GOWON REMAINS GOWON
-An enemy to truth.
Re: _My life of duty_ _and allegiance_ (An autobiography).
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— A Rejoinder to General Gowon’s lies, fabrications and blackmail.
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UNITING THE SUDETENLANDS:
6 Million Jews in 72 Months vs. 5 Million Igbo in 30 Months.
Till today, General Yakubu Gowon is unmindful that Nigeria is facing a continuing exterminatory siege threatening the very survival of her indigenous ethnic nationalities as viable civilizational units, because of the genocidal foundations he laid in propagation of the interests of domestic imperialism since 1803 against his own Middle Belt peoples, and since Amalgamation against the rest of Nigeria. Hence, he continues to celebrate his victories over truth, honour and progress, sitting on the blood of millions of innocent men, women and children that he and his followers consciously put to the sword in promotion of that monstrous aspiration, and in righteous contempt of the grieving millions suffering from the pursuit of the demonic objective. Nigerians now live in fear and uncertainty as everyone except those like Gowon is a target. Great men like Obadiah Mailafia knew that the Middle Belt and the Igbo in particular needed to close ranks, because they are bound together more than ordinarily imagined, but General Gowon and his likes think otherwise, looking the other way as their peoples gaze upon an uncertain future, unsure of salvation.
_My life of duty_ _and allegiance_ has one objective: how to make an evil look good, and like such other scriptures it has failed miserably.
Genocide in Germany was started by claims of only wanting to re-unite the Sudetenlands of German minorities with the rest of Germany, beginning with Czechoslovakia. Result: an estimated 6 million Jews were killed in 72 months, aside 80 million others that perished by the related ambitions. In Gowon’s duty and allegiance he claimed he wanted to re-unite his own “Southern lands,” meaning the Northern-occupied West and Mid-West, plus the East and its “Eastern minorities,” with “the rest of Nigeria,” meaning “the North.” Result: he killed an estimated 3 to 5 million mostly Igbo civilians in 30 months, plus an additional 2 or so million individuals who may have suffered and died in some ethnic-cleansing orgies code-named Abandoned Property that he orchestrated mainly between 1970 when the genocide was supposed to have ended and 1975 when he was ousted from power. Remember: Gowon praises himself, and his circles also praise him greatly for his “kindness” and “humanism,” because there ought not have been any Igbo survivor in the first place, given the bitterness and ferocity with which he conducted the pogroms and the war. If Gowon could kill as many in 30 months, imagine what he might have done in an equivalent 72 months.
There is no parallel with the American civil war for, whereas Lincoln fought to abolish feudal slavery and advance civilization, Gowon fought to entrench feudal slavery, in service of violent, primitive ambitious circles who wouldn’t forgive the January 15 putschists for temporarily halting their march to paradise. So, there is no axiomatic conterminity at all between the US and Nigerian “civil wars.” One was truly a civil war with a good and civilized intent, another was a genocide with an evil and primitive intent.
Between 1984 and 1987, especially 2015 to 2023, Gowon’s hirelings, inheritors and continuators of those criminalities, may have killed more than 20 million Nigerians (the Hausa Tsantsa Development Association of Hajia Kalthum Alumbe Jitami claims more than 7 million Hausa, the Igbo several other millions, the Niger Delta and Middle Belt, no estimates yet), through all manner of state-sponsored or connived terrorisms, kidnappings, “unknown gunmen,” novel designs of starvation and hunger, poverty-induced diseases and deaths, mysterious disappearances, etc.
Even St. Augustine knew that the “justness” of a war ultimately depended on the weaponry; so, if not for weapons and the Nazi party had won their war of choice they would have been celebrated all over the world as military-political geniuses who “re-united” Germany; the Holocaust, gas chambers, starvation, broken agreements, would be suppressed into oblivion, and there would have been no Geneva Conventions and Universal Declarations, let alone Nuremberg Trials.
In both crimes the justifications were the same: uniting the “sudeten” lands. The weapons were almost the same: over there the Jews were starved to skeletons and death, over here Gowon starved the Igbo to skeletons and death; over there, gas chambers were used, but the technology being unavailable to Gowon, he employed economic and ports blockade, mass shootings and bombings of schools, markets, hospitals, churches, villages and village-squares, live-burials, drowning ordeals that emptied fleeing families into the Benue and Niger Rivers and creeks amidst weeping and pleading members, and several “post”-war final touches such as extra-judicial executions, reprisals, disappearances, and so on, all, “without Gowon’s knowledge.”
There was a non-aggression German-Soviet treaty initialed by Ribbentrop and Molotov in August 1939, but Germany with good reasons ignored it to wage genocide on the Soviet and other peoples; there was also a non-use of force Accord in Aburi, initialed by the highest plenipotentiaries, which General Gowon would also find good reasons to ignore and wage genocide on the Igbo.
Most Germans had long dissociated themselves from the genocidal “unity” and “civilization,” paying sundry reparations, but many beneficiaries of Gowon’s genocide are yet to see anything wrong in the Igbo being annihilated the way they were. On the contrary, General Gowon remains their hero, having dealt with their obstacle to whatever ends.
General Gowon and all those who imposed death and destruction on the East, a terrible misfortune now spreading all over Nigeria, are able to escape the fate of genocide leaders all over the world, because in say Germany the crimes hurt and severely threatened the world powers, whereas in Nigeria the powers gained by Africans killing Africans in a first black-on-black genocide.
Every Igbo and many Easterners lost family members, children, parents, relatives, friends, neighbours. Some age sets were totally wiped out in schools, villages and markets, almost all of them not as the “bad Ojukwu soldiers” facing the “kind Gowon army,” but in a scorched earth starvation, shooting and bombing campaign against totally innocent civilians. Gowon planted a venomous national policy in which the only good Igbo man till today is either a dead one or another that endorses the genocide or praises the elimination of his own people. Unfortunately, the Igbo or other Easterners measuring up to that high standard continue to reduce in supply, except among those who imagined the Igbo to be their problem and joined in killing them. In Gowon’s ideal country the Igbo and other Easterners are denied everything, so are the Hausa, so are others except as a perfunctory gesture, because of an original Igbo sin that was supposed to have saved Gowon’s people from eternal condemnation as “footstools,” and others as conquered territory.
Characteristically, he got his unconcealed diatribes against the Igbo, Obasanjo, Babangida and whoever else was interested in not doing it his way, published at a time that Nigerians are undergoing the worst in human sufferance, exploring if there could be a rational way out of the entrapment, and looking upon men and women of humane dispositions to suggest a civilized way out, which ideas General Gowon has none.
GOWON AND HIS PET IGBO COUP PROJECT
Since 1970, many had been seeking the means by which the fragile country could be rebuilt on just and egalitarian terms, so to persuade the unjustly victimized, marginalized and restive youths to subscribe into this progressive vision, but General Gowon, his fellow travellers like Buhari, and other killers, oppressors and blackmailers of the Igbo and other Nigerians, would not let this happen. With their premeditated cruel policies, and their ceaseless emotional and physical violence, they continually spread salt unto the injuries they inflicted, and manage as much as they please to keep animosity alive.
In 21 preliminary and 857 main pages of sugar-coated bilious narrative, Gowon pursued a single objective: to build a case for his betrayal and murder of his benefactor, General Ironsi, and for a Northern “military revenge,” the pogroms and genocide, the death of Igbo and other Easterners, and for his endless mobilization of bias and hatred against the Igbo, because of an Igbo coup that killed only his beloved Northerners, while leaving the Igbo unharmed. There was not a single Igbo man that Gowon spared or didn’t find a way to implicate in the January 15 coup d’etat, and if there be any Igbo that did him a favour (e.g. Oti/p. 605), it was never altruistic, but only in return for one he had earlier extended to him. But, very mysteriously, almost all the evidence for his Igbo coup pointed at Ghana, some Yoruba, then the Igbo, and no one else.
The debate on the coup was substantially exhausted when Major Adewale Ademoyega demystified an ill-executed revolutionary putsch, mainly conceived by two high-ranking non-Igbo officers, involving predominantly Igbo Major officer ranks and several other Nigerian NCOs, intended to overthrow the reactionary and violent government of the Balewa/Ahmadu Bello/Akintola alliance, to end the atrocities in the West and Middle Belt threatening Nigerian disintegration, and establish a progressive government to be headed by Chief Obafemi Awolowo. The only strand left in people’s understanding is whether it was likely for some idealistic revolutionaries to have organized a coup d’etat to instal someone in office without the foreknowledge and consent of the intended beneficiary, in this case already serving a prison term for a first attempt, and whether it was likely for Igbo and other NCNC leaders to have conspired a coup d’etat to reward Chief Obafemi Awolowo for his role in the events of 1952. Ademoyega was pointed and unambiguous (abridged):
“Of the Lieutenant-Colonels only two were known to be political and revolutionary and were willing to take part in any effort to revolutionise Nigeria. These were Lieutenant-Colonels Banjo and Fajuyi . . . Lieutenant-Colonel Fajuyi who commanded the Course had sympathy for our course and was willing to contribute ideas towards the execution of our plan. It shall stand eternally to his credit that although the coup took place while he was away on leave, he rose for the revolution and stood firmly by its principles even until he breathed his last. Contrary to the load of wicked propaganda . . . there was no decision . . . to single out any particular ethnic group for elimination or destruction. Our intentions were honourable, our views were national and our goals were idealistic.” – _Why we_ _struck_, pp. 51, 59, 60.
Lt-Cols. Fajuyi and possibly also Major Bolaji Johnson, plus Banjo, despite the Leave of the first and “absence” of the last, evidently still took active part in the coup – they were observed to be where they were not supposed to be: “Captain Danjuma returned to Apapa to find that many more officers including such people as Major Bolaji Johnson and Lt-Col. Adekunle Fajuyi who were not actually billeted in Apapa were now there, all trying to find out exactly what was happening,” while Gowon witnessed the sudden arrest of Banjo as he drew a gun at Ironsi: “Colonel Banjo was being manhandled and taken away . . . he was a threat to the GOC. But how? It later emerged that he was alleged to have pulled a gun on his former GOC.” – Lindsay Barrett, _Danjuma: The_ _making of a general_, pp. 40-44; and Gowon, _My life_ _of duty_, pp. 190-191.
Ademoyega revealed that from intelligence gotten from federal minister H.O. Davies, in addition to ongoing crimes, the Balewa-Bello-Akintola trio was also planning to completely destroy (“wallop”) the West and East, starting on the 3rd week of January 1966:
“the Balewa Government had something up its sleeve. Otherwise the minister would not be so emphatic . . . we discovered that the Balewa Government had a terrible plan to bring the Army fully to operate in the West for the purpose of eliminating the elites of that region, especially the intellectuals . . . It was also intended that if the plan succeeded in the West, the next target would be the East,” and they were “to use loyal troops for this purpose.” Who were the “loyal troops” to be used to commit this crime? Ademoyega named them: “Lieutenant-Colonel Largema . . . Lieutenant-Colonel Gowon . . . Brigadier Maimalari . . . Brigadier Ademulegun (?) . . . Inspector General Alhaji Kam Salem.” – Ademoyega, pp. 66-68.
Ken Saro-Wiwa, despite his initial anti-Igbo diatribes did acknowledge that late Isaac Adaka Boro’s “Niger Delta Republic” may actually have been staged to “use this as a pretext” to also declare a state of emergency in the East, and join it to the “walloping” campaign – _On_ a _darkling plain_, pp. 30-31.
So, Gowon was one of those privy to the evil plan to destroy the West and East, and he thought it was his “duty” to do so, in “allegiance” to the political criminals unlawfully propounding the destruction of innocent parts of Nigeria, namely, Middle Belt, West and East of society? Is this reason for Gowon’s everlasting bitterness that the ringleaders were preempted before they perpetrated more atrocities on Nigerians, with him fortunately saved by God with an opportunity to change course, but rather chose to carry out the same atrocities between May/July 1966 and January 1970, and on and on till he was ousted from power? By 2026 that “plan” has not ended, and every Middle Belt leader worth his salt has spoken against it, with Nigerians waiting endlessly for General Gowon to also add a voice of condemnation of “the plan.”
GOWON’S EVIDENCE FOR IGBO COUP THAT JUSTIFIED HIS POGROMS AND GENOCIDE AGAINST THE IGBO
General Gowon badly needed a justification for killing the Igbo and other Easterners in the “military revenge,” pogroms, genocidal war, the ethnic-cleansing code-named Abandoned Property, and series of other policy measures that were systematically eradicating and bringing them down permanently. To every atrocity he ties a reason and for every bout of killings he would offer a great explanation to justify it as “reprisal,” “revenge,” or “reaction,” but never a premeditated act.
Why was “the mass killing of Easterners, mostly Igbo, in various parts of the North, notably Kano, Kaduna, Zaria, Bauchi and Jos” permitted? It was “Radio Dahomey (that) . . . relayed a news item on purported mass killing of Northerners in the Eastern Region. This triggered . . . reprisal killing of Easterners . . . that the central authorities and leaders of the North instigated the killings . . . was not the case . . . the killings (were) executed primarily by ordinary people . . . in reaction to the radio news item.” – pp. 228-9. So, for Gowon, the “mass killing of Northerners” was known in Dahomey before anyone in Nigeria.
Ademoyega had named Gowon in the plan to “wallop” the West and East, and Gowon’s memoir had to throw back the walloping charge to the Igbo to justify his killings, citing rumours and girlfriends, as source of his information:
“Rumours of plans by young Igbo officers to execute . . . the ‘unfinished business’ began to gain ground . . . after the January 15, 1966 coup. Its objective was . . . elimination of the remaining senior Northern officers who survived the putsch . . . A rough headcount of targets . . . included me . . . Major Hassan . . . Major Murtala . . . Major Joe Akahan . . . Major Martin Adamu, and Major Yakubu Danjuma . . . much of the information came from the girlfriends of our colleagues from the East who bragged about finishing off the remaining ‘Northern officers’ anytime soon.” – p. 198. So, after an Igbo Coup that got “the Igbo” entrenched, the Igbo yet again planned “finishing” the job, and girlfriends of Ironsi and other Igbo let Gowon know the plan? When the Igbo were planning the January 15 Igbo Coup, did they confide in their girlfriends or first let Radio Dahomey know?
Gowon had given a specific order to Danjuma to apprehend Ironsi (“When you have done it ring me at this number”) – Lindsay Barrett, pp. 52-53, confirmed in Efiong, _Nigeria and_ _Biafra_, p. 129, and many other sources, but Gowon announced in his memoir, “I instructed Danjuma to handle the situation with extreme caution . . . to ensure that Ironsi was kept safe” – pp. 201-202. Where would Ironsi have been kept “safe” in the hands of his abductors obeying Gowon’s “instructions”?
The implicate-and-exonerate, plant-and-uproot “sophistication” of General Gowon.
Many strategists deny the doctrine of two-fold truth and bilocality. A thing either is or is not, and an object cannot be present in two or more places with the same coordinates simultaneously. But, for General Gowon that is no problem; most of the things he says he did were actually what he never did, and those he says he didn’t do were actually the ones he did. To him, a person can do something and not do it; hence, he had to first plant some doubt, contempt and hatred in someone’s mind against another, implying guilt and culpability against any Igbo he fancied, before appearing to exonerate the same person. With this planting and uprooting dualism he dealt with the Igbo and other Easterners.
General Gowon did everything to end the pogroms while ensuring they lasted three long months till satiety, promulgated a Decree 8 to implement Aburi by reneging on Aburi, waged a genocidal war in a humane way, murdered almost five millions because he didn’t want to waste too many lives, fed the populations so much food that they perished with starvation, saved Ironsi by ordering his arrest, reconstructed the East with 3Rs by making them poorer and without reconstructing anywhere, exonerating almost every Igbo of consequence by implicating him or her, refers to “thousands who perished” (p. 467) in a genocide in which “It is difficult to adequately estimate the impact of that tragic war . . . The bare figures are grim . . . estimates are that . . . over two million Biafran civilians, many of them children, died of starvation and disease” alone – Babangida, _A_ _journey_ _in service_, pp. 74-75, not including the dead by mass bombings of the civilian populations, etc. Those millions were Gowon’s “thousands.” On the pogroms alone, Babangida regretted that “Gowon’s commitments to the Igbos that their lives were safe in northern Nigeria were unfulfilled . . . The killings were frightening.” – Babangida, p. 63.
Gowon had not a single good word on Ironsi. He starts with maligning Ironsi, and implicating him in the coup: “the GOC . . . briefing officers and men about what had happened . . . That was strange . . . because if anyone was to be around . . . at that time of the night, it should have been . . . Maimalari and his staff!” Then, “It now seemed clear to me that the GOC, General Ironsi, must have known what was happening . . .”. Then, “I found the story of unforced hand-over of political leadership to the military a little incredulous, as the acceptance of such an ‘offer’ (by Ironsi) was at variance with . . . a loyal Army.” And then, “I really cannot tell why he (Ironsi) wanted to move me. Or was the plan (“the plan”) to remove the only senior officer from the North from the command and control of troops?” – see pp. 164-6, 172-3, 188-9, 193.
Having delivered as much damage as possible to the reputation of Ironsi, making him appear as an accomplice in the coup to justify his murder, he reverses to hypocritically exonerate the same Ironsi: “Colonel Conrad Nwawo . . . was able to persuade Nzeogwu to . . . accept the authority, command and control of the Army Headquarters and the GOC.” – p. 185. An accomplice would mistreat and publicly humiliate his co-conspirators only at risk of exposure. In any case, Ademoyega never in any manner associated conservative Ironsi with the revolutionary attempt. Next, Gowon had gone on to ascertain from others whether the story of civil transfer of authority to the military was indeed true: “I did . . . cross-checking the veracity of the claim. I thrice randomly asked the group of officers who were with him if what I had been told was a true reflection of what happened. Thrice they affirmed that was what happened.” – p. 189. If so, why first, the destruction of Ironsi’s integrity? Above all, if in the chaotic hours of January 15, “it would have been more appropriate to have allowed the Parliament to choose one of its members to act as Prime Minister and then to organise elections in about six months” (p. 189), why didn’t Gowon summon Parliament in his August 01 broadcast, return power to the political class, so to allow instant calm and democracy return to the country?
From Igbo Coup to Igbo and Yoruba Coup.
From Igbo Coup with Ironsi involved, to Igbo and Yoruba Coup with Ironsi absolved – same General Gowon: “The first coup hatched and executed by a clique of young Igbo and Yoruba middle piece and junior officers . . . the GOC, General Aguiyi Ironsi, remained the centre of resistance and in overall charge of command and control” – p. 222.
Gowon, defender of “the North” also found a way to implicate Ojukwu: “rumours gained ground that Lt-Col . . . Ojukwu, the Commanding Officer, 5th Battalion, Kano, had placed the Emir of Kano, Alhaji Ado Bayero, under ‘house arrest’,” probably to assist the coup. No such thing happened. See pp. 182-3.
Didn’t know whether to implicate or exonerate Nzeogwu from Igbo Coup: “Nzeogwu . . . said there was no such plan for a one-sided . . . killing of the officers from the North. I was not too convinced . . .” – p. 186.
Edith Ike, Gowon’s “girlfriend,” was also part of the Igbo Coup led by Ironsi: On the eve of the coup, Gowon alleges (with hope that anybody can believe him) that Ironsi at a party told him and Edith, _”Have_ _a_ _nice time_; _you never_ _know tomorrow_ . . . Ironsi’s reference to ‘ _tomorrow_’ . . . Could the GOC have had prior information or had a hand in what was afoot?” – p. 166. This is an easily provable fabrication. There were almost 10 or more officers of higher rank to Gowon in that party, such that Gowon and the young girl were unlikely by protocol to have sat near enough or besides a GOC, for them to be able to hear such whisper from Ironsi who, even under delirium was unlikely to have so casually given away such a dangerous secret. A young undergraduate cannot be dragged to sit besides even a Captain except as married woman, let alone a GOC. But, Gowon has a “duty” to discharge: “I noticed the presence of my former lady friend, Miss Edith Ike, then a student at the University of Ibadan, in the welcoming party . . . my former relationship with Edith was a bonus for them . . . may have informed their decision to use her . . . as a bait to keep a tab on me on my return home . . . I . . . was suspicious of her . . . I was busy analysing the few coincidences of her presence at unexpected places at critical times . . . she knew a few things about all that had happened . . . (she) let out an outburst to the officers . . . ‘Why did you do this?’ ‘What have they done to you?’ ‘What if they turned round to revenge?’.” – pp. 158, 173, 192, abridged.
Certainly Gowon intended this manufacture to be believed. Was there a gathering of Igbo coupists that Edith was addressing in the presence of Gowon? Is a young undergraduate girl capable of assuming such authority over officers? Why would they employ her against Gowon without her knowledge, and why would she consent to be tapping Gowon and at the same time reprimanding or blaming her employers?
Gowon veers to Okpara: “leaders of the coup who had escaped from Lagos . . . all met with the Premier of the Eastern Region, Sir Michael Okpara. What a coincidence!” – p. 179. Liars hardly know when they start lying to themselves; there was never a “Sir Michael Okpara,” as Premier in Enugu, and there is no record of a Premier Okpara struggling to secure his guest, Archbishop Makarios, having made sense of what was happening, while he was under optimal threats.
Gowon mounts on Banjo: “Banjo’s action instantly created doubts in my mind . . . he either was aware of the goings-on or . . . was a part of the plot” – p. 176. But, the same Gowon would exonerate the entire Yoruba (except Ademoyega, because he had exposed many lies in his book), in advancing his pet “Igbo Coup” project: “report of the investigative panel on the coup further lent credence to the conclusion that the January 15, 1966 coup bore heavy ‘Igbo’ stamp because no officer from the North was involved and, no Yoruba officers, apart from Major Ademoyega, were named as primary accomplices.” – p. 194. Which panel is General Gowon talking about? News had had it that an investigative panel on the coup headed by Gowon was appointed by Ironsi, but Gowon in denial now claims he never headed any panel, so, which other “panel” decided that January 15 was a joint Igbo-Yoruba coup? Gowon: “Talks of me heading an enquiry or court martial to try the January 15 coup plotters are false. Nobody gave me any assignment in this regard despite my going to General Ironsi to complain that if nothing were done to them, we would have problems . . .” – pp. 206-7.
FROM IGBO COUP TO GHANA COUP
Circumstances placed Gowon to learn right there at Accra that the great Osagyefo, Dr. Kwame Nkrumah was sponsoring a revolutionary coup d’etat in Nigeria. A Ghanaian military officer carelessly revealed the secret to him, which on the day of the putsch he eventually confirmed with the observance of a Ghanaian military contingent on their exit from Lagos. Gowon: “at the Military Headquarters at Giffard Camp in Accra . . . one of the Ghanaian officers . . . Major Dan Addo . . . a year my senior at Sandhurst . . . went on to say repeatedly: “Jack, we’ll be seeing you very soon, very soon in Nigeria.”
“What are you coming to do in Nigeria and how soon is ‘very soon’?”
“He ignored my question, and I found his enthusiasm a little irritable, more so as he did not provide any clue to explain his warm anticipation of a visit to Nigeria. I was curious to know why and when he would be in Lagos. By pure chance, I looked in the direction of Major General Aferi, whom we went to pay our respect. I noticed he gave Major Addo a look that said so much but revealed little. His face certainly showed that he disapproved of what the Major was telling me . . . Something changed in those split seconds after Major Addo received ‘the look’.” – p. 157.
Then came January 15, 1966:
“We later confirmed that the escape plan received support and some measure of assistance from the government of Ghana, which granted asylum to the plotters. I was not surprised because Ghana’s President Kwame Nkrumah never masked his loathing for Nigeria’s Prime Minister, Tafawa Balewa, and his administration.
“The escape of the coup plotters to Ghana also confirmed . . . that Ghanaian officers may have been involved in the coup . . . that morning, my mind instantly played back my Accra encounter with Major Dan Addo . . . his . . . knowledge of the impending coup in Nigeria . . . his awareness of the military assistance that could be provided by the political leadership in Ghana.” And, to be doubly sure:
“To check and to confirm my fears, I dispatched Captain Theophilus Danjuma and a team to . . . discreetly ascertain the presence of any foreign officers arriving or going out of Nigeria by air . . . or by road . . . As I had expected, the team reported back that they met a few Ghanaian officers in mufti . . . returning to Accra . . . Subsequent activities, statements and developments in Ghana affirmed our suspicion.”
Then, joy that Nkrumah was punished:
“Yes, Nigeria was hurt but . . . Poetic justice took its course, as President Nkrumah was ousted from office by his military on February 24, 1966 . . . barely a month after the Nigerian coup.” – pp. 179-181.
So, Gowon had these facts and still maligning the Igbo, still ordered Danjuma to arrest General Ironsi on July 29, 1966, still spearheaded the waxing of the hate speech called Igbo Coup, still let the revanchist butcherings of millions of Igbo in pogroms and genocide in revenge for an Igbo Coup, and still continued in his interviews and memoir to implicate Ironsi and other innocent Igbo leaders, the Ironsi that pressured Ghana to repatriate Ifeajuna, tricked Nzeogwu to surrender, and locked up the putschists, of involvement in the coup d’etat?
From Ademoyega to Ghana Gowon had all his pieces complete, and any elementary school student could easily arrange them systematically to arrive at an inescapable understanding that: some non-Igbo senior military officers led a coup d’etat assisted by officer Major ranks dominated by the Igbo, together with other Nigerian soldiers, to preempt a planned destruction of the West and East, end a creeping genocide in the Middle Belt, and instal a so so non-Igbo politician in office, with the assistance of a so so external power! General Gowon would not do this, because January 15 aborted the “walloping” of the West and East starting about January 17, of which he was to be a key actor.
Gowon’s bitterness against the good people of Ghana and the illustrious Nkrumah who have always meant well for Nigeria, didn’t end with January 15. Ghana worked very hard and spent enormous resources to bring peace to Nigeria in Aburi, but maybe because Ghana refused to consent to manufacturing a fake Aburi Accord or support the betrayal of the agreements, whose doctored version Gowon was marketing in Nigeria, he blamed Ghana for the failure, harboring unfair “memories of Ghana’s negative association with Nigeria’s first coup and later the Aburi debacle” – p. 601.
GOWON, OBASANJO, AND THE DIMKA COUP
The execrations that Gowon would pour on General Obasanjo know no bounds, many of them centred around Gowon’s role in the Dimka coup, which resulted into the elimination of almost the entire high echelon officer corps of the Middle Belt.
Typically, Gowon has first to “love” or “like” Obasanjo before exposing him as a corrupt man who tried to bribe or “influence” him to be appointed into a acommand post: “I liked Obasanjo and for security reasons trusted him more than any other person to hold the position.” – p. 339. Then, afterwards, hell was let loose.
General Gowon would imply that the Dimka coup was staged and that Obasanjo may have been behind the treason, but using him, Gowon, to divert attention. Obasanjo may also have been implicated in the Shagari ouster.
First, before going into those areas, Obasanjo was an insubordinate individual, averse to “playing second fiddle . . . would have serious misgivings about being 2-IC even to himself,” was somehow corrupt: “he tried to get a few people to put in a few good words on his behalf to influence me to give him a command,” and not really a good fighter as he would want people believe, but merely “took over command at an easy stage” – pp. 339-40, 410, 412. The worst of Obasanjo was yet to emerge.
Was the Dimka coup real, or the true conspirators unknown, even as many of the accused were executed under Obasanjo? Gowon: “the February 13 coup ostensibly by Lt-Col Bukar Suka Dimka . . . The identities of the real ring leaders may never be known.” – p. 624. After the coup, did Obasanjo assume office against his will or was he feigning like Caesar not to want the crown, but nevertheless got crowned? Gowon: “Lt-General Olusegun Obasanjo, had assumed office as Head of State, as he said, against his ‘personal wish and desires.’ The web of intrigues began to unfold thereafter . . . But worse was to come.” – p. 628.
General Gowon would thereafter practically exonerate Dimka and many of those executed under Obasanjo: “all that was required to have anyone implicated was for someone to allege . . . No matter your protestations, you could end up being tried, found guilty, tied to the stake, and shot . . . This, unfortunately, was the case with some of the officers who were executed for complicity in the coup.” – p. 629. Suspectedly, Dimka’s “torturers concocted the ‘confessions’ to which, at the pain of death, he merely appended his name . . . the so-called Dimka ‘Confessions’ were mere window dressing” – pp. 637, 640, abridged. And, “to invite me to appear before the Board of Enquiry . . . I was ready to go to Lagos as requested by the Obasanjo administration, but even the blind could see that doing so would be at my peril.” – p. 631.
Verdict on Obasanjo:
“he made a public broadcast that confirmed my fears that I had long been marked for elimination” – p. 640. Were Obasanjo and co who replaced Murtala trying to hide anything?
“they were set in their ways to work to an already decided action to make me a fall guy for whatever anyone in the government was trying to hide . . . for fulfilling their selfish ambition . . . Obasanjo . . . government spared no effort in its determination to obliterate me and wash my steps off the history of Nigeria” – pp. 642-3. “Obasanjo’s audacious untruth to the Nigerian public was all for show, an expensive joke regardless of the cost to several innocent lives . . . But for God, I would have been history with him sitting in judgement over me with the so-called ‘ample evidence’ his government claimed . . . on my involvement in the Dimka coup.” – pp. 645-7.
Was Obasanjo involved in the Shagari ouster? Gowon: “Obasanjo’s scathing remarks about the Shagari government . . . only slightly fell short of directly declaring that (Shagari) had failed him and, as such, it was better to send them packing so that the military could continue from where he stopped.” – p. 645.
Was General Gowon wrongly accused of being behind the Dimka coup? General Babangida: “Dimka claimed . . . that he briefed General Yakubu Gowon about the coup . . . and that Gowon told him to liaise with General Bisalla in Lagos. General Gowon took over ten years to clear his name following Dimka’s allegations.” Two panels were set to enquire into the allegations, an investigative panel headed by General Abisoye, and a special military tribunal headed by General Obada, and none of them acquitted General Gowon of the charges – Babangida, _A journey in service_, pp. 100 & 102.
GOWON AND THE EASTERN MINORITIES
According to General Gowon, he waged war “to defend and deliver the minority people” of the East – p. 285. That is still the situation today: anyone mindlessly killing and oppressing the AkwaCross, Andony, Idoma, Igala, Ijaw, Ogoni, Urhobo, and other close cousins of the Igbo, selfishly exploiting their resources, destroying their now cancer-prone marine life, ecology and environments, impoverishing and humiliating them in every conceivable manner, is doing so to prevent resource-rich Igbo land since antiquity, and Igbo people relatively comfortable in their homes, from exploiting the “Eastern minorities” and using their resources to develop Igboland. Those “minorities” have to be bribed with Igbo property, lands and ports to make them swallow this lie.
The Igbo and their close cousins have lived for countless centuries generally amicably among themselves, communicating in languages and dialects, and inter-mixing without a lexicon called “minority” among them. If a Gowon from the Angas, who have been humiliated into subjection does not consider himself a minority (pp. 279, 362), why should he impose such a label on Eastern communities except for divide-and-rule?
How did Gowon liberate his “Eastern minorities”? He kindly deprived them of a revenue formula that should have helped them develop, from 100% down to 1%, but grudgingly increased to an ill-calculated nominal 13% that is barely enough to wage the Atlantic ocean. Gowon lured the likes of Adaka Boro and Saro-Wiwa into his embrace with promises of benefit from joint Igbo hatred only to have them and several other illustrious “minority” souls slaughtered in his hands. General Gowon treacherously gave away the Bakassi peninsula, a rich partch of minority territory that bolstered their wealth and population, at a time in 1975 that he, a serial breaker of agreements, was no longer under any obligation to do so after the war had long ended, and instead started to obfuscate discourse to deceive the “Eastern minorities” and himself:
“When I drew the line, I ensured the natural channel was on the Nigerian side and done in accordance with the law of the sea. Much later, Ahidjo realised he had given me a blank card to include some vital projects that his country had at the time including a trial oil rig on our side of the line that I had drawn . . . He pleaded with me to kindly shift the line to return the oil rig to his side . . . we agreed that for . . . good neighbourliness we could change the line and allow the little kink. This was the only concession I made to Cameroon” – pp. 694-6.
The line, the line! Another Aburi: Gowon was given a free hand to draw “the line,” and he drew “the line,” but after drawing “the line,” he voluntarily returned the pen to Ahidjo to redraw “the line” for the sake of good neighbourliness with an external power, but to the detriment of his beloved “Eastern minorities!” This mentality may have been why every subsequent military leader poured contempt upon Gowon. Abacha was bitter over the Maroua Declaration and deployed troops on Bakassi, and all Supreme Military Councils refused to approve the Maroua Declaration.
In Aburi fever was to blame; in Maroua who should be blamed? General Gowon goes back about 17 years, excavating the Igbo, not even the British, to hang his excuses:
That betrayal of returning the pen to Ahidjo to redraw “the line” already drawn, “would not have arisen” according to grandstrategist Gowon, Ph.D., “if the pre-Independence political leadership in Eastern Nigeria had played their cards right to ensure that Southern Cameroon remained in Nigeria.” – pp. 695-6. Gowon, confusing between Western Cameroon and Bakassi, had not come across Olufemi Ogunsanwo’s _AWO_. _Unfinished_ _greatness_, p. 54, to gain some insight on how Western Cameroon, now “Ambazonia,” not Bakassi peninsula, went to Cameroon.
An Igbo philosopher-king, Dr. Obi Wali got assassinated right inside his home once he refused to de-Igbonize himself and assume a false non-Igbo identity. A great jurist called Onoghen, a Chief Justice of Nigeria and an “Eastern minority,” was snatched from his home at midnight, not for delivering a judgement, but on suspicion that he might deliver one, all because of the foundations laid by General Gowon.
The above are only a tip of the iceberg of how General Gowon saved the “Eastern minorities” from the Igbo. Gowon and all those in his circle had no iota of love for those he called “Eastern minorities,” and saved them from nothing except continued unity, strength, mutual protection and development with their Igbo cousins, and by so doing rendering them divided, weak, poor and more vulnerable to outside slavish manipulation.
GOWON AND HIS MIDDLE BELT PEOPLES
General Gowon claims he does not consider himself a minority. Having completely immersed and integrated himself into the feudal caliphate syndrome, which he has been serving all his life, he may be considered logical. But, have all the Ngas been so integrated; are all in the Middle Belt so happily assimilated like General Gowon into the caliphate system? Millions have been displaced, others kidnapped, sold, ransomed or organ-harvested. Communities have been captured and renamed. The Middle Belt is a massive burial ground and, agriculture, the mainstay of the economy, is now a dangerous occupation. The fate of Gowon’s peoples, rather, Middle Belt peoples, are hanging in the balance and, Gowon, not being a minority, has not uttered a word of condemnation, not even in his magnum opus, of this reversal of the Middle Belt to a “footstool,” despite the liberation of January 15 and his own July 29 myopic subterfuge.
Gowon exonerated his commanders from blame; denied and exonerated his propounders of starvation from guilt, even though “In the history of warfare . . . nations have always tended to use starvation as a justifiable weapon to ensure speedy capitulation by enemy forces” – p. 388. He explained that federal soldiers achieved victory by shooting at “trees and grasses” and, thus, “soldiers ‘killed’ more trees and shrubs than they did the rebels . . . a lot of . . . trees had black spots all over . . . these were ‘bullet marks’ . . . the bullets that were said to have killed over three million Easterners during the war” – pp. 348-9. In effect, it was genocide against trees and grasses, not against human beings, and the victory was attained by killing nobody.
Gowon would also exonerate his aircraft pilots’ mass-bombing of civilians, and discharge himself from any guilt or responsibility over all this and the follow-up cruel policies against the Igbo. According to him, starvation was self-inflicted because people refused to farm (pp. 389-90), and the mass slaughter of soldiers and civilians was perpetrated by “one” Colonel Achuzia and not his agents: that Achuzia “was such a wicked man who killed more of his people than he killed Nigerian soldiers” – p. 464.
Instead of assuming responsibility, General Gowon throws up a blackmail that post-war trials like at Nuremberg are to put a stamp upon the victory of one side in a war, over and above the moral question of who was right or wrong or the justice or otherwise of a cause.
The Nuremberg trials, he said, were “for war of aggression and war crimes,” and “The trials put beyond contention who won . . . or lost . . . both the battle and the war.” – p. 458. General Gowon won both the battle and the war and, therefore, no more committed the genocide, which by his victory reverted to the defeated, and he is no longer liable.
But, General Gowon, being so kind, instead of emulating Nuremberg to try Igbo leaders for “war of aggression and war crimes,” in which maybe not more than 10 “guilty” persons may have been executed, Gowon chose an ethnic-cleansing alternative code-named Abandoned Property, and associated cruel policies in which an estimated 2 million souls may have perished between 1970 and 1975 in the process of families of both indigenous and migrant Igbo, got lost while attempting to return to their communities, homes, properties, etc in the Rivers State and elsewhere.
The Ohanaeze Ndigbo cried these out so loud at the Oputa Panel that people, many of them non-Igbo, started shedding tears over what human beings could conceive against others. Gowon allowed the Igbo to be deprived of their port cities, ancestral homes, factories, TV sets, etc in the Rivers State in particular because, “people who took them over refused to let go despite entreaties.” – p. 461. The Igbo have absolutely nothing against brothers and cousins who seized anything, for it is well-known that most of them acted on incitement and not self-will.
GOWON, OBAFEMI AWOLOWO, AND THE YORUBA
Once Chief Obafemi Awolowo mobilized the Yoruba to support Gowon’s war, he did everything he could and went to every length to ensure that Gowon won, despite the war being an essentially Fulani caliphate project.
Gowon was always singing Awo’s praises in his book, involving him even in operational decisions, and extolling his “personal discipline” and “economic wizardry” – pp. 403, 526, 534. Many had therefore hoped and opinions had it too that the natural successor to Gowon would be Chief Awolowo, to enable the latter apply those skills to post-war nation-building. Gowon found a way not to allow this happen. Gowon merely tapped into the intelligence of the important Chief while denying him the reward.
Yoruba leaders had made a “demand that the ‘soldiers of occupation’ from the North be moved out of the West to their region of origin” – p. 252; why did General Gowon, following the agreements already reached to that effect, and his love and respect for the Yoruba, not comply with that legitimate demand, so that the Yoruba could then align with him out of their free will? That’s a bit on Gowon’s admiration for Chief Awolowo and the Yoruba.
GOWON AND THE ABURI AGREEMENTS
This needs no long commentary, General Gowon having already referred to Aburi, so much discussed all over the world, as a “road to nowhere,” and chosen war in breach of the agreement “that all parties renounced the use of force in the settlement of the brewing crisis” – pp. 235, 250. But, the basis of blaming Ghana for the failure of Aburi was not clear, when Gowon on his own, had responded to the Eastern ” ‘ _On Aburi We_ _Stand_!’,” with “And from Aburi you will fall.” – p. 270.
RESPONSIBILITY FLOATING IN THE AIR
No type of killing is justified, both the killings of innocent civil populations since 1937, 1945, 1953, the Middle Belt mini-genocide, the Wetie suppression campaigns, and the January 15, 1966 killings against the authors of the previous ones. Unlike General Babangida and practically all writers on the civil war, General Gowon barely cared or mentioned the atrocities and creeping disintegration that led to January 15, except in occasional casual asides.
Babangida had regretted that the pogroms were allowed to stretch four months, from May 29 to September 29, 1966, with “no less than 213 predominantly Igbo officers and other ranks” killed, and that Gowon refused to protect the Igbo – pp. 45, 63 of _A_ _journey_ _in_ _service_. Gowon had no such regrets. Whereas Babangida regretted that the war couldn’t save “millions of lives” and, indeed, that “over two million Biafran civilians, many of them children, died of starvation and disease,” Gowon could only manage to sarcastically refer to “over three million” dead, the “harvest of deaths,” and “thousands who perished” – pp. 349, 390, 467.
On the Nuremberg trials alluded to by General Gowon, one of the topical questions was how to deal with the doctrine of Superior Orders, an administrative, diplomatic and legal concept dealing with the degree of liability, if any, of an emissary or agent for actions taken on behalf of the principal, so to enable the former assume a diminished responsibility for conduct that turns unlawful. It was unanimously agreed that both principal and emissary are responsible; for the latter, because he has a discretionary power that can guide his compliance or otherwise to unlawful commands. Responsibility must lie somewhere for every action; exactly consistent with the Weberian principles of bureaucratic organizations.
Thus, when General Gowon unilaterally discharges his agents of any responsibility for actions delegated in advancement of the genocide, it suggests to the ordinary reasoner that he has appropriated the responsibility to himself alone, if that is permissible for lawyers; and when he additionally frees himself of responsibility, it suggests that neither principal nor agent bears responsibility for anything. And, that is how General Gowon wants it to be.
As Gowon’s responsibility therefore floats in the air, the East, many other Nigerians, and parts of mankind, are accusing him of direct responsibility for:
— Involvement in the plans to “wallop” or destroy the West, East and Mid-West of Nigeria as revealed by Ademoyega and undenied till today.
— betraying and masterminding the unlawful seizure and murder of his benefactor, General Aguiyi Ironsi and his great and gentlemanly guest, Lt-Colonel Adekunle Fajuyi.
— the genocide against the Igbo and other Easterners through its various stages of so-called military revenge, pogroms, and war crimes that consumed almost 5 million innocent souls during the war, and almost 2 million souls in a post-war ethnic-cleansing program.
— victimization and murder of countless Eastern minority peoples and leaders, such as Adaka Boro, betraying their precious Bakassi territory, stealing their wealth, and devastating and impoverishing them.
— inflicting sundry policy measures like currency exchange, fake 3Rs, indigenization decree, import-export discriminations, etc that marginalized the Eastern Nigeria peoples and impoverished them.
— imposing an economic blockade that subsists till today, and depriving Eastern nationalities of their port cities to ensure their total subjugation and impoverishment.
— orchestrating an ethnic-cleansing program that forcefully deprived the Igbo of their natural and ancestral habitats, with many families left to gradually die off.
— sowing sundry seeds of discord in the East as a policy measure to have close cousins engrossed in mutual acrimony as their resources are carted away to develop other areas. And, for
— taking such other divide-and-rule steps to ensure that the “Eastern minorities” and their Igbo cousins are kept in permanent mutual conflict modes, total subjection and poverty.
— the continuing mayhem and disaster in a Middle Belt that was supposed to have been free and prosperous today.
General Gowon is equally accused of vicarious responsibility for:
— the Dimka coup, which treason he has till today been unsatisfactorily denying.
— the murder of such Niger Delta and Eastern minority giants as Ken Saro-Wiwa who was lured by General Gowon’s promise of better treatment than hitherto existed; Dr. Obi Wali, who was murdered in his home, reportedly for refusing de-Igbonization and ethnic-cleansing, and several others.
— the continuing humiliation of “Eastern minority” leaders such as Justice Onoghen who was brutally forced from office on trumped-up charges, and several Igbo and other Nigerians whose victimizations are now normalized.
— the atrocities committed by General Muhammadu Buhari who, following the principles laid down by General Gowon, decided to either continue or complete the genocide.
— and, for countless other problems in Nigeria today, especially concerning terrorism and jihadism, whose foundations were laid by General Yakubu Gowon.
General Gowon’s _My_ _life of duty &_ _allegiance_ is recommended to every human being interested in knowing how evil can be made to look good in a first black-on-black genocide.
Thanks greatly, compatriots.
Prof. Obasi Igwe,
c/o Dept. of Political Science,
University of Nigeria, Nsukka.
June 11, 2026.
