Tuesday, February 25, 2025 - A former military head of state, General Ibrahim Babangida,has revealed that a commitment made to the Igbos by General Yakubu Gowon that their lives were safe in northern Nigeria, was unfulfilled which led to the 1966 progrom that saw thousands of Igbos k!lled in difgerent parts of northern Nigeria.
In his new book the ‘Journey in Service’ launched in Abuja on
Thursday, February 20, and shared by The Nation, the former military leader
pointed out that the emergence of then Lt-Col Yakubu Gowon as the new
Commander-in-Chief of the Nigerian Armed Forces marked the beginning of the
tension between him [Gowon] and Lt-Col. Emeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu.
Babangida said that Ojukwu had in a broadcast from Enugu, rejected the
decision to have Gowon as the Military head of state and Commander-in-Chief.
According to IBB as he is fondly called Ojukwu insisted that in the
absence of Aguiyi-Ironsi, Brigadier Babafemi Ogundipe, who at that time was the
most senior army officer, should be the head of state.
Babangida explained that this heightened the tension in the land and
Gowon was forced to make some moves to restore confidence in the country.“Lt-Col.
Gowon assembled regional politicians, dubbed Leaders of Thought, to fashion a
way forward for the country,” he added.IBB explained that Gowon made what could
only be described as a good political move as he sought to calm the situation
by releasing the leader of the Yorubas, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, from Calabar
prison.
“Obafemi was serving a prison sentence for treason in Calabar and with
that move Gowon secured the much-needed support of the Yorubas at that time.
“Unfortunately, Gowon’s
commitments to the Igbos— that their lives were safe in northern Nigeria— were
unfulfilled,” he said.
“Almost simultaneously with the deliberations of the Leaders of Thought
taking place in Lagos, perhaps the most horrific killings of Igbos occurred in
different parts of northern Nigeria on September 29, 1966.
“The killings were frightening. A deluge of refugees swamped eastern
Nigeria from practically all parts of Nigeria. Faced with this intolerable
situation, Ojukwu, understandably, barred the eastern Nigerian delegation from
further attending Gowon’s Peace and Reconciliation Talks in Lagos, insisting
that the lives of Igbos outside eastern Nigeria were unsafe.
“The country was locked in a national stalemate until Lt-General Joseph
Arthur Ankrah, who had become Ghana’s Head of State after the overthrow of
Kwame Nkrumah, stepped in by suggesting a neutral and safe venue for an actual
reconciliation conference between Ojukwu and the Federal Government.
“That intervention, seen as the last chance to prevent an all-out war,
led to the famous Peace Conference in the southern regional town of Ghana,
Aburi, between January 4 and 5, 1967.
“That conference between the eastern Nigerian delegation, led by Lt-Col.
Ojukwu, and the federal delegation, led by Lt-Col. Gowon, resulted in the
famous Aburi Accord.
“In the absence of fully published records from the federal government
regarding what transpired at the Aburi meetings, the details of what happened
have remained speculative.
“While the published accounts of the eastern Nigerian delegation
insisted that an agreement for a loose Nigerian federation was agreed to, the
federal government claimed that the agreement reached was understood and seen
within the framework of a united Nigerian state. The one area of agreement on
both sides was that force was not to be used to settle the Nigerian crisis.
“In response to the Aburi Accord, the federal government promulgated
Decree 8, which was meant to embody the Accord as understood by the federal
government.
“At a meeting of the Supreme Military Council in Benin on March 10,
1967, where Decree 8 was to be ratified by the Military Governors, Ojukwu
boycotted the talks, claiming that the Decree violated the spirit and meaning
of the Aburi Accord.
“These differences in interpretation were the final trigger for the
outbreak of the Nigerian Civil War,” he stated.
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