More takeaways from Gowon’s book launch

The launch of General Yakubu Gowon’s autobiography, My Life of Duty and Allegiance, which took place at the International Conference Centre, Abuja, in the penultimate week, took the media space by storm. Gowon, who had been Nigeria’s Head of State during the country’s most tumultuous periods (1966-1975), had refrained from penning a memoir for all […]

The launch of General Yakubu Gowon’s autobiography, My Life of Duty and Allegiance, which took place at the International Conference Centre, Abuja, in the penultimate week, took the media space by storm. Gowon, who had been Nigeria’s Head of State during the country’s most tumultuous periods (1966-1975), had refrained from penning a memoir for all these years. This was ostensibly to avoid stepping on toes and rousing old skeletons. This was even though his image as Head of State had suffered dents from many books written by his traducers. On the other hand, his admirers had always pressured him to write, but he did not relent.

Now that he has decided to speak out, we came out in droves to listen to him. The Kashim Shettima Hall was filled to the brim with speaker after speaker pouring encomiums on the general. You could see that he revelled in the adulation that came pouring on him. His speech, the crowning moment of the ceremony, was a testimony to that.

Many of the issues that came up in the speeches and were also covered in the book will remain controversial. But they will add value to the debate, nonetheless. I can see with Gowon on his relationship with Col Ojukwu, the rebel leader who was clearly intransigent and was set to dismember the country. I can understand his conduct of the war and the magnanimity he extended to the rebel army and its cohorts.

However, many would disagree with Gowon’s view that he was betrayed by those he trusted in the army when they overthrew him in 1975. He had fought a good war, which ended in January 1970, and in October of the same year, had set 1st October 1976 as the date he would hand over power to civilians. Only four years later, in 1974, he decided to renege on that promise, saying that 1976 was unrealistic and without setting another date in the foreseeable future. We were university undergraduates at the time and witnessed the general frustration among both politicians and the public. This largely set the stage for the coup that ousted him.

I believe the 1975 coup can be likened to a coup de grace, a merciful blow to his tottering regime. By easing him out, the coupists helped to preserve his life and his legacy. It was a very popular coup celebrated from one end of the country to the other. The leaders of the coup acted on their promises with relentless alacrity. The new generals on the scene, Murtala Mohammed, Obasanjo, Danjuma, Shehu Musa Yar’Adua, Abdullahi Mohammed, Joseph Garba, reinvigorated governance, taking decisive actions that transformed the country.

One issue that caught my attention was the relocation of the federal capital from Lagos. Gowon claimed to be the originator of the idea. The reviewer of the book, Bishop Hassan Kukah, referred to Abuja as Gowon’s baby. From my perspective, it wasn’t. In fact, if it were left to Gowon, the capital would never have left Lagos. The moment he announced his intention to seek another capital, influential Lagos elites and businesspeople put pressure on him to back out. He even approved the construction of a new federal secretariat in Lagos while he was contemplating moving to the hinterland. The fact was that even though Gowon wanted to move out of Lagos, he lacked the political will to do so.

I also observed the incongruity of naming Bishop Matthew Hassan Kukah as a book reviewer. The bishop, a normally divisive figure, should not have been given the prominence to review an autobiography of General Yakubu Gowon, a beloved national figure. Bishop Kukah will seize any opportunity to rail against Northern unity. And he did so in his review, dredging up the issue of Gowon’s defeat by Dr Dalhatu Tafida in the Option A4 election in Zaria, in the early 1990s.

Bishop Kukah said, “We like to humour ourselves in the north that there are no religious differences among us.” Yet when Gowon stood for election in Zaria, “the prospect of his victory in the election brought out the worst in the political elite. In the end, logically, a little-known Dalhatu Tafida, a medical doctor, scored 165 votes, while Gowon scored 29!” I am sure the bishop knows that in this country, as it is elsewhere, politics is local. Gowon lost in Zaria, not because of his Christian faith but because he was never on the ground. In the early 1990s, when the election took place, Gowon had been away from Zaria for a considerable length of time.

During that period, Dr Dalhatu Tafida had built up a flourishing career around the locality. He is a renowned medical practitioner who served Kaduna State as Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Health before becoming the Chief Physician to President Shehu Shagari from 1979 to 1983. From 1984-1987, Tafida served as a commissioner in Kaduna State in the ministries of health, education and agriculture. Definitely, Dr Tafida was more on the ground and was more likely to have won in any contest against Gowon in Zaria City.

After all, as it played later, we saw how President Obasanjo lost the election in the South West in 1999 and, more recently, how President Bola Tinubu lost to Peter Obi in Lagos in 2023.