Dan Ulasi questions Gowon’s civil war memoir, dismisses it as ‘convenient amnesia’

A chieftain of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Dan Ulasi, has dismissed former Head of State Yakubu Gowon’s account of the Nigerian Civil War in his recently released memoir, describing it as a collection of “convenient amnesia” and “half truths.”

Ulasi made the remarks on Friday during an appearance on The Morning Show on Arise News while reacting to Plateau State Governor Caleb Mutfwang’s apology to the Igbo community over the role some Plateau indigenes played during the civil war.

Commenting on Gowon’s memoir, Ulasi argued that the book failed to present an accurate account of the events leading to and during the conflict.

“If you look at what happened in the Aburi Accord, General Gowon signed everything in the Aburi Accord, and only to come back to the uselessness of what he did, probably he didn’t understand what was going on there,” Ulasi said.

He accused the former military leader of omitting key aspects of history in the memoir.

“Look at the book he wrote. You see a lot of convenient amnesia, half truths and releases that were not in accord with what happened in the civil war,” he said.

Ulasi also questioned the timing of the publication, noting that Gowon did not publicly respond to the late Biafran leader, Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu, while he was alive.

“Before Ojukwu died, he was making a lot of comments about the Civil War and Gowon never replied him. But for Gowon to come out now and issue his kind of brand of what I call investigative hypnosis, because he knows now that nobody is going to challenge him in what he has said. It’s unfortunate that we have to resurrect dead matter,” he added.

In his memoir, Gowon recounted the events that followed the January 1966 coup and the July counter-coup, explaining why he eventually emerged as Nigeria’s Head of State.

The former military ruler wrote that many northern military officers believed Ojukwu was complicit in the January 1966 coup and wanted to move against him.

He also addressed Ojukwu’s insistence that Brigadier Babafemi Ogundipe, then the most senior military officer after the assassination of Major General Johnson Aguiyi-Ironsi, should have succeeded as Head of State.

According to Gowon, the circumstances surrounding the counter-coup made Ogundipe unsuitable to lead the armed forces.

“The case of Brigadier Babafemi Ogundipe was, however, not as straightforward because the course of the coup had made it obvious that he could no longer function effectively in the command-and-control structure of the Nigerian Army and the Armed Forces,” Gowon wrote.

He further claimed that Ojukwu rejected his leadership despite efforts to build a working relationship. 

“Ojukwu refused my offer of friendship. By extension, he willfully refused to recognise my leadership. He felt that the ‘normal’ protocol of seniority in service should have been upheld in selecting General Ironsi’s successor under the new administration, regardless of the circumstances by which I assumed power,” Gowon stated.

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