Gen. Gowon: Salutation to our statesman

And this is even more critical these days when the subject and discipline of History has been Ill-advisedly yanked off our school curriculum! These two great men were struggling for the etching and moulding of the Nigerian state’s essence of becoming from two bitterest opposites of the divide of that historical struggle—one, Yakubu Gowon from […]

And this is even more critical these days when the subject and discipline of History has been Ill-advisedly yanked off our school curriculum! These two great men were struggling for the etching and moulding of the Nigerian state’s essence of becoming from two bitterest opposites of the divide of that historical struggle—one, Yakubu Gowon from the helms of power—the other, Wole Soyinka from within the prison walls, essentially in solitary confinement.
The first time I was privileged to encounter these two great heroes of Nigeria’s contemporary history was about ten years ago. The occasion, if my recollection does not suffer from the distortion of amnesia, was in Lagos. The occasion was the award ceremony of the Nigerian National Liquefied Gas Literature Prize. Those in the crowd who knew the history of the relationship between these great men expected, like I did then, a dramatic confrontation, of the negative specie, as they met, given the experience of their historical encounter during the fratricidal war whose scars and memories still roam our streets like ‘an open sore’, to borrow a memorable phrase of Wole Soyinka in his usually apt depiction of the sanguine state of our ‘gang-raped’ continent. And this is the essence of my major digression.
The memories of those years of bitterness (I believe it was not personal, even though people suffered in the extreme in very personal ways) seemed to have vanished and the two heroes shook hands expansively, with admirable conviviality and jollity—even with wise-cracks! Again, if you  want to recapture the depth of angst, pathos and passion that characterized those war years, then you should buy yourself a copy of Wole Soyinka’s The Man Died—memoirs of his years of imprisonment. But what transpired in that Muson, Agip Hall, a decade ago, was the demonstration of the unsurpassable power of forgiveness, of an appropriate interpretation of history which understood the personal, but non-personalized roles of great men in history-making—such that allowed ‘bygone’ to be bygone’ for the sake of the nation and its making.
When Wole Soyinka left prison, and I believe he and Gowon met or did not meet, Gowon was quoted to have appealed to Soyinka to let the past be and that they should move on with life. On this occasion, the greater grace and spirit of magnanimity weighed heavier with Soyinka as the predated-upon personage of that acutely painful and sordid experience. But the point I wish to make is that General Yakubu Gowon has continued to remonstrate that  spirit of humaneness and the triumph of grace that was etched into the aftermath of the war symbolized by the three Rs that are yet to be fully achieved by this nation—Reconciliation, Rehabilitation and Reconstruction. I have no doubt in my mind that General Yakubu Gowon, over the years, since he left the seat power in 1975, has cultivated and lived, to the best of public knowledge and as far as is sigh-table, a life of patriotic quest for a Nigeria that is united, peaceful and  reconciled with itself and its neighbours.
Many a Nigerian, who took far less symbolic role—in terms of power and leadership—than did Yakubu Gowon in those horrendous years (that is if we set aside for the moment the present ‘warfare ‘ raging through Book Haram’ mortal violence inflicted on the flesh and soul of the nation, just before this current ‘cease-fire’ thing which will be the greatest relief of our times and which we embrace with cautious optimism), carry on as if the Nigerian Civil War or the Nigerian Biafran War, depending on who is couching the title of that carnage, has just begun.
I am talking of people who ought to teach and lead us on the path of picking the positive lessons of that war and leaving behind the bizarre and painful dimensions of that needless war, but who have preferred to re-open the wounds for us relive and re-churn! General Yakubu Gowon, the key symbol of that war (along with the late Ikemba Odumegwu Ochukwu) has spared no space, time and vacancy to rally the national spirit towards national reconciliation and reconstruction of our various peoples, with diverse interests, ethno-national and ethno-religious identities.
In his personal life and carriage, General Gowon has remained an epitome of humility, disarming simplicity and profound nationalism. You may not choose his prayer-tude as a redemptive force for healing the brutalized and traumatized soul of the nation, but try as you may, you will not be able to fault the genuineness and sincerity of his devotion to the attainment of the national goals of a strong, indivisible Nigeria.
In his public appearances and utterances, General Yakubu Gowon has opted for the role of a statesman who wishes and nudges the nation, in all its socio-spiritual incoherence, obsolescence and dystopia, to imbibe the power of forgiveness and national love; to strive and  attain its national possibilities as the nation that is endowed to lead Africa on its destined path of becoming the continent of the twenty-first century. He has shunned the path of flamboyance, unbridled and rapacious greed after filthy lucre and obscene obsession with transient power. He has tried, with all his personal limitations, to offer the nation that he once led in a blood-letting fratricidal war, through the early phase a poorly- harvested and disingenuously utilized oil boom, which by and and large retracted to a mono-cultural economic doom before he was shoved aside by his professional kindred spirit, an olive branch. He has shown the way to redemption and spiritual cleansing through the essence of gathering our loins as a people toward a realizable destiny of hope, peace and security.
If we took the example of his humble and simple life with telling and instructive optimism, but with more purposeful and patriotic leadership, we may yet realize the dreams of our founding fathers of a nation where peace and justice reign. What else is there to do besides wishing our elder statesman, Jack Yakubu Gowon, a Happy Anniversary as he matches towards the next lap of the race of life as a fulfilled Octogenarian and a veritable elder statesman.