Was Lt-Col Yakubu Dan- Yumma Gowon lead by the nose or was he a duplicitous craftsman?
June 20th, 2025
Lt-Col.Yakubu Gowon was appointed the chief of staff, Army in December 1965, after Col. Robert Adeyinka Adebayo handed over to him.
He maintained the position after the military coup of January 1966. He was close to Gen. Ironsi having worked with him in the United Nations Peace Keeping Force in the Congo during the Katangese rebel from 1960-1964. He became friendly with Gen. Ironsi, thus becoming an Ironsi boy and stays in his house when Ironsi was military attaché in London.
After the coup of July 29, 1966 by Northern troops loyal to Gowon and Murtala Muhammed, his foot soldiers for the counter coup, he was named the Head of State by Major Murtala Muhammed on Monday, August 1st 1966.
But before he was appointed the Head of State by northern coup plotters on August 1st 1966, Lt-Col Ojukwu challenged that he was not the right officer to be the commander- in -chief in the absence of the supreme commander. Ojukwu told him that there were over six officers senior to him in the military who should be the next supreme commander.
In a biography of Olusegun Obasanjo by Dr. Onukaba Adinoyi- Ojo, Gen. Obasanjo explained Ojukwu’s logic thus: ‘‘with Gen Ironsi dead, Brig. Babafemi Ogundipe, the chief of staff, Supreme Headquarters was the next most senior officer in the country. But when he realized that northern officers had not risked their lives to install a non-northern officer as a replacement for Gen. Ironsi’s successor, he fled the country feeling that the coup plotters might eliminate him as well.
He escaped from the country and re-emerged later in London where he was appointed Nigeria’s high commissioner in the United Kingdom. For three days, from July 29 to August 1, 1966, the nation’s blood-smeared presidency remained vacant. It was an interregnum. While Nigeria waited in anguish for a leader, northern officers led by Gowon and Murtala Mohammed were at the Ikeja Cantonment debating whether or not to lead their nation (the Northern Region) out of Nigeria; however, the intervention of some federal permanent secretaries, the British High Commissioner (Sir Francis Cumming-Bruce) and the American Embassy in Lagos as well as the presence of a few saner and reasonable officers among them, persuaded the group to allow the north remain within a United Nigeria.
Having grudgingly agreed to a United Nigeria, the officers chose and installed Gowon, the most senior officer from the North, who had not participated in the coup as Nigeria’s second military Head of State on Monday, August 1, 1966.
For those who planned the counter coup, the list included Martin Adamu, Shehu Musa Yar’Adua, Muhammadu Buhari, Pam Nwatkom, Ibrahim Babanigida, John Longham, Garba Duba, Jerry Usemi, Ibrahim Bako, Musa Usman and Shittu Alao, and they wanted major Murtala Muhammed to be the Head of State. But Muhammed said Gowon, an affable, good looking man, should lead it because he was the most senior—not that he was the most effective or capable or the most intellectually equipped or the most dynamic or the most knowledgeable officer from the North.”
But Ojukwu would not accept him as his supreme commander. ”when governor Ojukwu of the Eastern Region heard of Gowon’s appointment as Head of State and Commander in Chief of the Armed forces in Nigeria, he said it was abnormal. His argument was that in the absence of Ironsi whose death had not been officially announced, the next most senior army officers, Brig. Ogundipe and Col. Bassey, should assume command. Ojukwu therefore refused to recognize Gowon’s appointment.
Ojukwu’s argument, though logical, did not seem to have reflected the absurd reality of a military coup. Coup plotters decide the helmsmen. Once a coup is successful, army hierarchy and discipline are worthless as the bullets expended in exercise or the constitution of the land which had been tossed aside. Ojukwu‘s protest was only logical in an ideal situation which a coup is not.”
