Professor Pat Utomi, a development economist, has drawn the attention of Nigerians to the unchecked activism going on amongst users on Social Media recently, particularly regarding Biafra.
According to him, some social media users encourage discord amongst Nigerians with the kind of content they put on their platforms which are highly prone to encourage and may ignite another civil war if left unbridled.
Utomi, who said this during an interview with Channels Television, which was reported by The Nation Newspaper,recalled the circumstances which led Nigeria into Biafra war.
He said that although the likes of Nnamdi Azikwe made efforts to ensure that there was no war, the young leaders however gunned for what he described as the second worst genocide of the 20th century.
He said ;
“Nothing much has been learnt because we kept sweeping issues under the table.
“What really created the problem was the ego and competition of the power brokers because we didn’t create the public sphere for rational public conversation.
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“While the more mature people, like the late Dr Nnamdi Azikwe, tried to prevent that war from happening, some younger people, who were not so mature but had authorities, headed elsewhere.”
“The Twitter and Facebook fellows are moving us (Nigerians) close to the state that I saw in 1966.
“We haven’t learnt much, but there is still much time to begin.
“The Nigerian Civil War was terrible in terms of the number of lives lost. I dare also to say that the Nigerian Civil War is the second worst genocide of 20th century.”