General Yakubu Cinwa Gowon was the fifth child of
his father – a Christian evangelist who had to take up
farming (once again) after relocating from Pankshin
in modern day Plateau State to Wusasa near Zaria.
He was born in October 1934 and grew up in humble
and sometimes difficult circumstances occasioned by
difficulties his father had trying to settle down as an
evangelist in his new home – appropriately described
as an island in an otherwise predominantly Islamic
environment. Gowon’s family miraculously survived
the hardships of those difficult years – sometimes
unsure of the next meal - simply by having faith. His
father was a highly principled moralist whose
missionary imprint would deeply influence his son’s
future career. His mother was reportedly very strict.
Gowon attended then Government (now Barewa)
College Zaria. Thus, he shared the same alma mater
with some of the Northern Peoples Congress (NPC)
leaders and senior northern Army officers of his day.
As is well known, these leaders were assassinated on
January 15, 1966. Gowon himself narrowly escaped
being killed. One of the students who was four years
his junior at the same school was later to emerge as
his political and military rival. The name of the
student (at that time) was Murtala Rufai Mohammed.
Although his eldest brother died on active service
during the Second World War and another brother
survived the conflict, how Yakubu Gowon decided to
enter the Army is quite interesting. Encouraged by
his British Principal and Vice-Principal to go military,
he was nevertheless torn between a career in the
Army and competing options as a teacher, engineer,
or physician. So he wrote out the options on little
pieces of paper placed them inside a Bible and
prayed. Then, with his eyes closed, he opened the
Bible and picked one at random. It was the Army.
Throughout his military career he would repeatedly
approach issues with a rifle in one hand and a Bible
in the other. Years later he would come to be
regarded by most as a model of a “kinder, gentler”
soldier. Some have nicknamed him “The Preacher”.
In 1954, after passing an entrance examination, he
attended several interviews before being sent to the
Regular Officers Cadet School at Teshie in Ghana –
along with Patrick Anwuna, Alexander Madiebo,
Michael Okwechime and Arthur Unegbe. This was
followed by a course at Eton Hall in Chester, UK,
followed by formal cadet training at the Royal
Military Academy, Sandhurst (RMAS). He was a Cadet
Sergeant at the RMAS and was commissioned 2/Lt in
December 1956. It was at the RMAS that he acquired
the nickname “Jack,” the closest sound to “Yakubu”
his British instructors could think of.
Gowon then attended the Young Officers Course at
Hythe and the School of Infantry at Warminster
before returning to Nigeria in July 1957. He was
initially a platoon commander at the 4QNR, Ibadan
before returning to Ghana for training as a Mortar
Officer followed by another support weapons course
in England. When he came back to Nigeria in
September 1959, he was made the adjutant to the
4QNR.
From January to May 1960, Gowon saw action as a
Platoon Commander during the Cameroon counter-
insurgency campaign. In November he was deployed
for ONUC along with the rest of the 4QNR under Lt.
Col. Rolo Price to Manono in Katanga, Congo. In
Congo he was recommended for the Military Cross
but did not get it. Upon his return he was made a
Staff Officer at AHQ. In 1962, as a Captain, he
attended the Staff College at Camberley, UK.
In January 1963 he was appointed the Brigade Major
at the Nigerian Brigade HQ, Luluaborg, Congo. When
he returned he was promoted Lt. Col. and appointed
the first Nigerian Adjutant General at the AHQ. It was
as the Adjutant General that he spotted a young
Lieutenant from the 4th battalion whose height,
turnout and ramrod stiff poise convinced Gowon that
he was a good material for the ceremonial Federal
Guards Company in Lagos. The name of that officer
was Joseph Nanven Garba.
In May 1965, he was off again, this time to attend the
Joint Services Staff College (JSSC) at Lartimer, UK. It
was upon his return from the JSSC in January 1966
that Gowon was appointed the Commander of the
2nd Battalion at Ikeja Barracks.
