(In Remembrance of Malaria-General Yakubu Gowon)
It was an avoidable and unnecessary war. For those who survived the slaughters, life continued. We were happy to go back to school, hopeful that a new Nigeria is nigh. For WAEC history exam, I chose to embellish “the achievements of Yakubu Gowon” in Section C. The meaningless mantra of “no-victor-no-vanquished”—when the war never ended—and the rudderless and ruffled 3Rs (reconciliation, rehabilitation, and reconstruction) got blind kudos!
Years later, reality resurfaced: I snapped out of colored clouds. What were the real reasons why Gowon declared war (July 6, 1967-January 12, 1970). On May 30, 1997, I instituted the Nigeria-Biafra War Memorial Lecture series. Three decades later, the lying lips that unilaterally abrogated an astute agreement mumble through a documented history as if reading from a poorly fictionalized format.
From January to May 1967, Gowon sat on the celebrated Aburi Accord. Instead of revisiting any misgivings he might have had, he chose to act like a boy scout dictator and to wage a war on the severely scarred souls of Southeastern Nigeria, now Biafra. For six decades, no one knew why Gowon abrogated an agreement he had signed willfully. I still believe that he saw a path to carve out his Middle Belt from Arewa anvil; he took it and created 12 states on May 27, 1967. This idea was resurrected in the 1990 anti-IBB coup of Major Gideon Gwaza Orkar.
In an interview with Arise TV’s Charles Aniagolu, the thought of sitting in front of a surviving Biafran baby he had tried to exterminate must have unsettled Gowon. The blood of millions he needlessly terminated haunts him: from the military mutiny he managed on July 29, 1966, to the major Igbo Pogrom of Sept 29, 1966, through the Asaba “Blood on the Niger” Massacre to the bestial bombings of open markets and churches by Egyptian pilots in Russian Ilyushin jets.
While speaking incoherently during the interview with Aniagolu, Gowon told a barefaced lie: that he had some sort of fever and could not act immediately after coming back from Ghana. For four months! It could only be chronic malaria.
Gowon has lived long to realize that history will not be kind to him. What is left of his twofaced Christian image is the parable of a prodigal father who denied his first begotten son for four decades and a weak general whose village is ravaged relentlessly by Fulani bandits while he watched in senseless silence. Shame! What a joke of a major….sorry, malaria general.
“Going on with one Nigeria” is a fat lie; it was about oil. Nigeria is still not one: An Aburi Accord reformatted remains the best option for Nigeria’s survival in the long run. A war criminal who used kwashiorkor starvation as an official weapon of war, Gowon is adjudged one of the top ten mass murderers in history; Leopold of Belgium, Hitler, Stalin, and Pol Pot are on the list. So far, all efforts made to erase the atrocities of the war by not teaching history in Nigerian schools have failed woefully with the coming of cyberspace. Then the big one: Biafra lives. Ouch!
Many Gen-Zes have no idea who Gowon is. To many Odumegwu Ojukwu is Bianca, a federal minister! Gowon knows the score, and he is saddened by the falsity, the futility, and the failure of his efforts. He lives with the bloodshed and the bestiality of his war.
I was at an event where Ojukwu dared Gowon to write his memoirs first, since he started the crises by killing his boss, General JTU Aguiyi-Ironsi, dishonoring an agreement, and waging a wicked war. Knowing that Gowon is uncomfortable with truth (from killing his boss, denying his son, dishonoring Aburi Accord, disregarding Effiong-OBJ cessation of hostilities pact, and practicing pathetic postwar policies), Ojukwu promised to leave behind essential documents and notes, including recorded private phone calls with Gowon.
While we wait for the next shoe to drop, I propose Sunday, July 6, 2025, as “Malaria Eradication Day.” Maybe, just maybe, the next war to ravage Nigeria could be stopped by saving another general from chronic malaria.
Happy “Malaria Eradication Day”: take your MEDications, folks!
@MOEne, 7.6.25
New Jersey, USA
aladimma.net 