Former Head of State General Yakubu Gowon (retd.) has revealed that a young Olusegun Obasanjo flatly refused to serve under Colonel Murtala Muhammed during the civil war, declaring he would ‘never’ take orders from his junior.
Gowon said he resolved the confrontation by invoking his authority as Commander-in-Chief and forcing Obasanjo to stand down, before going on to serve as Obasanjo’s personal ‘guardian angel’ through the war and beyond.
The revelations are contained in Chapter 14 of Gowon’s 859-page autobiography, My Life of Duty and Allegiance, titled ‘No Going Back’, obtained by The PUNCH at the book’s launch in Abuja on Tuesday.
Gowon also revealed that Biafra’s leader, Lieutenant Colonel Odumegwu Ojukwu, secretly pawned the mineral wealth of Biafra to the Rothschild banking family for approximately $10 million, or an estimated N5 million at the time, in exchange for French-backed support for the secessionist effort.
Gowon said he first encountered Obasanjo at the Officers’ Mess in the United Kingdom in March 1958, when both men were undergoing officer training.
According to the book, Gowon, short of money and unable to settle his bills on arrival in London, turned to two fellow Nigerian officers, Obasanjo and a Lagos-born officer named Foluso Sotomi, to assess who might help him.
‘Whereas Obasanjo was a frugal person, Sotomi was a spendthrift and, as his nickname confirmed, a typical Lagos ‘Show Boy’ who looked smarter but was more of a bigmouth and certainly more bombastic than Obasanjo’, Gowon wrote.
When he approached Sotomi, the man had no money to spare.
‘Obasanjo, on the other hand, was much different. He had more than enough money to pay for himself and to offset my initial bills. I saw that as a great display of a sense of responsibility’, the former Head of State said.
That first impression, Gowon wrote, converted into a sustained personal investment in Obasanjo’s career that would last through the civil war and into the post-war period.
He said, ‘That singular act made me take more interest in Obasanjo and what he did. I advised him to ensure that he remained on the right track in the Army.
‘I became his informal guardian angel right up to the time I appointed him to take over the command of 3 Marine Commando from Adekunle’.
Gowon says he observed Obasanjo closely from the beginning, forming a clear-eyed assessment that is candid about his limitations as well as his strengths.
‘Obasanjo was a quiet, respectable and intelligent officer, though not quite as smart as, for example, the younger Alani Akinrinade to whom I took instant liking whilst he was a cadet officer at my alma mater, the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst’, he wrote.
Gowon then revealed the standoff between Obasanjo and Murtala, which he described as playing out during the opening phase of the civil war.
The former Head of State had decided to create a Rear Command for the newly formed 2 Division under Murtala Muhammed, with Obasanjo, then Sector Commander in the Western State, serving as Rear Commander in Ibadan, helping to organise relief supplies, equipment and reinforcements.
The arrangement would technically place Obasanjo in a supporting role under Murtala.
Obasanjo and Gowon wrote, did not take it well.
‘He believed he was more senior and should not be expected to serve under his junior.
‘His reaction made it obvious that he was not well disposed to any idea that appeared to present him as playing second fiddle to Murtala.
‘As a result, he strongly stated that he would never serve under Colonel Murtala Muhammed for any reason’, he narrated.
Gowon says Murtala’s own reaction to the arrangement similarly revealed something important about the future head of state’s character.
‘His reaction also clearly showed that Obasanjo would have serious misgivings about being 2-IC even to himself’, he recalled.
But the Commander-in-Chief held firm.
‘I stood my ground that, as Commander-in-Chief, I reserved the right to send people to where I believe they could be most useful to the country at any material time.
‘I told him his main task was not to be Murtala’s deputy but to ensure the general security of the Western Region. He relented and took on the role assigned to him’.
Gowon added that despite the inauspicious start, Obasanjo ‘indeed performed well to my expectations’, specifically by rebuffing a remarkable covert attempt by Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka to use the posting to open a passage for Colonel Victor Banjo to enter the West.
‘He performed well to my expectations, especially by rebuffing Wole Soyinka’s attempt to get him to allow Colonel Victor Banjo to come to the West through Benin to Ibadan. I deeply appreciate Obasanjo’s loyalty and sense of patriotism’, Gowon wrote.
Gowon also disclosed details about the Ojukwu-Rothschild deal.
He wrote that as the war intensified, France provided the rebel government with enormous support through former African territories it controlled, with the backing provided in exchange for what France hoped to gain from a successful Biafran breakaway.
The true depth of the transaction, he said, only became known when the Nigerian Consulate in New York intercepted intelligence on a B-26 aircraft purchase routed through a South American country.
‘It later emerged that this was in exchange for what they had hoped to gain from him in the event of a successful breakaway from Nigeria’, Gowon narrated.
He added, ‘Indeed, he had pawned the mineral wealth of Biafra to Rothschild for about $10 million or an estimated N5 million at the time.
‘Our knowledge of this deal was fortuitous because the Nigerian Consulate in New York had intercepted information regarding the purchase of a B-26 aircraft that was to have been sent to Biafra through a South American country’.
The intelligence was relayed to Lagos by Moses Ihonde, who would go on to become Gowon’s Press Secretary, dispatched personally by Consul General Simeon Adebo after negotiators in the aircraft deal had approached the New York consulate for information on exchange rates.
The chapter also contains Gowon’s account of his decision to appoint Murtala as Commander of the 2 Division, describing him as his ‘preferred choice’ who ‘displayed extraordinary zeal and courage’ in taking on the assignment, while acknowledging that Murtala ‘often allowed his emotions to get the better part of him’.
Murtala would later overthrow Gowon himself in the 1975 coup.
