Former Minister of Labour Chris Ngige has lauded the late ex-President Muhammadu Buhari as a patriotic soldier who fought to crush secessionists of South-Eastern extraction to unite Nigeria.

In an interview with Arise TV published on Monday, after Mr Buhari’s demise on Sunday, Mr Ngige lauded Buhari as a civil war veteran who fought to keep Nigeria as one.

“Nigerians should know he is a patriot. He (Buhari) is a man who loves Nigeria. He fought the civil war to keep Nigeria as one, though my people from the South-East will not acknowledge that fact. But he did it,” Mr Ngige said.

The former minister recalled the discussion he had with Mr Buhari in which the late former president recounted how he prosecuted the civil war without taking a leave.

“I told him (Buhari) I also fought in the war. He then recounted his experience of how General Danjuma always sent him to where the war was thick because he knew he would not say no, and while other officers were taking leave to go home, he would be there for General Danjuma,” Mr Ngige said.

Mr Ngige’s statement echoes Mr Buhari’s stance on the war in 2022. Then, Mr Buhari recalled how they killed over one million people to keep the country as one.

Amid unrest in the South-East in 2021, Mr Buhari sparked uproar when he vowed that the Igbos would “soon have the shock of their lives,” while referencing his role during the 1967 Biafra war, where over a million people were gruesomely killed.

“Many of those misbehaving today are too young to be aware of the destruction and loss of lives that occurred during the Nigerian Civil War,” his now-deleted post on X said. “Those of us in the fields for 30 months, who went through the war, will treat them in the language they understand.”

Although the war was not properly documented, an estimated three million people were reportedly killed during the war.