As incoming Commander of the 2nd Battalion,
Gowon, along with some key company commanders
like Majors Igboba (from the Midwest) and Anago
(from Cameroons), played a key role in putting down
the violent weekend January 15 mutiny in Lagos. All
this occurred in spite of an alleged attempt to delay
handing over the Ikeja battalion to him by Lt. Col.
Hilary Njoku - who was later said by one of the
January mutineers (Major Ademoyega) to have had
foreknowledge of the plot. After taking power from
the rump civilian cabinet – ostensibly to restore law
and order - Major General Ironsi later appointed
Gowon – the only surviving senior officer of northern
origin - Chief of Staff (Army), thus inadvertently
denying him his first – and only – career chance to
hold a field command. Njoku became the
Commander of the 2nd Brigade. Igboba took over the
2nd Battalion. The position of Chief of Staff (Army)
was a staff appointment – essentially the “chief
clerk” to the Supreme Commander.
In an interview with the Army Historical Team,
Gowon insists that he was not present at the meeting
between General Ironsi and the surviving federal
cabinet, at which Ironsi was allegedly “requested” to
take political power. He was only told later (at a
meeting of Army Officers) that the civilian cabinet
had “handed over.” It was not until much later that
he heard alternative accounts of what had actually
transpired with the civilian cabinet. Had he known at
the time – he says - that the cabinet did not
voluntarily hand over power to Ironsi as he was led to
believe, he would not have supported Ironsi’s
emergence as Head of State and Supreme
Commander. I suspect that Gowon’s confidence in
making this assertion comes from the fact that he
was – for just under 48 hours – de facto Commanding
Officer of the 2nd Battalion Ikeja whose troops were
in control of the streets of Lagos.
As Chief of Staff (Army), he says he repeatedly
advised General Ironsi to court-martial and punish
the January mutineers in the interest of Army
discipline. However, when ordered to do so, he
dutifully went around Barracks in the country in an
effort to pacify troops of northern origin – prior to
Ironsi’s nationwide tour. This was reportedly a very
difficult assignment because of his personal
relationship with many of the Lagos victims of the
January putsch. Aside from being military colleagues,
Lt. Col. James Pam, for example, was virtually like a
brother to him. Brigadier Maimalari, Colonel Kur
Mohammed and Lt. Col. Abogo Largema were former
schoolmates at Barewa (as was Pam). Lt. Col. Arthur
Unegbe was his classmate at Sandhurst – and,
according to one unconfirmed account – Gowon may
have been the Best man at his wedding

During the weekend of July 29,
1966, following a violent rolling mutiny, Gowon
emerged as the new Supreme Commander of the
Nigerian Armed Forces – even though (by most
accounts) he did not plan the mutiny/coup and did
not partake in implementing it. That he emerged
over the actual coup leader – then Lt. Col. Murtala
Rufai Mohammed – was a function of several factors:
1. Gowon was very senior to Mohammed (having
joined the Army four years before him) and this
factor influenced the leanings of northern officers
(and Lt. Col. David Ejoor of the Midwest) who felt that
the most senior northern officer should take charge.
Although Murtala Mohammed was a “temporary Lt.
Col.” at the time, he was actually only a substantive
Captain. He assumed the rank of Acting Major in
November 1963 and was appointed Temporary Lt.
Col. in 1966 and Inspector of Signals by Major
General Ironsi in an effort to placate the far north.
Among those who most strongly opposed
Mohammed’s precocious ambitions then was his
classmate at Sandhurst, Temporary Lt. Col. Shuwa,
commander of the 5th battalion in Kano (and later
Commander, 1st Brigade), who was also from the
“far north” albeit the north-eastern end. Although
both Shuwa and Mohammed (along with IBM Haruna
and Iliya Bissalla) were commissioned from
Sandhurst in 1961, Mohammed had gained a
month’s seniority over Shuwa in late 1963. In
Shuwa’s view (supported by Lt. Col. Hassan Katsina),
the order of precedence was Maimalari, Kur
Mohammed, Largema, Pam, Gowon, Katsina, Akahan,
Kyari, Haruna and Bissalla - even before Mohammed
and himself. Since Maimalari, Kur Mohammed,
Largema and Pam had been killed, Gowon was next
in line (among ‘northern’ officers). Mohammed never
forgave him for this and the personal animosity
between both men, which almost brought them to
exchange blows during the civil war (when Shuwa
criticized Mohammed’s military disaster at Onitsha),
was to reveal itself again in 1975.
