General Yakubu Gawon came to power by accident. He had been in the country barely six months when his group struck and was said to have been a compromise candidate in the coup that brought him to power on July29, 1966. As the newly-appointed Chief of Staff of the Nigeria Army, he was the most senior army officer when the avenging northerners decided to stage a counter coup against the Ibo dominated government of Major General J T U Aguiyi Ironsi. Four Ibo middle level officers and one Yoruba led by Major Patrick Chukumah Nzeogwu had masterminded the first military coup in January 15, 1966 which whipped out the cream of Northern political and military leadership. Those killer included five brigadiers; as well as the premier, the Sardauna of Sokoto, Sir AHAMADU Bello and the prime Minister Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa.
Gowon himself survived the first coup by fate (a power black out in his room was said to have saved his life on January 15).
He succeeded Brigadier Kur Muhammed as Army Chief of Staff after the coup. In the January coup, the Head of State, General Ironsi and his host, Colonel Adekunle Fajuyi, governor of the West, as well as tens of thousands of Ibo civilians and other southerners living in the north were massacred in a pogrom which set the stage for the civil war which lasted from July 6, 1967 till January 15, 1970. General Ironsi had promulgated the 'Unification Decree (No 34)' on May 24, 1966 which attempted to abolish the federal structure of Nigeria and imposed a unitary system unilaterally. The northerners, still smarting from the murders of their civilian leaders and military top brass in the January coup, kicked and within four days, civil disturbances and riots broke out in the north. A mutiny in the Beja Barracks of the Nigeria Army in Ibadan followed.
The mutiny of July 29, 1966 saw the emergence of a soft-spoken and a wistfully shy 32 year-old bachelor in the person of Lt-Colonel Yakubu Gowon as the new head of state. He had been installed in high office by his group of coup-makers in place of mutiny leader, Major Murtala Muhammed, on account of his seniority. He belonged to the small Angas tribe in the Middle Belt, an attractive credential in the circumstances. Furthermore, he was counted as a plus at that time because the perpetrators did not want the world to think that that their coup was an ethnic war plot to recover lost political grounds from the predominantly Catholic Ibo. The coup makers did not want to give the impression that it was a holy war or a religious conflict. Gowon suited purpose perfectly so long as he remembered who put him in power.
In his maiden broadcast to the nation on August 1, 1966, the
new Superior Gaffer said:
This is Lt. Colonel Yakubu Gowon, Chief of Staff of Army, speaking to you. The year 1966 has been a fatal year for our beloved country. I have been brought to the position today of having to shoulder the grave responsibility of this country with the consent of the majority of the Armed Forces and members of the Supreme Military Council as a result of the unfortunate incident that occurred last Friday. But for the outstanding discipline and loyalty of the great majority of the Army, the situation could have degenerated into war.
He was the right trooper stationed in the right position at the right time. The Lieutenant-colonel was propelled to power at the last minute by his Northern compatriots even when he was not the principal architect of the coup. Apart from Major Murtala Muhammed, the bulk of the coup makers, including Captain Joseph Garba, came from middle Belt Junior ranks. Lt. Theophilus Danjuma, who led the state regicide operation which seized the head of state and his host, we also from the Middle Belt. It was essentially a Middle Belt coup but Gowon was happy that "Since the end of July, God in his power has entrusted the responsibility of this great country of ours into the hands of yet another Northerner" in those heady days.
According to Ruth First's account of the coup in her book, The Barrel of a Gun (Pengun, 1970) p. 319, the mutineers had converged at the Ikeja barracks to consider their options and abducted General Aguiyi Ironsi in Ibadan shortly after been feted to a state banquet at the Government House.
Nothing had been seen of Gowon since his arrival at the Ikeja barracks where the mutiny was brewing and where he had gone to look at the trouble. There, the 2nd Battalion's other ranks had taken over the operation and ordered their officers aside ad they went about their business of killing Ibos. Gowon had been placed under guard on Major Murtala Muhammad's orders; but as the coup got under way, he graduated from hostage to nominee of the NCOs as commander in chief.
