Why renaming UniAbuja Yakubu Gowon University makes sense
The uproar by some over the renaming of the University of Abuja to Yakubu Gowon University in honor of Nigeria’s former Head of State, General Yakubu Gowon, is uncalled for. The man deserves it. He is Nigeria’s longest serving leader for a single tenure, and in that time he kept Nigeria united and built more infrastructure than anybody before or after him.
Let’s move on. In Abuja, probably the most critical infrastructure, the Abuja Airport, is named after Mr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, and there was absolutely no fuss from the ethnic nationalities that make up the nation of Nigeria.
The Nigerian civil war has been over for fifty-four years. A lot of what some of our citizens know about General Gowon is not founded on fact but is a product of Biafran wartime propaganda.
The war was fought because of the type of Constitution Nigeria had then.
Chief Obafemi Awolowo mooted the idea of a secession clause in 1954 during the Lagos Constitutional Conference, but Nnamdi Azikiwe rejected it, galvanising a majority of the conference attendees to kill the idea.
After this was rejected, Chief Awolowo again wrote to the then Governor General of Nigeria, who rejected the clause on the grounds that the majority, led by Nnamdi Azikiwe, did not support it.
Because of Nnamdi Azikiwe, section 86 was inserted into our constitution with the proviso that if any region should secede, it would be an act of treason.
Nnamdi Azikiwe wrote about this in an essay published by the New Nigerian Newspapers in 1975. Other papers and Mr Azikiwe have since republished it.
In fact, a year before Awolowo tried to get a secession clause into the Constitution, Nnamdi Azikiwe had threatened Northern Nigeria with war if they tried to secede from Nigeria at a speech he gave on Monday, May 12, 1953. Please find below a quote from that speech:
“It may lead to economic nationalism in the Eastern Region, which can pursue a policy of blockade of the North, by refusing it access to the sea, over and under the River Niger, except upon payment of tolls.”
It was because of our constitutional provision against secession that the Niger-Delta could not break away.
On February 23, 1966, Isaac Adaka Boro declared the secession of the Niger Delta Republic from Nigeria. After he did this, there was outrage in the Eastern Region, which almost resulted in riots. Please go and research it. The Military Governor of the Eastern Region, Lt. Colonel Emeka Ojukwu, officially requested the Federal Government to intervene and end Boro’s secession attempt.
The then Head of State, Major General Johnson Aguiyi-Ironsi, quashed what he called the Isaac Boro mutiny using primarily troops of Eastern Nigeria origin.
As for the war itself, Nigeria under Gowon initially treated Biafra with kid gloves until, in an unprovoked attack, Biafra invaded the Midwest Region on Wednesday, August 9, 1967, with 3000 troops. They looted the Central Bank of Nigeria, Benin Branch and killed many people who they called saboteurs after installing an Igbo man named Albert Okonkwo as Governor.
Thereafter, Biafra bombed Lagos on Sunday, October 8, 1967, and killed several people as Lagosians were coming home from church.
Following the Midwest Incident, Biafra again, in an unprovoked attack, invaded the Western Region two weeks after occupying the Midwest. Lukumi Yoruba officers under Major Ibrahim Taiwo were sent to flush them out. In the ensuing battle, more than a thousand Nigerian soldiers and even more civilians of Ore town were killed.
That battle is the fiercest battle in the history of Lukumi and is commemorated with the proverb ‘Oleku Ija Ore’.
After these incidents, the Gowon government escalated their initial police action into an all-out war. In the process of the war, Biafra became landlocked, and Colonel Ojukwu refused to surrender. It was that refusal to surrender that prolonged the war and led to unnecessary deaths.
Immediately Colonel Ojukwu fled and Biafra surrendered, the first food that came into Biafra was not from abroad, but from Northern Nigeria, the very people Ojukwu told Biafrans were coming to kill them. If you doubt this, I can provide video evidence.
Unfortunately, many Nigerians have been fed propaganda about the war, which has made them hate Nigeria and their fellow Nigerians, and that is what is fuelling this current angst about the renaming of the University of Abuja to Yakubu Gowon University.
By Reno Omokri
Gospeller. Deep Thinker. #TableShaker. Ruffler of the Feathers of Obidents. #1 Bestselling author of Facts Versus Fiction: The True Story of the Jonathan Years. Hodophile. Hollywood Magazine Humanitarian of the Year, 2019. Business Insider Influencer of the Year 2022.
