GOWON, THE MAN WHO TOLD THE WORLD MONEY WAS NOT OUR PROBLEM

Yakubu Gowon

Yakubu Gowon is a man after my heart. 

Gowon led the war that led to my father's death. It makes no difference to me, because, it was a war. I recall arguing somewhere that Gowon for my money remains the best Nigerian leader and I was seemingly alone.

Why do I love Gowon? I think of the National Stadium. I think of the National Theatre. I think of the Oil Refineries. I think of Peugeot Automobile of Nigeria and Volkswagen of Nigeria. I think of the Jamborees like All Africa Games.

Oh, it was the time of the Oil boom. Someone surprised me when he said that discussing Gowon makes him bored and I was crestfallen. According to Ray Ekpu, in the Gowon era, 'corruption was so rife that contracts were signed with toes'.

After Gowon had got his PhD Political Science from Warwick University he argued that even with the PhD, he had no regrets over his past. In other words his lack of a University Degree made no difference.

Nigeria had made a lot of fuss about our foreign debt like we are doing today. With so much money to spare, Obasanjo paid off our debt. Many people faulted him. Like Gowon, Obasanjo is a soldier.

Gowon had fortune thrust upon his laps with the Oil Boom. He did the best he could. He even boasted that Nigeria's problem was not money but how to spend it. In the end, we never made it to the first world from our position as a third world country.

Did he refuse advice? I think not. So why blame him for not doing more than he did? He had super permanent Secretaries to call upon. He was a soldier and not a politician or a development expert.

If he could not do more for us than he did, for my money the fault could not have been his alone but our collective fault. It is true, he was not a democratic leader, but he did not and could not have ruled alone.

With respect to Inflation, word had it then that the Udoji Salary review he authorized did not come with payment of arrears but in his euphoria, he implemented it with arrears giving birth to hyper inflation.

Another glaring failing of his was not fighting corruption for it was believed that, much as he did not enrich himself, he did next to nothing in clamping down on corruption.

His indigenization decree of 1972, was equally faulted, so was his post war reconciliation, reconstruction and rehabilitation program that emasculated Igbos and made many of them beggars and robbers.

With a PhD in Political Science, he did not realize his failings, so who is to blame?