Yakubu Gowon

Yakubu Gowon (born October 19, 1934, Pankshin, Nigeria) is a Nigerian military leader who served as head of state (1966–75).

Gowon was born in what is now Plateau state, in the middle belt of Nigeria; his father was an early convert to Christianity. Gowon was educated in Zaria (now in Kaduna state) and later became a career army officer. He was trained in Ghana and in England at Sandhurst and twice served in the Congo region as part of Nigeria’s peacekeeping force there in the early 1960s. In Nigeria, after the coup of January 1966, he was appointed chief of staff to Maj. Gen. Johnson Aguiyi-Ironsi, the country’s new leader. Northern officers staged a countercoup in July 1966, and Gowon emerged as the compromise head of the new government.

Gowon tried to resolve the ethnic tensions that threatened to fatally divide Nigeria. Although he was eventually successful in ending attacks against Igbo in the north, he was unable to effect a more lasting peace. In a final attempt to resolve the conflict, on May 27, 1967, Gowon declared a state of emergency and divided Nigeria’s four regions into 12 states. Three days later the Eastern region declared itself the independent state of Biafra, with Odumegwu Ojukwu as its leader, and armed conflict between Biafra and the Nigerian government began in July.

Gowon directed government forces to remember that they were essentially fighting Nigerians, who were to be encouraged to rejoin the country. He also allowed a team of international observers to monitor the conduct of his troops. After the government victory in January 1970, a remarkable reconciliation took place between victors and vanquished, largely attributable to Gowon’s personal influence. By the mid-1970s Gowon was emerging as an international leader and was involved in the establishment of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). On July 29, 1975, however, while Gowon was in Uganda for an Organization of African Unity summit meeting, the army removed him from office.

Gowon was exiled to Great Britain. In addition, he was stripped of his rank for allegedly participating in the assassination of his successor, Brig. Gen. Murtala Mohammed, in 1976. However, he was pardoned by Pres. Shehu Shagari in 1981, and his rank was restored by Pres. Ibrahim Babangida in 1987. Having earned a Ph.D. at Warwick University in 1983, Gowon had become a professor of political science at the University of Jos in the mid-1980s and attained the status of an elder statesman in Nigerian politics.