Former military head of state General Ibrahim Babangida has disclosed that General Yakubu Gowon failed to deliver on his promise to the Igbo people that their lives would be protected in northern Nigeria. He claims that this resulted in the progrom in 1966, which killed hundreds of Igbo people in northern Nigeria.CONTINUE FULL READING>>>>>
The former military leader noted in his new book, “Journey in Service,” which was released in Abuja on Thursday, that tensions between him and Lt-Col. Emeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu began when Gowon, who was then Lt-Col. Yakubu Gowon, was appointed the new Commander-in-Chief of the Nigerian Armed Forces. He said that Ojukwu had rejected the choice to name Gowon as the Commander-in-Chief and head of state of the military in a broadcast from Enugu.
IBB claims that Ojukwu demanded that Brig. Babafemi Ogundipe, the most senior army commander at the time, serve as head of state in Aguiyi-Ironsi’s absence. According to Babangida, this increased national tension, and Gowon had to take action to rebuild trust in the nation.
“To create a path forward for the nation, Lt-Col. Gowon brought together regional politicians, known as Leaders of Thought,” he continued. According to IBB, Gowon’s decision to free Chief Obafemi Awolowo, the Yoruba leader, from Calabar prison in an attempt to defuse the crisis was what can only be called a political masterstroke.
With that action, Gowon gained the Yorubas’ much-needed support at a time when Obafemi was incarcerated in Calabar for treason. “Sadly, Gowon’s promises to the Igbo people that their lives would be safe in northern Nigeria were not kept,” he stated. Perhaps the most horrifying Igbo murders took place in several northern Nigerian locations on September 29, 1966, almost at the same time as the Leaders of Thought’s discussions in Lagos.
The murders were horrifying. Eastern Nigeria was overrun by a flood of refugees from almost every region of the country. Since the lives of Igbos outside of eastern Nigeria were in danger, Ojukwu, sensibly, forbade the eastern Nigerian delegation from continuing to attend Gowon’s Peace and Reconciliation Talks in Lagos. Lt-General Joseph Arthur Ankrah, who had taken over as Ghana’s Head of State following Kwame Nkrumah’s fall, intervened by proposing a neutral and secure location for a real reconciliation conference between Ojukwu and the Federal Government, ending the country’s national impasse.
The renowned Peace Conference took place in Ghana’s southern regional town of Aburi from January 4–5, 1967, as a result of that action, which was viewed as the last opportunity to avert a full-scale conflict. The renowned Aburi Accord was the outcome of that meeting between the federal delegation, led by Lt-Col. Gowon, and the eastern Nigerian delegation, led by Lt-Col. Ojukwu. The specifics of what happened at the Aburi sessions have remained conjectural since the federal government has not released all of its data on the subject.
The federal administration asserted that the agreement achieved was understood and viewed within the context of a united Nigerian state, despite the published statements of the eastern Nigerian delegation insisting that an agreement for a loose Nigerian federation was established. The one thing that all sides agreed upon was that the Nigerian conflict should not be resolved by force. The federal government responded to the Aburi Accord by enacting Decree 8, which was intended to represent the Accord as the federal government understood it.
Ojukwu boycotted the Supreme Military Council meeting in Benin on March 10, 1967, where the Military Governors were supposed to ratify Decree 8, arguing that the Decree went against the spirit and intent of the Aburi Accord. He claimed that the Nigerian Civil War sprang out as a result of these interpretational disagreements.CONTINUE FULL READING>>>>>
