Re: Why Gowon must write his memoir

​My attention has been drawn to an article written by Ahmad Yahaya Joe which was published in your opinion column of 18th March, 2016 on page 57. While commending the writer and aligning myself to his plea, I write this rejoinder to reinforce his call/request for General Yakubu Gowon to write his Memoir, please. My […]

​My attention has been drawn to an article written by Ahmad Yahaya Joe which was published in your opinion column of 18th March, 2016 on page 57. While commending the writer and aligning myself to his plea, I write this rejoinder to reinforce his call/request for General Yakubu Gowon to write his Memoir, please. My support for Joe’s call is to reiterate my earlier personal request to General Gowon when I had the privilege of working as his staff at the Yakubu Gowon Centre (YGC), Abuja from 1998 to 2001.
I got to know the true pictures or at least the complete pictures of so many things from his own personal perspectives because I had the opportunity of working closely with him. But other Nigerians and indeed posterity need to know more.
Some of the issues that I raised in support of the need to have a Memoir from General Gowon include letting Nigerians and posterity to know what was on his mind during the civil war, how it was prosecuted and managed. We need to hear from the horse’s mouth General Gowon’s relationship with Lt. Colonel Bukar Suka Dimka and what he knew about the February 13th 1976 coup that claimed the life of General Murtala Muhammed.
I actually suggested the need for a Gowon Memoir because of the many issues that I later realized to be naked falsehoods which were over peddled to the extent that they are today accepted to be the truths against his person and government. He had told me a lot about these and many other issues to the extent that I quite often just pitied him because history of Nigeria, or so it seems, has not been fair or kind to him in my view.
That is why I am sincerely grateful to Yahaya Joe for this direct and frank call on General Gowon to publish his Memoir. I support that call. We need such publication now and posterity even needs it more, I am sure.
​Abdulrahman Mohammed Alfa, Garki, Abuja