At the recent launch of General Ibrahim Babangida’s memoir, A Journey in Service, former President Goodluck Jonathan made a profound statement. He said: “Every president makes history, but those who document the history makes it stronger and more relevant.” He went on to say: “I also hope that one day I will do my own.” However, he added: “But I am waiting for my seniors before I think about my own.”
Of course, Jonathan is absolutely right. Presidents enrich their countries’ historical and collective narrative when they document their experiences for posterity. To his credit, President Jonathan captured for future generations an epochal moment in Nigeria’s political history when, for the first time, an incumbent president lost power and ensured a smooth transition. Jonathan’s book, My Transition Hours, is a historically significant account of his defeat and concession in the 2015 presidential election. Surely, he will write his full memoir “one day”, but has, rightly, thrown down the gauntlet to his “seniors”!
By “my seniors”, President Jonathan was referring to former military heads of state or civilian presidents before him. In the order of seniority, the living ones are General Yakubu Gowon, General Olusegun Obasanjo, General Muhammadu Buhari, General Ibrahim Babangida and General Abdulsalami Abubakar. Of these former leaders, President Obasanjo is undoubtedly the most prolific, having written memoirs like My Command, Not My Will and My Watch. General Babangida has now followed suit with A Journey in Service. So, that leaves Gowon, Buhari and Abdulsalami.
Yet, while Nigerians want to hear from Buhari himself, not his hagiographers, and want to hear from Abdulsalami, Jonathan and, in the future, Bola Tinubu, there’s no denying that the one former leader that Nigerians have long wanted to hear from, and are still desperate to hear from, is General Gowon, Nigeria’s war-time leader.
Let’s be clear. The annulment of the June 12, 1993 presidential election was significant; the return to civil rule in 1999 after years of Abacha tyranny was important; and the prevention of Armageddon in 2015 when an incumbent president lost power and oversaw a peaceful transition was consequential. Yet, all these seismic events, taken together, pale into insignificance when compared with the military events of 1966 and the 30-month civil war. And the only person who can tell the story is General Gowon, the military head of state between August 1966 and July 1975, a long period that covered the aftermath of July 29, 1966 countercoup, the “pogrom”, the civil war and the post-war “reconciliation, rehabilitation, and reconstruction”!
I watched the launch of General Babangida’s memoir live on Channels TV and was pained to see General Gowon as he tried hard to exonerate himself from the 1976 Dimka coup, saying he “had been trying all the time to make sure coups did not take place in Nigeria”, then explaining his position on the events of 1966. But as he went on and on, I could not help shouting at the screen, “Sir, write your memoir!”
Clearly, given more time, General Gowon had a lot to say at the event. He even contradicted a narrative in Babangida’s memoir. General Babangida had written that after his regime disqualified 23 presidential aspirants from participating in the “transition” programme, “speculations were rife that different interest groups had approached names like General Yakubu Gowon to throw their hats in the ring.” At the time, General Obasanjo mocked General Gowon’s presidential ambition, saying: “What did he forget in the State House?” But Gowon has now explained that it was Babangida who asked him to run. During his speech at the book launch, Gowon turned to Babangida and said: “You even selected me to be the presidential candidate for NRC, wasn’t it?” Babangida was embarrassed by the disclosure. Truth is, General Gowon is not afraid to talk about the past.
Indeed, he did on many occasions in public statements and interviews. For instance, in 2016, at a public event, General Gowon reminisced about the 1966 coups and how he serendipitously became head of state at the age of 32. In his book, There Was A Country, Professor Chinua Achebe reproduced extracts from an interview General Gowon granted to the eminent journalist Pini Jason, under the auspices of Chinua Achebe Foundation, in which Gowon responded to questions about the civil war. So, you might ask, why then are you talking about Gowon’s memoir when some of his views are already in the public space?
Well, here’s why. The civil war is the most monumental and historic event in post-independence Nigeria, and telling its story requires more than occasional reflections that can only produce shallow and incoherent snippets about the past. What is needed is something of intellectual profundity from Nigeria’s war-time leader. Truth is, General Gowon sits on treasure troves of knowledge, insight, wisdom and revelations about Nigeria’s darkest moment since independence, and it would be a tragedy if he went to his grave with them.
Lt-Col Emeka Odumegwu Ojukwu, the war-time Biafran leader, wrote a small book titled Because I am involved, containing random musings about the war, and promised to write a full memoir. Unfortunately, he never did before his demise. But, today, there’s no Biafra; there is only Nigeria! So, the story that really matters, if you ask me, is that of Nigeria’s role before, during and after the war – told by General Gowon!
Interestingly, General Gowon wrote the foreword to General Babangida’s memoir and titled it “The Courage to Look Back”. He said it is one thing to lead one’s country, another to “change the landscape of society in many fundamental ways” and then “live to tell the story first-hand for the benefit of posterity.” He congratulated Babangida for being in that rare category. But what about Gowon himself? Doesn’t he have the courage to look back and tell the story of his leadership of Nigeria at its most epochal moment for the benefit of posterity? And if not, why?
With a PhD in Political Science from Warwick University, General Gowon doesn’t lack the literary and intellectual capacities to write his memoir. Of course, at 91, age is a factor, but a woman, Bertha Wood, wrote her first novel at 100. Besides, Gowon can enlist the assistance of a bright young writer. General Gowon is probably reticent because he doesn’t want to stir up controversies. But who cares? Obasanjo’s My Command was so controversial it provoked Brigadier-General Godwin Alabi-Isama to write The Tragedy of Victory. Well, the more the merrier: Nigerian history is enriched by such narratives. But the biggest enricher is General Gowon’s memoir. He should write it before he dies!
The post A plea to General Gowon: Sir, write your memoir before you die! By Olu Fasan appeared first on Vanguard News.