2. Quite apart from the “northern seniority” factor,
Gowon was the Chief of Staff (Army) – a position,
which despite its weakness was symbolic of Army-
wide authority at a time of breakdown of law and
order.
3. Seniority aside, Mohammed had lost momentum
and “coup leadership” because of the manner the
mutiny evolved. It basically started as a coup-within-
a-coup triggered by Lieutenant Pam Mwadkon’s
mutiny at Abeokuta, followed in sequence by Ibadan.
Faced with a fait accompli, Mohammed later ordered
others in Lagos to “adjust to the situation” but he
could not have been oblivious to the implications of
what had happened. He had vacillated at the last
minute and even more junior officers – particularly
from the middle belt - took charge.
4. Then there was the geopolitical factor. Joining and
staying in the British colonial Nigerian Army had
never been very popular with the true Hausa and
Fulani people. Young and fiery Murtala Mohammed,
from Kano in Hausa heartland (subsequent claims
about his ancestry aside), was not viewed as
belonging to so called "martial" minority areas of
northern Nigeria. Such groups included the Dakokori
of Niger, Tiv, Jukun and Idoma of Benue, various
tribes of Plateau, Bachama/Numan of Adamawa and
Kanuri of Bornu provinces respectively. And yet, on
the ground, holding the guns of July, were soldiers
from precisely these jurisdictions. Even his fellow
‘coup commanders’, Captain Martin Adamu and
Major TY Danjuma, were middle belters. Who was
going to back him against “nice man” Gowon? Not
even Hassan Katsina, a Fulani Prince who was
professionally senior to him, would do so.
5. Geopolitics and control of the troops on the ground
was also a factor in the inability of Brigadier
Ogundipe, then Chief of Staff, Supreme HQ, to
impose his authority. He had tried to launch an
attack on Ikeja Barracks and the airport to dislodge
the mutineers but it failed. When he tried to give an
order to a northern NCO from the Federal Guards Unit
the soldier said he would only accept orders from
Captain JN Garba, the 2ic of the unit and a fellow
northerner. To complicate Ogundipe’s position, the
Attorney General, GC Onyiuke, told him that he had
no authority to deputize for the Supreme
Commander. When Ogundipe sent Gowon to
negotiate with the mutineers at Ikeja, Gowon was co-
opted.
After he emerged from the power tussle, he initially
appointed Mohammed to the Supreme Military
Council (SMC). But Gowon kept Mohammed out of
any significant official policy-making position outside
his role at Army Signals. After a magazine article in
the Nigerian Outlook poked fun at him, Mohammed
then stopped attending SMC meetings. And so,
Murtala Mohammed, whose personality, upbringing
and approach to leadership was radically different
from Gowon’s, withdrew into his shell, content with
sniping at Gowon from a distance as the unofficial
military “opposition” or “alternative view”, second
guessing everything Gowon did.
Frustrated, he even resigned his commission at the
end of 1966. The letter he wrote to Gowon was to
become the first of many he would later write, asking
to be released. In the first letter he allegedly said he
did not want to be seen to be undermining Gowon,
particularly since there were rumors that he was
planning to force Gowon out using troops from the
“far North.” Gowon had to contact some Kano
politicians – like his Uncle, Alhaji Inua Wada - to
convince Mohammed to return to the Army. He did so
two weeks later, but, according to Major General
Garba (deceased), their rivalry actually worsened
until they were ‘reconciled’ (by Garba) in 1972.