Later, Col Ojukwu rang his phone again and Murtala Muhammed picked it up and then turned to Yakubu Gowon.” It is Ojukwu, he wants to speak to you. “Muhammad covered the mouth piece, looked at Gowon directly and said,” Now I want to know every word he says to you before you reply.” The other people in the room in addition to Gowon and Mohammed were Justice Mohammed Bello and Shittu Alao of air force. Buba Usman of military intelligence, nodded in agreement. Gowon could be kind, he was not the kind of ruthless person who should deal with these people, thought Mohammed. The only way to ensure that he did not make any commitment which they—northern troops—could not accept was to monitor every word that he had to say. The telephone conversation was therefore very slow. Ojukwu was recording the conversation.
“What is going on? Ojukwu asked. Gowon narrated the incidents of the last four days as innocently as possible using the passive tense to maintain ambiguity. ‘’The other ranks mutinied and deaths have occurred. The supreme commander and the military government of the west were arrested and nothing is known about their whereabouts” “So what is being done? The most senior officer is Brigadier Ogundipe, let him step in and restore order until we find out what has happened to the supreme commander.
“That is out of the question” why? “The boys who organized the revolt insist they want the north to go Separate.” “I have already been in contact with all the other members of the Supreme Military Council and they agree that I should take over.” “That is impossible! There are other senior officers in the armed forces.”
In the armed forces, the line of succession would have been something like this: Commodore J.E.A Way, heading the navy, Brig. Ogundipe, who had already resigned from the army, Col. Adeyinka Adebayo who would have been as unacceptable as Ogundipe, Lt-Col. Imo, Lt-Col. Njoku, who would be anathema to the mutineers. Then came in alphabetical order, Lt-Col. David Ejoor,; Lt-Col Yakubu Gowon and Lt-Col. Odumegwu Ojukwu, both Gowon and Ojukwu had been promoted to the level of Lt-Col on the same date of 1st April 1964.
“Listen, “ Ojikwu continued. “ if you want to take over simply as chief of staff of the army and only as such in Lagos, so that you can bring the situation under control, I shall co-operate with you, so that Ogundipe or whoever is next in seniority can assume power.”
‘’As I said earlier,’’ Gowon replied, ’’the other governors have agreed to my takeover”. “But there is no governor in the west”, answered Ojukwu.
On October 19, 1934, at Wusasa, Zaria, Kaduna, a young boy was born into the family of Nde Yohanna Gowon and his wife, Matwok Kurnyang Gowon. He was named Yakubu Dan-Yumma Gowon (YDG). He was the 5th child from the brood of eleven children of a stern missionary parent. He hails from Lur, a small village in Ngas (Angas) in the present Kanke LGA of Plateau State. His parents travelled to Wusasa, Zaria,Kaduna state as Church Missionary Society (CMS) missionaries in his infantry. He was brought up in Zaria and a fine footballer and is also a good goalkeeper, a miler, pole-vaulter and long distance runner, who won the school record. Gowon was also the boxing captain in his school.
On April 19, 1969, Gowon married Miss Victoria Zakari, a nurse as his wife and they had a boy and a girl from the union. They are Ibrahim Bala Gowon and Saratu Kankemwa Tami Gowon, both grown up now.
He also had a son out of wedlock. He is Musa Jack Ngonadi Gowon. Born to him in 1968, at the heat of the civil war by his long time Igbo girlfriend whom he sincerely wanted to marry but was aborted because of the civil war that begun in 1967. She was the late Miss Edith Ike whose parents lived in Jos for more than three decades where Edith was born.
However, the outbreak of hostilities stopped the marriage even though Edith became pregnant for Gowon few months after the war started on July 7th, 1967. She separated from Gowon after July 14, 1968 bombing of Aba General Hospital by the Nigerian Air force personnel who killed over 500 civilians in the hospital.
She rejected the killings and bombing of soft targets by Gowon’s soldiers and left him with the boy, the boy who is now a full man and carbon-copy of Yakubu Gowon. The boy had been in prison in U.S.A for a long time, but re-united with Gowon in late 2015.