President Muhammadu Buhari on Thursday said Nigerians must “be tolerant of one another” to avoid another civil war.
Bellnews Online reports that Buhari said this in Kigali, Rwanda, where he is attending the 26th Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting.
He had visited the Kigali Genocide Memorial where an estimated 491,000–800,000 died in 1994.
On the other hand, the Nigerian Civil War, also known as the Biafran War, July 6, 1967 – January 13, 1970, was a political conflict caused by the attempted secession of the southeastern provinces of Nigeria as the self-proclaimed Republic of Biafra.
During the two and half years of the war, there were about 100,000 overall military casualties, while between 500,000 and 2 million ‘Biafran’ civilians died of starvation.
“I visited the Kigali Genocide Memorial this afternoon. I took two lessons from this sobering tour: One, Nigerians must continue to be tolerant of one another, and two, we have a responsibility to preserve our own history from the Nigeria Civil War.
“As I wrote in the Visitors Book, “we pray that humanity will never experience this kind of hatred, wickedness and violence toward others because of their ethnic background, religion, and beliefs.”
“Nigeria is strongly committed to the prevention of mass atrocity anywhere in the world and believes that perpetrators of such crimes; and their enablers, anywhere in the world must be held accountable.”” Buhari wrote on his verified Facebook page.