According to First, Major Murtala Muhammed was the 'evil genius behind the coup' but it was executed by the non-commissioned Middle Belt officers who preferred Gowon, from their region, to speak for them as he gained their confidence. By
the army's command structure, Brigadier Babafemi Ogundipe, a Yoruba, should have taken over after Ironsi's ouster but the northern mutineers would not take his orders when he tried to take over command in Lagos and re-impose discipline within the ranks. He had been rendered redundant under Ironsi as he was not given any major role to play. While middle-level Ibo officers were given major commands in 80 per cent of country's army formations, Ogundipe, the second most senior officer in the country was given janitorial duties of reallocating flats vacated by ex-federal ministers, according to Col. Alexander Madiebo in his book on the civil war. He went on exile to Britain aboard a British ship, Mo Auriel, as Nigeria's ambassador shortly after the coup in July. (He died there within a year.)
It took the coup makers four days to settle for Gowon as helmsman of the Armed Forces and the nation.
From the 29 July till August 1 when Gowon declared himself the head of state in a radio speech, the nation held its breadth. At first, the coup makers wanted out of Nigeria altogether and
coined the codeword, Araba, for their separatist operation. They had seized a commercial plane to move their dignitaries out of Lagos for their exodus to their beloved North. The British, using their diplomats in Lagos, implored them to save Nigeria's unity. They changed their minds about seceding from the Federation when they were reminded that the North would be economically strangulated as they would have no access to the sea as a sovereign nation, as their civilian leaders had been told by British officials when they first threatened to secede in 1953. At the last moment, the coup makers decided to abandon secession and stay put in the Federation.
When the chips were down, Gowon's radio speech on August 1, 1966 at 11.25 am denouncing Nigeria's unity which he wanted to broadcast was amended at the very last minute.
In a dramatic about-turn, he opted to accept the onerous task of re-asserting national unity while repudiating the unitary system imposed by General Ironsi's Decree No 34 as unworkable:
The basis for unity was not there. It has been been badly rocked not once but several times. I strongly believe that we cannot honestly and sincerely continue this wise, as the basis for trust and confidence in our unitary system of government has not been able to stand the test of time. I therefore feel that we should review the issue of our national standing, and see if we can help stop the country from drifting away into utter destruction. A unitary form of government did not provide a basis for Nigerian unity.
Spin doctors have tried but have not succeeded in manipulating the text of the disjointed broadcast to erase the impression that Gowon originally favoured the secession of the north from the
Federation. Gowon was persuaded to amend the speech at the last moment especially the first sentence in which he wanted to announce the secession of the North from the Federation. He merely crossed the word is to was.*
Even after Lt-Col Gowon was enthroned, the bloodletting" against the Igbos living in the Northern Region continued with increased ferocity. More civil unrests targeted at the Ibo broke out. Gowon had retained the services of all the three military governors (Hassan, Ojukwu, Ejoor) whom he inherited from Ironsi. He took steps to restore the federal system after repealing the 'unification decree'. It was a change of guards at the Centre and not the entire outfit. Nigeria was at the threshold of a civil war as Ojukwu, the most senior Ibo military leader, still held sway as military governor of the Eastern Region populated mainly by his compatriots. According to one of the leading actors (Brigadier Samuel Ogbemudia) in his memoir, Years of challenge, Ojukwu "saw in the sufferings of his people, a chance to assert his governorship by challenging the authority of the federal military government in Lagos, spurned all conciliatory gestures by General Gowon and preferred strife to compromise.
Forty-three the officers and 171 other ranks had been killed by the mutineers in the barracks in the north and Lagos in the wake of the counter coup. Many more thousands of Ibo civilians were maimed and killed in the renewed strife in the North in spite of Major Hassan's efforts to stem the tide. Lt-Colonel Gowon had lamented this sorry state of affairs in his maiden radio broadcast: The country had been beset with disturbances, the
political repercussions of which had culminated in the very serious and grave situation.
Unable to stop the spill-over of the pogrom, he tried to placate Ojukwu and his brethren to no avail after the bloodbath. He directed that fresh recruitment into the Army should be drawn from the indigenous population of each of the four Regions. He also agreed that serving officers and the 'rank-and-file' should withdraw to their Regions of origin although this could not be accomplished immediately in the case of the Western Region
where Northern troops dominated the infantry and other ranks. This was to douse the mounting tension and distrust in the land. He appeared sober and tried to atone for his people's sins.
