Nigeria’s High Commissioner to India, Chris Ezeh, has said the ongoing Operation Python Dance II, aimed at fighting crime and criminalities in the South East, was justified going by the volume of hate speech the leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Nnamdi Kanu was making to incite Igbos against the sovereignty of the country.
According to him, hate speeches like those attributed to Kanu sparked the Rwandan Genocide and the Adolf Hitler-inspired Second World War, in which over six million Jews were killed.
In an exclusive chat with DAILY POST, he said: “On the justification or lack of it of Nnamdi Kanu’s agitations, the government has not said they have any problem with Nnamdi Kanu for expressing views that are in consonance with Nigerian law or constitution.
“What the federal government is saying through Operation Python Dance is that hate speech is not acceptable and it is true, because the Rwandan experience is there. It started with hate speech. If you read the history of World War II you will find that Hitler’s oratory and what he was saying about the Jews ended in six millions of them being killed, if historical figures are anything to go by.
“I want to point out that the job of virtually all armies now is more deterrent that fighting war so as to stop the war from breaking out in the first place.
“That being the case, if we site military units in such a way that young people who are always the target of agitators see what is available to the state if they go into confrontation with the state, I think it will help.”
He expressed happiness over the exchange of visits by governors and traditional rulers from the South-East and the Northern region; saying “the right way to go about agitation is dialogue amongst leaders that are introspective as opposed to raising the temperatures of the youths who many times do not really objectively reflect on what they do.”
He added: “Government has committed itself to the root cause of those agitations and the Party is also taking proactive steps about that. I think looking ahead we are going to have a better nation for that.”
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