ABUJA — Former Head of State Yakubu Gowon has revisited one of the darkest episodes in Nigeria’s history, alleging that late Biafran leader Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu repeatedly sabotaged attempts to prevent the country from descending into civil war.
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The explosive claim appears in Gowon’s newly released autobiography, My Life of Service and Allegiance, which offers his most candid account yet of the failed peace talks, deep political mistrust and constitutional disputes that ultimately collapsed negotiations between the federal military government and the Eastern Region ahead of the 1967–1970 Civil War.
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In the memoir, Gowon reflects on the volatile atmosphere that followed the January and July 1966 military coups and the chain of events that dragged Nigeria into armed conflict.
“Ojukwu deliberately and effectively thwarted every effort we made to amicably resolve our national issues,” Gowon wrote.
The former military ruler maintains that multiple attempts were made to reach a political settlement after the mass killings of Igbos in parts of Northern Nigeria unleashed widespread outrage, fear and mounting separatist pressure in the Eastern Region — but that each effort was undermined before it could take hold.
According to him, the federal military government agreed to the January 1967 meeting in Aburi, Ghana, believing dialogue could still prevent the collapse of the federation. “We went to Aburi with open minds and with the sincere hope of finding a basis for national reconciliation,” Gowon wrote.
The meeting, brokered by former Ghanaian leader, Lt.-Gen. Joseph Arthur Ankrah, brought together Nigeria’s top military officers at a time the country was already under severe strain from coups, ethnic killings and deepening distrust within the armed forces.
But Gowon said the talks ran into trouble after both sides returned from Ghana with different interpretations of what had been agreed.
According to him, Ojukwu’s interpretation of the Aburi Accord would have weakened the authority of the Federal Government and left the country too fragile to survive as one nation.
Gowon said his government found itself caught between mounting regional tension and fears that accepting Ojukwu’s demands would accelerate the breakup of the country.
Even then, he maintained that efforts to avoid war continued. “At every stage, we tried to preserve Nigeria without resorting to war,” Gowon wrote.
The autobiography revisits the long-running debate over whether the Aburi Accord represented Nigeria’s last real chance for peace or whether the country had already moved too close to confrontation for any agreement to hold.
Rejecting claims that the federal government negotiated in bad faith, Gowon described the period as one marked by fear, suspicion and rapidly eroding trust among military and political leaders struggling to keep the federation together.
“Ojukwu’s actions made peaceful settlement increasingly difficult,” he wrote.
Gowon also reflected on the killings that followed the failed coups of 1966, acknowledging the fear and trauma experienced by many Eastern Nigerians living outside their region.
He said the massacre of Igbos deeply troubled him and further complicated efforts to rebuild national trust at a time tensions were already dangerously high.
“I understood the fears of the Easterners. But the breakup of Nigeria was never an option I could accept,” Gowon stated.
The former Head of State said communication between both sides steadily deteriorated in the months leading to Biafra’s declaration on May 30, 1967, as suspicion hardened positions and compromise became more difficult.
“We were confronted with a situation in which compromise was becoming almost impossible,” Gowon wrote.
He also defended the federal military government’s decision to create 12 states shortly before Biafra’s declaration, saying the move was aimed at addressing fears of domination among minority ethnic groups and reducing the concentration of power within the regions.
According to him, several minority communities in the old Eastern Region wanted direct recognition from the federal government and feared being politically overshadowed.
“The creation of states was intended to give all groups a sense of belonging within Nigeria,” he wrote.
Gowon rejected claims that the federal government was eager for war, insisting that military confrontation became unavoidable only after the declaration of Biafra.
“Ojukwu’s declaration of Biafra left the federal government with no choice,” he wrote.
The former military ruler also defended the ‘No Victor, No Vanquished’ policy announced at the end of the Civil War in January 1970, saying reconciliation and reintegration were necessary to rebuild the country after years of bloodshed.
According to him, the war was fought to preserve Nigeria’s unity rather than to punish any ethnic group.
“We fought to keep Nigeria one, not to destroy a people,” Gowon wrote.
Reflecting on the humanitarian toll of the war, which claimed millions of lives and displaced many others, Gowon said the post-war years required restraint, reconciliation and deliberate efforts to prevent lasting national division.
“We had to think about the future of the country beyond the bitterness of war,” he wrote.
Though Ojukwu maintained until his death in 2011 that Biafra emerged out of necessity and the failure of the Nigerian state to protect Easterners, Gowon’s memoir presents a sharply different account, placing responsibility for the collapse of peace talks squarely on the late Biafran leader.
“We exhausted every peaceful avenue available to us. But Nigeria had to survive,” Gowon wrote.
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