I believe it will be more wholesome for our country, as she aspires to nationhood, to come out smoking against poor or bad decisions, so the repair process can begin. While there is life, repair is possible for those who made grave errors of judgement to amend those errors by apology or positive repair action, or both.
After one had passed on to the great beyond, one faces the stark reality of negative outcrops of wrong decisions for which opportunity for repair no longer exists. These statements inform this offering on General Jack (Yakubu) Gowon (GCFR), Head of State and Commander in Chief of Armed Forces of Republic of Nigeria between 1966 and 1975.
General Gowon is 10 years older than I am. We share a generation together. His leadership afflicted my generation adversely and worsted our status in the world. His arrival at portals of leadership as a product of coup d’etat reduced the status of peoples of Nigeria and sent us spiralling out of orbit prepared by nature for our evolution. He had ample opportunity to restore democracy and laid it waste. He preferred to trifle with essence of good leadership since he was a surrogate.
Those who saw Nigeria as their fiefdom breathed down his neck, reducing him to mere pawn. He did not understand statecraft well enough to see through the antics of British partners to his war of attrition against Ndigbo. He allowed Obafemi Awolowo to impoverish Biafra and end the war with hunger as armament. Then he turned round to provide rehabilitation, reconciliation and reconstruction in half doses that clearly excluded Ndigbo from commanding heights of the economy.
Col. Joseph Garba eased him out when it was apparent that he was a stooge of some powers. He thought to restore military discipline to a tottering leadership and saw Brig. Murtala Mohammed as a forthright and firm leader that fitted the bill.
Gowon did not have the pluck after this klieg light to stoutly accept his failings. He hid under religion to avoid censure. He did not even say a word at the Oputa Panel set out in the mould of South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Committee that righted South Africa once and for all into a well-blended nation state. He could have done what Nelson Mandela did with little pluck. He feared skin pain and was scared of possible reprisals of his roller coaster ride into the abyss while he was head of state.
Did he have perception of the magnitude of his errors? I doubt. He was known to have boasted to foreigners that money was not Nigeria’s problem, but how to spend it. In response, an Armada of cement, sand and other inconceivable cargos saturated our seaboard and led to frittering of our resources into foreign lands who became patrons of our profligacy.
Biafra became reality because there were personal differences between Col. Emeka Odumegwu Ojukwu and Col. Yakubu Gowon. The former had felt that the latter was not the most senior officer that ought to have assumed the responsibility as Head of State and Commander-in-Chief. This personal difference blinded Ojukwu into hubris that made his vision for Biafra blurred out of reality and still born eventually following failures of agreement during the various talks.
Both Gowon and Ojukwu were downright neophytes in leadership, with the benefit of hindsight. He is not a good leader who would prefer war to peaceful dialogue to solve ego problems. That war and its aftermath are bound to render both parties uncomfortable beyond the grave. So many human spirits knew trauma from their actions. Nothing escapes the fine grinding of nature’s laws.
Gowon and co-travellers in managing Nigeria from 1966 till now will answer for the colossal loss of lives and trauma generated in the psyches of hapless folks in this contraption, unless those involved embark on symbolic Karma redemption processes that are not limited to guinea worm and praying.
As it is, we are not likely to recover from the hatred introduced into the psyches of Nigerians by conflict during and since that war of attrition. It has polarised the nation that was slowly evolving into a productive power and monetised its bureaucracy beyond redemption. It has destroyed possibility of nationhood developing from our endowments in terms of land, variety of systems being welded and enjoyed with a bond of love and social responsibility for disparate members of the family of Nigerians. It has led us into the cove of the extremists and relegated productivity and diligence as basis for reward in the eyes and minds of our youth such that ripple effect dreaded in the future point to a failed state where money is shared and nothing, not even food, may be available in future on account of vain pursuit of symbols of affluence.
Gowon’s clique should be squarely blamed for the drift into extreme debility and licentiousness that have become our second nature. The drift of his years in leadership seeded the travesties that live with us till this day. I am open for debate on this anytime.
Despite all this, I wish him a happy future, especially if he takes measures available to him to seek to repair through current holders of power the errors that he and his administration committed. After all, he is an elder statesman who could call and be answered by all. He was spared early death for that purpose. He has a better chance than those who have gone over to the other side where there are limited opportunities to make amends.