During the run-up period to the civil war, for
example, Mohammed expressed the view - to anyone
who would listen - that Gowon was weak and
indecisive. As far back as October 1966 he even
predicted that Nigeria was headed to war and that
early decisive confrontation with Ojukwu was the
right approach. Gowon, however, preferred a non-
confrontational, consensus-building method. Viewed
as a “hawk”, Mohammed was, therefore, excluded
from the Nigerian delegation to the Aburi talks in
1967. When the war did eventually breakout,
however, and Lagos was threatened by the Biafran
invasion of August 9, 1967, Gowon found in
Mohammed’s personality the commander he needed
for the situation. And sure enough, supported by
elements of the Federal Guard, and a detachment of
Colonel Adekunle’s 3MCDO, with active
encouragement from most of the local population,
Mohammed rolled back Biafran troops from the West
and Midwest.
Nevertheless, they had their clashes. Mohammed, for
example, appointed T/Lt. Col. Samuel Ogbemudia as
Administrator of the Midwest without checking with
Gowon. It took about 57 agonizing days for Gowon to
ratify the appointment. He was caught by lobbyists
for the job (like Colonel David Ejoor and Mr. Timothy
Omo-Bare of the Police and their supporters). He was
indignant with Mohammed for lack of due process.
But he had appreciation for Ogbemudia – famous for
his skills with the mortar - on account of his loyalty to
the federal cause. While there was also the need to
show Mohammed who was in charge, there was also
the need not to make his own Divisional Commander
look bad in public. It was classic Gowon.
It did not stop there. The 2nd Division was involved
in violations of Gowon’s wartime operational code of
conduct at Asaba in October 1967. Mohammed later
lost an untold number of men and millions of dollars
in equipment during his unsuccessful attempts to
take Onitsha via an assault river crossing. Amid
blistering criticism from colleagues (like Shuwa) as
well as AHQ, Mohammed later adopted a less
ambitious approach, eventually taking Onitsha via an
unopposed crossing into the 1st Division area. The
officer who actually took Onitsha in 1968 under
Mohammed’s supervision, was a young man from
Katsina, Sandhurst trained T/Major (later Major
General) Shehu Musa Yar’Adua (now deceased). This
was followed by another military disaster at
Abagana, after which Mohammed simply left the
country to get some rest. He later requested a
posting back to Army signals when he learnt that he
had been replaced as the Divisional Commander.
That he was not court-martialled for some of these
transgressions is amazing. However, in an interview
with Elaigwu, Gowon said,
“Honestly, mine is not to destroy anyone.
There is no doubt about it, for his contribution
to the war efforts and to the country generally,
I thought one must not use a big hand and
destroy such a promising young man.
Honestly, I just allowed him to get on with his
work. He virtually cut off himself except
concentrating on his signals and since he was
getting our communications properly through I
did not bother until when I decided to appoint
him the Commissioner for Communications…”
Gowon’s emergence on July 29th/30th 1966,
therefore, created, on one hand, an internal
“northern” schism with Murtala Mohammed – a
schism that perpetuated old political rivalries
between the middle belt and the core northwest (far
north). Then Lt. Col. (later Major General) Hassan
Katsina’s stabilizing influence, however, ensured that
it did not get out of hand – at least for a while.
Gowon and Ojukwu
On the other hand, the Military Governor of the
Eastern Region, Lt. Col. Odumegwu Ojukwu, who was
promoted Lt. Col. on the same day April 1st 1964
alongside Yakubu Gowon and David Ejoor, refused to
accept Gowon as the new Supreme Commander.
Gowon actually joined the Army several years before
Ojukwu and was commissioned 2/Lt. on October 19,
1955 (his 21st birthday). But Ojukwu’s date of
commission was backdated to September 22, 1955
on account of his University degree. Gowon became a
Lt. on September 9, 1957, 13 days before Ojukwu.
But Ojukwu became a Captain on September 22,
1961, just shy of one month before Gowon became a
Captain. On March 7, 1963 Ojukwu was promoted
Major, two days before Gowon. However, both men
became Lt. Cols. on the same day.