In the early days, there was little doubt about Gowon's sincerity, soft mien, humility, simplicity and reluctance to rule the country or lord it over others. He was fish out of water in politics. Some have gone as far as saying he was the paragon of modesty in the early days. His compatriot, Major Murtala Muhammed wanted to march on Enugu right away but he dissuaded him.
Here was the 'Supreme Commander' of the Armed Forces of 55 million people agreeing to surrender his title for the less-grandiose one of Commander-in-Chief on the insistence of Ojukwu at the Peace Conference in Aburi, Ghana. Ojukwu suggested in Aburi that the Supreme Military Council, which included the four military governors of the regions, should exercise legislative and executive authority with its chairman, Gowon, as a mere titular head'. Gowon nodded along and ignored the counsel of the hawks of hard-stance and war and was ready, and indeed eager to appease the aggrieved Igbos. He was a reluctant warrior and indeed a reluctant player in political governance. In the British tradition, his Sandhurst training and modest political instincts did not prepare him for the klieg lights of politics. He was trained as a soldier to defer to the civilian leadership, never to descend to the low depths of usurping power. He was almost a shy public figure, and his modesty and comportment endeared him to millions of his countrymen in the critical early days of the crisis of confidence brewing among the diverse ethnic groups in the country.
He organized an ad-hoc constitutional conference which brought in Leaders of Thought, mostly politicians, from the four Regions to Lagos to fashion out a new constitutional arrangement shortly after the Ghana peace parley. His plan was probably to surrender power to the civilians again 'as soon as practicable'. In one of his first press conferences, he told reporters: "There will be a return to civilian rule very soon and I mean it.
Very soon is very soon."
But this was overtaken by uncontrollable events. The constitutional conference was aborted by the renewed civil disturbances in the north and it had to be called off. Gowon thereafter offered the olive branch again to the aggrieved Igbos with the hope of clearing the deck and even the Aegean stable. He appealed to all the ethnic groups in the country to eschew tribal animosities and co-exist in true brotherhood.
Ojukwu, by contrast, was haughty and pensive with his flamboyant speeches, self-confidence, sorrowful sternness and rigid posture and he kept on raving about the illegality of the Northern counter coup and Gowon being too junior in the army hierarchy (he was sixth in the existing order of seniority) to take over control as Supreme Commander. He was greatly saddened by the killings in the north and he welcomed his fleeing brethren back to their homeland in hundreds of thousands. Ojukwu, who said 50,000 Igbos perished in the pogrom, seized many federal assets and establishments in his domain and flatly refused to recognize the authority of Gowon in Lagos whom he called a usurper especially as the coup-makers did not admit to having killed Ironsi but merely declared the head of state as 'missing'. Ojukwu was hurt that his compatriot had lost federal power. Observers noted that Ojukwu had not complained about the ill-fated Unification Decree (No 34) promulgated to enhance Ibo hegemony.
Ojukwu insisted that if the head of state was merely missing, the next most senior officer, Brigadier Babafemi Ögundipe, ought to take over as Supreme Commander in an army where
discipline existed. Even if Ogundipe had been too weak to take over, Colonel Adeyinka Adebayo, another Yoruba, who arrived from an overseas course the day before the coup was next in line, as he was Gowon's senior in the army. (But Col. Adebayo was not privy to the coup.) Gowon ignored the hierarchy and appointed himself head of state and the colonel as military governor of the West.
"The next person steps in," insisted Ojukwu at the Aburi conference. "Discipline is sine qua non for any organization which prides itself in being called an army." He had not protested when Ogundipe was side-lined under Ironsi and he failed to mention that in an army where indeed discipline reigned, a coup d'état to displace an elected democratic government was out of the question in the first place. Ojukwu talked like a puritan who disapproved of military intervention in politics but
unlike Gowon, Ojukwu felt at home in Government House, Enugu. Indeed, he seemed to relish the trappings of power and appeared to take delight in exercising political authority. It was said that he opted for the army as a wealthy upstart and an Oxford graduate purposely to acquire power. It has also been argued in several quarters that Ojukwu's rebellious mood at that time, as a defender of his people's interest, should be viewed with sympathy. In all the actions leading to secession, it was said by his sympathisers, that he tried to carry his people along; sought their consent through a makeshift Constituent Assembly and obtained their mandate. This school of thought said he did not act alone.
All in all, Gowon was patient and tactful when Ojukwu embarked on his ill-fated mission to pull the East (Ibo, Efik, Ijaw and Ibibio) out of Nigeria and dismember the country. Ojukwu was in a rebellious mood and held Gowon in total contempt. As aforementioned, Ghana's military rulers, spurred on by British diplomats, tried to mediate in the ensuing crisis by inviting Gowon, Ojukwu and the three other military governors to Aburi, Ghana, for a peace parley where all the hard issues were to be straightened out in January 1967. Gowon, displaying his acclaimed modesty for the world to ponder, declined to preside as chairman at the conference.
"We are all co-chairmen", he remarked for the world press to take note. He remained calm and calculated in trying to advertise his credentials as a dove while allowing Ojukwu to do all the hectoring throughout the peace proceedings. Clever Gowon displayed his calm nature in Aburi while the rash, sombre-looking and fully-bearded Ojukwu was perceived by the outside world as a hawk who was not averse to pressing his advantage to the warfronts. (Ojukwu, defying army regulations, refused to shave to protest the pogrom of his beloved Igbos.)
Ojukwu pressed his advantage and led the discussions as the whiz-kid of the day. He seized the central stage and dominated the discussions at Aburi with the other participants nodding along on practically all his proposals and blueprint in their eagerness to sue for peace and avert civil war. An exasperated Hassan confronted Ojukwu at one stage during the parley when others were becoming spectators and asked him bluntly if he would only recognize a Supreme Commander if he was Ibo. Their host, Ghana's General Ankrah and Col. Adebayo, the Western governor, tried to act as mediators. All the participants except Ojukwu disavowed the resort to war as a solution to the crisis. Ojukwu would only go along the path of a peaceful resolution so long as it was agreed that Nigeria should become a confederation. As far as he was concerned, the Federation of Nigeria was dead. Gowon nodded and a Confederation of Nigeria was in the offing. When he, his advisers and the other governors returned home, top-notch federal civil servants took a hard look at the 'Aburi Accord' and persuaded the federal government to nullify and jettison most of its con-federal jargon. Ojukwu was not to be allowed to get away with this 'con-federation package' which was thought to be a first step in the inevitable dismemberment of the union. Ojukwu was very angry and his propaganda machine spared no words in berating the turn-coat Gowon.
As Ojukwu beat the drums of war from his enclave in Enugu, a federal war bulletin, Unity in Diversity - To keep Nigeria one is a task that must be done (1967), propagated:
Once it appeared Ojukwu might still be brought into the fold, the other leaders agreed to meet him outside Nigeria at Aburi in Ghana. At the conference, Major General Yakubu Gowon conceded to share his powers with the Supreme Military Council to placate Ojukwu. But no sooner Ojukwu returned to Enugu than he went back to his old game to split Nigeria.
In retracing his steps from the Aburi 'disaster', Gowon capitalised on the bland and vague communiqué which had been issued at the end of the talks in Ghana. He did not think he was doing anything dishonourable in amending the gentleman's agreement reached in Aburi and indeed, he felt he had acted patriotically at a critical moment before the nation was being handed over to the hangman by Ojukwu and his stalwarts.
Gowon convinced himself and the rest of the country that he had saved the nation from imminent disaster and disintegration.
On his part, Ojukwu was indignant at this volte-face and decided to stop any further cooperation with Gowon and his federal military government. His sing-song became: On Aburi we stand. This soon degenerated into a battle cry and the clouds of war began to gather in the Nigerian firmament ominously. He spurned a settlement pact proposed by the National Conciliation Committee which brokered peace when the battle cries reached a fever pitch. Ojukwu's propaganda machine was simply put, brilliant. He assembled a loud-mouthed band of war-mongers who filled the airspace with foul broadcasts of a revenge-war and mayhem. (By contrast, the federal response in this war of words and wit was low-key and almost inept.) Colonel Ojukwu was winning the psychological war on air and putting the federal authorities on notice.
The federal government saw the handwriting on the wall. Ojukwu's boast about self-determination for the Eastern Region was heard on Enugu radio every hour, twenty-four hours everyday. If Gowon was not careful, Ojukwu could cut out his republic and march on Lagos to boot. If Gowon folded his arms hoping for the best, Ojukwu could be emboldened not only to secede but even extend his frontiers to the federal capital in Lagos to create a Dominion of Southern Nigeria. In that event, Gowon and his routed compatriots would then have to scamper and run for their lives by finding their way back to their beloved Northern Region where they could found their own republic. Nigeria would have dissolved into autonomous republics. Gowon and his advisers, including the British who had founded Nigeria in 1914, objected to that. He acted in self defence and saved the nation in a masterstroke. While Ojukwu boasted on radio, Gowon was busy assembling his hardware and war machinery with the British showing a keen interest.
On March 17, 1967, Gowon promulgated a decree to implement the revised agreement. The Nigerian Army was to be controlled by the Supreme Military Council led by Gowon and his official title changed from Supreme Commander to Commander-in-Chief. As agreed in Aburi, Gowon surrendered absolute power as Supreme Commander. But he managed to insert a new section into this decree which permitted the Council under his leadership to take appropriate measures" against any region that might act to 'endanger the continuance of the federal government in Nigeria'. A state of emergency could be declared against such a region by the head of state if three of the four military governors concurred. Side-lined, Ojukwu was alarmed and angry.
On his part, Gowon reckoned that he had taken a middle course. When he was convinced that Ojukwu was not going to accept any compromise on the road to secession, he took the bull by the horns and decreed the creation of twelve states out of the old four Regions with three of them from the old Eastern Region on 27 May. Gowon declared in a speech creating new states that "the main obstacle to future stability in this country is the present structural imbalance in the Nigerian Federation". The Ibo were confined to the landlocked East Central State and at last, the minorities in Cross Rivers and Rivers states had their way. Gowon also declared a state of emergency and assumed full emergency powers as commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces of Nigeria. Gowon's advisers thought he had scored a coup de grace. By creating the states before Ojukwu could declare secession, the federal government could go to war to defend the minorities - Efik, Ibibio and Ijaw in those states and win international sympathy to the bargain:
The scheme of creating new states and its timing was an operational decision for an imminent war rather than part of a carefully structured new constitution for a more equitable distribution of power in a new federation. It calculated on turning the minority areas of the East into its soft under-belly, and on depriving the Ibos of Port Harcourt, their outlet to the sea, as well as most of the oil in the region.
Ruth First, The Barrel of a Gun, (Penguin, 1970)
Ojukwu's immediate reaction to the federal measures was to summon a Constituent Assembly which proclaimed an independent 'Republic of Biafra' on May 30, 1967. Gowon declared a police action' to crush the rebellion since all his appeasement efforts had failed. He also brought in civilian politicians from the erstwhile Opposition ranks and the minority areas
into his administration and appointed their opinion leaders as ministers. Aminu Kano, Obafemi Awolowo (vice chairman), Joseph Tarka and Anthony Enahoro were named as federal
commissioners. Ukpabi Asika, a university lecturer, appointed by Gowon to govern the East Central state (from Lagos) once Ojukwu declared his separation. Gowon also instructed the state military governors to appoint leading politicians in their areas into their administrations as commissioners.
Nigeria and Biafra were at war within five weeks on
1967. Within a few months, on August 9, Ojukwu extended the theatre of war to include the neutral Midwest Region when he was losing grounds on the Nsukka, Ogoja and Bonny sectors and Gowon was forced to declare a full-scale war to preserve
the nation's territorial integrity with his famous battle-cry: 'To keep Nigeria one, is a task that must be done'.
The civil war lasted for two and a half years and it cost the federal authorities £200 million sterling to accomplish victory over the rebel forces in January 1970. Ojukwu's forces were outflanked because apart from two small African countries which gave partial international recognition, no major world
power gave him material or moral support. France tried to send some covert combat material backing but it was not enough to counter Russian military supplies with which the federalists waged aerial bombardments which succeeded in cutting off
Biafran seaports and lifeline to the outside world. When the rebels surrendered formally in Lagos on January 10, 1970, Ojukwu had fled the previous day to the Ivory Coast to avoid capture but Gowon refused to seek revenge on his lieutenants or the Ibo people - a wise course of action which consolidated his reputation as a magnanimous victor.
"Like Lincoln, he was born to poor, reached high office by a combination of sheer honesty and hard
God-fearing parents and work. Like Lincoln, he has seen his nation at war, and like him, he has dedicated his life to the task of reconciliation and nation building," enthused The Guardian (London) two days after the cessation of hostilities on January 12, 1970. According to the paper, Gowon became head of state through 'hard work'.
Gowon was born in Garam, Pankshin local government, on October 19, 1934 to Christian parents who were evangelists of the Church Missionary Society. He was of the Angas tribe from
the Middle-belt part of the old Northern Nigeria. He attended St. Bartholomew's CMS School, Wusasa, Zaria, between 1939 and 1949. For a poor boy with a quick mind, he went through the training ground of the Government College, Zaria, (now Barewa College) in 1950 and earned his school certificate in 1953. He joined the army in 1954 and was sent to Regular Officers' special training school in Teshie, Ghana. In January 1955, he went to Eaton Hall, Cheshire before enrolling at
Sandhurst where he trained till December 1956. In 1957, he attended the Young Officers' course at Hythe-and-Warminster, England. He returned to Nigeria and was posted to Ibadan as Adjutant with the 4th Battalion. He served with the UN
Peacekeeping Force as Staff Officer during the crisis in the Congo in 1960. He was Platoon Commander in Cameroon also in 1960. In 1962, he was appointed Brigade Major of the 3rd Nigerian Brigade. He was elevated to Lt-Colonel in 1963 when he became the Adjutant-General of the Nigerian Army. Later, he went back to England and enrolled at Camberley Staff College. When he finally returned in January 1966, he was appointed Army Chief of Staff in Lagos. When the Ibo officers
carried out the coup in January 1966, Gowon's name was on their death list but he escaped through a stroke of good fortune and a timely tip-off. When the counter-coup came six months
later, 'Jack' Gowon was named head of state and Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces.
This was the kind of short biography written by fawning editors in Britain which Gowon's handlers and public relations spokesmen were happy to endorse and circulate in Nigeria's diplomatic missions abroad in July 1966 at the onset of the civil war.
With the political crisis in full swing and Ojukwu determined to carve out his Republic of Biafra, if Gowon had not existed in July 1967, it would have been necessary to invent him if Nigeria was to remain as one country. If he could not be invented, Nigeria would surely have disintegrated. Voltaire's
maxim held true. It was Gowon's cool-headedness that warded off foreign interventionists (snooping for the oil riches) when hostilities between the federal side and Biafran forces broke out. Ojukwu's lamentations about the pogrom against his people at the height of the fratricidal war were largely
ignored by the international community. Only four African countries, Gabon, Ivory Coast, Tanzania and Zambia recognised Biafra. Britain, the Soviet Union, the United States, China and all the medium powers of the world backed the federal side. While the Western powers wavered, the Soviets and China backed the federal authorities to the hilt with arms sales and the munitions of war. The aggressive federal forces won crucial battles in spite of Ojukwu's boast that 'no power in Black Africa can defeat us'.
Biafra collapsed as Ojukwu and his high command bit the dust with their ragged band of ill-equipped, untrained soldiers and disgruntled foreign mercenaries.
The speech was disjointed because Gowon originally wrote that "the basis for Nigeria's unity is not there" and that the North was pulling out. Araba, which means parting ways, was their slogan. 80 per cent of the rank and file in the entire army at this time were from Gowon's Middle Belt. They closed ranks with their overlords, the Hausa/Fulani represented by Major Muhammed in the revenge coup against the Ibo in July 1966.
France sold some arms to Biafra, was lukewarm in extending recognition but encouraged Haiti, a tiny former French colony in the Caribbean, to recognize the still-born republic in 1969.