A former military head of state, General Yakubu Gowon (rtd) has revealed what transpired before the Nigerian civil war between himself and former Biafra warlord, Odumegwu Ojukwu.
OsunDailyNG reports that Gowon narrated what led to the war during an interview with Daily Trust to mark his 90th birthday.
During the interview, Gowon restated his belief in a united Nigeria, stressing that he does not regret his actions during the civil war.
Asked by the interviewer about what actually transpired between him and Ojukwu in Aburi, Ghana, Gowon narrated: โWell, Ojukwu used to say, โOn Aburi we standโ and I would say, โFrom Aburi you will fall.
โThe story of Aburi is that we had been trying everything to be able to meet in Nigeria to resolve all the unfortunate things that happened โ the killings and all the katakata after the January 15 coup. I was to go to Ibadan the following day, but I was informed that I could not go because there was a reception for officers coming into the brigade โ officers like me being posted to that brigade and others from the brigade being posted out. There was a reception by the brigade commander for officers like me and others and I had to attend on that Friday night to ensure that I did the correct thing in that unit. So, that evening I went for the reception, and when it ended, I moved to Ikeja to stay for the night.
โUnfortunately, late that night, there was commotion. I was wondering what it was, but nobody told me anything. And I was to take over the battalion the following morning. Then there was movement of troops and vehicles in the unit. After some time, it died down. But after another two to three hours, there was greater movement and commotion and I was wondering what was happening. There was a beagle calling all the troops to a master parade. I was wondering and looking through the window to see what was happening. Luckily, I saw one of the officers, the adjutant of the unit, Captain Martin Ademo, now late. He later became a General. I saw him passing by the duplex, a temporary quarter that I was to stay since the commanding officerโs residence was not ready yet for occupation.
โI asked what was happening but he wouldnโt say anything, so I decided to go down and find out. When I met him and asked what the commotion was about, he said General Aguiyi Ironsi, who was the General Officer Commanding (GOC), came and told them that there was some crisis in town affecting the prime minister, Tafawa Balewa and Okotie Eboh, the finance minister and he had come to seek some assistance to see if he could deal with the problem. My first reaction was: Why Ironsi? Why not the brigadier because the chain of command should have come through him? Ironsi should have told the brigadier, who would have related to the battalion commander.
โHowever, I asked where he was and he said he was at the master parade area. So I had to change into civil clothes to see what was happening. When we got there, he briefed me, saying that he wanted some units to be prepared so that they could go and deal with the situation. When he finished, he asked if there were questions.
โI did not know that by that time, all the senior officers from my school โMaimalari, Kur Mohammed, Abo Baladinma, Yakubu Pam โ had been killed. One of my good friends, Arthur Unegbe, from Ozobulu was also killed and I didnโt know.
โI went and I got the Quarter Master to get me some military uniforms, boots, hat etc and I went into town. Luckily enough, we were able to deal with the coup in Lagos. But in Kaduna, they succeeded in killing the premier, his wife and other officials. They were certainly in command, but at least in Lagos, which was the headquarters, we were in charge. I was able to get all the other units to make sure that at least they did not go along with what had just happened. That was how I got involved. I tried to get things under control.
โHowever, it got to a stage when the leadership could not do anything to put things right. But we tried to see if we could meet within the country.
โOf course, Ojukwu said that with what happened, he could not be sure of his safety. He asked if we could also go to the East or Mid-west, which was supposed to be neutral, for a meeting since the whole thing seemed to be North versus East.
โWe got one of the British Airways aircraft for us to meet in the air or on one of the British naval ships. Every effort was made, both by Nigerians and the British for us to meet, but in the end, we had to agree to meet in Aburi. That was where it all started.
โI think we went there early January. And as far as I am concerned, we were going for that meeting so that we could agree as military officers.
โWhen I went, I did not take my secretary to the government and officials like advisers. But of course, Ojukwu had a different intention, so he came with all his advisers and prepared a memorandum, which he wanted to be the solution to the problem, as if we were to do an agreement in a class. I said no.
โI joked with him and said he came with a pink solution paper. At our training in senior courses, students wrote on a white paper, but the staff had another green paper or something, and the solution paper was usually pink.
โIt was from his paper that he was reading all the conditions, things he wanted done. We discussed them. We had two days there. The agreement was that when we got back, I would be the one to make a statement on the areas we agreed on.
โUnfortunately, I was down with a very serious fever; and honestly, I could not do anything. As soon as Ojukwu got back, he made a statement on what was agreed. I had not seen the document he was using. He made a statement that we had agreed to part or something like that. And early in the morning, David Ejoor called to tell me what Ojukwu had done (I was still on a sickbed).
โI asked if that was what we agreed and he said no. That was how the confusion started. Of course, when I got better, we disagreed because that was not the agreement. We were going to discuss most of these things in Nigeria; however, that did not happen. So we had to ensure that something was done.
โOjukwu then started doing all sorts of things, disobeying federal governmentโs instructions, taking over governmentโs revenue, all the rolling stock from Port Harcourt and hijacking the Nigerian Airwaysโ aircraft etc.
โA lot of things were happening. Security-wise, people were disappearing etc and the fault was put on northern soldiers. The information was that there were some elements among the recruitment made at that time. There were some bad eggs using the opportunity of being in the military to settle scores.
โOjukwu said his Constituent Assembly said he could break away to form Biafra.
โFrom some of the intelligence I was receiving, it was just a step to the next thing. That was when I created a state of emergency and 12 states to make sure that no region in Nigeria was marginalised because there was the fear of the monolithic North. And the minority group in the East, Biriye, Briggs and others did not want to go along with the agreement given to Ojukwu. They personally came to me several times. I created 12 states to make sure that no place is too big or too strong to threaten the unity of the country.
โLagos State was made up of Lagos central, Epe, Ikeja and Badagry, that was for the old colony of Lagos to become a state of its own. That was probably one of the reasons that after the civil war, the security situation made us to think of establishing a new capital in Abuja so that at least the federal government and a state would not stay in one place. We knew that Lagos was going to remain the commercial capital of the country, as well as the engineer of national activities.
โShagari was my commissioner for finance, and one of the instructions I left for him was that when they were doing the budget, he should make sure that he had some money kept for planning and building the infrastructure of the future capital of Nigeria in Abuja.
โNot that I didnโt want to return the country to democracy, but when I was about to do it, politicians had started going at each other. You can remember the popular statement, โIf you Tarka me, I Dabo you, if you Dabo me, I Tarka youโ.
โHonestly, I did not want a sort of situation reflective of what happened before the first coup.
โI donโt know what version you heard, but in the end, we had to meet in Benin, me and all the governors at the time to discuss the Aburi agreement and put it in the true context. We invited Ojukwu to be there but he did not come. The only thing I included, which probably made him not to accept it, was that there was no chance for any part of the country to secede without the agreement of two-third of the members of the group. But as soon as we left, Ejoor told me that Ojukwu came to find out what it was.โ