Ojukwu’s refusal to recognize Gowon was advertised
as a regimental preference for maintaining Army
seniority (even though Ojukwu, as Military Governor
of the Eastern region and later C-in-C of Biafra, was
not the most senior eastern officer either). Brigadier
Ogundipe, Colonel Adebayo and Lt. Cols. Wellington
Bassey, Hilary Njoku and Imo were senior to Gowon.
(Bassey and Njoku were even made temporary
Brigadiers by Ironsi) Ejoor had originally been senior
to him (as a young officer) too but had since become
his mate (alongside Ojukwu). Nevertheless,
practically speaking, none of the aforementioned
officers could exercise control over the mutinying
troops and even Gowon had great difficulty doing so.
This was not by any means a normal situation.
Thus the “seniority” schism of 1966 with Lt. Col.
Odumegwu Ojukwu was a factor (among others) in
the outbreak of the civil war. The “seniority” schism
of 1966 with Lt. Col. Murtala Mohammed would later
explode into the open – as one of several factors - on
July 29, 1975.
Gowon as wartime commander
The strategic success of Gowon as a wartime leader
must be acknowledged. He led a large and
complicated country through a difficult crisis.
Although reviled as “weak” and “compromising” by
his critics who hold him partly responsible for the
long duration of the war, there are many well-
informed officers who still hold the view that only
someone with his forgiving and tolerant character
could have held Nigeria together at that time. His
decision to create 12 States in May 1967 – on the
advice of civil servants - is still regarded by many on
both sides of the isle (including former Biafran
Intelligence Chief Odogwu) as a masterstroke that
helped spell doom for Biafra. His wartime code of
conduct for troops was the first of its kind in Africa –
although it was often ignored. His handling of the
difficult diplomatic scene was also brilliant –
although Biafra proved to be a formidable adversary
on that front. Nevertheless, none of Nigeria’s
neighbors supported the break-up of the country. His
magnanimity after victory in 1970 by avoiding
Nuremberg type trials won him international stature.
However, the structural weaknesses that would
eventually consume the Gowon regime were put in
place fairly early. Soon after he was anointed as the
new ‘Supreme Commander’, the “separation” from
the Army began. Like Ironsi, the title “Supreme
Commander” conferred certain absolute powers on
him. However, complex political negotiations with
regional representatives who in turn were reporting
to the various regional military governors, set the
tone for Federal-State relations and the subsequent
emergence of powerful State Governors. These
Governors used the distractions of the federal
government first with restoration of law and order in
the barracks and later with the prosecution of the
war to consolidate their powers. It was not that
obvious during the conflict but became apparent
afterwards, particularly from the standpoint of their
military colleagues in the barracks. At federal level,
Gowon, who had little prior experience in non-
military public administration, was soon ensconced
within the outstretched arms of sophisticated civil
servants.
At the “Meeting of Nigerian Military Leaders” held at
Aburi in Jan 1967, for example, discussants
comprised Lt. Col. Gowon, Regional Governors (Col.
Adeyinka Adebayo, Lt. Col. Emeka Ojukwu, Lt. Col.
David Ejoor and Lt. Col. Hassan Katsina), and the
Chief of Staff SHQ and Naval Chief, Commodore JEA
Wey. Others were the Administrator of Lagos, Major
Mobolaji Johnson, the Police IG, Alhaji Kam Salem
and another senior Police officer, Mr. T Omo-Bare. The
civil servants who were present – as secretaries -
were Mr. SIA Akenzua (Cabinet Office) – now the Oba
of Benin, Mr. PT Odumosu (Secretary to the
Government, West), Mr. NU Akpan (Secretary to the
Government, East), Mr. DP Lawani (Governor’s Office,
Midwest), and Alhaji Ali Akilu ((Secretary to the
Government, North). None of the “three musketeers”
of July 1966, (Mohammed, Danjuma and Adamu) was
present. Years later, this oversight would be cited by
Gowon’s Army critics (perhaps unfairly) as one
reason for Ojukwu’s ability to allegedly manipulate
the conference, leaving Gowon vulnerable where it
not for the subsequent intercession of federal
permanent secretaries.
