the basis of why a sizable amount of the Igbo people have been calling for a secession from the Nigerian federation.
Some other Nigerians said that the threat by the President pales to the meek statements when he referred to bandits and Boko Haram /ISWAP terrorists that have been responsible for millions of killings and kidnappings in the northern region.
Making a statement, the enraged Nigerians reported the tweet to Twitter support system en masse and tweeted at Jack Dorsey, the CEO of Twitter to suspend Mr Buhari’s Twitter handle.
Despite blocking Nigerians from replying the tweets, the statement generated over 15,000 direct reactions and has since made Buhari a trending subject on the micro-blogging site.
Here are some reactions:
