A former lawmaker has demanded an apology from Nigeria’s former military leader, Yakubu Gowon, over what he called a dangerous trivialization of the Biafran war.

Denge Onoh, who served in the Enugu State House of Assembly, was reacting to comments Gowon made in a recent interview. Gowon said that after the civil war, he visited former Biafran areas and noticed black spots on palm trees. He was told they were bullet marks. From that, he suggested most bullets fired by Nigerian soldiers hit trees, not people.

Onoh rejected that view entirely. He said it goes against what has been documented by historians, eyewitnesses, and international reports on the war.

“The Biafran war claimed an estimated three million lives,” Onoh said. Most of those deaths came from starvation and disease caused by the federal blockade. Others died from bombings, combat, and reprisal attacks.

Onoh said Gowon’s remarks ignore the real horrors of the war — the widespread malnutrition among children, the mass displacement, and the devastating human toll across the South-East.

“Reducing these horrors to bullets harmlessly striking palm trees does not withstand basic scrutiny,” Onoh said.

He insisted Gowon owes the Igbo people an apology.