Obasanjo pardons former secessionist soldiers

Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo has pardoned 80 ex-soldiers who fought against the federal government during the 1967-70 Biafra War. The decision was announced on Tuesday at the end of a meeting of the National Council of State, which comprises the president and governors of the country 36 states. The main beneficiaries were soldiers who had left the Nigerian armed forces to join the army of the shortlived republic of Biafra. "This pardon wipes out the stigma of dismissal," said Ogun State Governor Segun Osoba, who briefed reporters at the end of the meeting. The soldiers were also restored to their former ranks, making them eligible for retirement benefits 32 years after the end of the civil war. Southeastern Nigeria, then governed by Col Emeka Ojukwu, declared itself an independent state called Biafra following massacres in northern Nigeria in which tens of thousands of people, mainly Igbos from the southeast, lost their lives. Thirty-six months of fighting followed and more than one million people, mostly Igbos, died in what was then described as Africa’s worst modern war. Ojukwu himself was pardoned in 1981. That enabled him to return to Nigeria after a 10-year exile in Cote d’Ivoire.