The organization and management of AHQ during the
war also revealed certain trends. The Supreme
Commander (Gowon) had no prior field command
experience above the sub-unit level. He was very well
trained no doubt (perhaps one of the best trained),
and had plenty of staff experience, but he had never
actually commanded a battalion (except over the
weekend of January 15), let alone a Brigade – and
certainly not a Division. The divisional commanders
were mostly independent, doing what they wanted to
do. When they misbehaved, as was the case with
Mohammed and Adekunle, Gowon preferred a non-
confrontational approach. Then Major General Gowon
hardly visited the warfront – the first time being in
early 1969 after the war had already been in
progress for almost two years. He also had a
penchant for communicating directly with Field
Commanders, using a radio set at Dodan Barracks,
bypassing the AHQ. This habit was a contributor to
Adekunle’s disastrous “Operation OAU” which Gowon
had secretly authorized without AHQ input. There
was plenty of waste and massive corruption not only
in the Ministry of Defence but also among arms
purchasing teams (and dealers) sent abroad to
acquire weapons and ammo. Many of these problems
(as well as detailed plans for future operations) were
detailed in a special report prepared by the British
Defence Attache, Colonel Robert E Scott, in
December 1969 titled “Appreciation of the Nigerian
Conflict.” It was later leaked to The Sunday Telegraph
and parts of it published in January 1970. The
Nigerian Government was very upset. Colonel Scott
was declared persona non grata.
Political undercurrents were never far from the
surface either. When he created States in May 1967
he openly promised that those who were dissatisfied
with it would get a chance to make amends. In
January 1969, Gowon warned the Army that they had
limited capacity to run a complex civilian
administration and that a process for handing over
the country to elected government was essential
after the war. In October 1969 in the setting of the
resolution of the Agbekoya problem in the West, he
reiterated the promise to review the Creation of
States issue again.
But also, in 1969, Gowon got married to Ms. Victoria
Zakari in a State and Society wedding in Lagos
which, considering the wartime situation and
ongoing suffering appeared lavishly distasteful and
imperious to many observers, including warfront
commanders. The presence of a resident woman in
his life naturally resulted in a decrease in Gowon’s
interactions with former fellow bachelor, and wartime
pal, then Lt. Col. JN Garba.
Before the war ended, Mohammed, who Gowon
wrongly assumed “virtually cut off himself except
concentrating on his signals “, was at it again. He
secretly approached Colonel Obasanjo of the 3MCDO
in October 1969 and requested that he slow down
the push to end the war in order that certain Army
Officers could use the delay to extract concessions
from Gowon and force him to share power in a
“Presidential Commission”. Mohammed was fearful
that a victorious and internationally recognized
Gowon after the war would be less amenable to Army
influence. According to him,
“…you will be lucky, the man will be a victorious
general and you will not be able to talk to him.’
Nevertheless, Obasanjo refused.
When the war finally ended on January 12, an
editorial in the Nigerian Observer the next day
commented that
“All of us must have learned the bitter lesson that in
war there are no victors nor vanquished but only
losers.”
This became a maxim of the Gowon regime.
Boards of Inquiry into activities of former federal
officers in Biafra aside, many officers felt that there
should be no medals or decorations awarded for the
civil war – seen as a fight between brothers. That is
why there is no “Civil War” medal to this day. This
attitude in the Army reflected the broader challenges
of reconstruction, reconciliation, and rehabilitation.
Within the federal army, however, one major concern
was what to do with officers who had been rapidly
promoted or commissioned from the ranks in
wartime. In 1970, fear that they would be asked to
give up their status and remunerations nearly led to
a mutiny by certain field officers in the 2nd Division.
On March 6, therefore, Brigadier Hassan Katsina,
Army Chief of Staff, announced that there would be
no general demobilization – even though the Army
had grown in size from 10,000 to approximately
250,000 men. Gowon himself, acutely aware of the
inherent instability of military regimes would later be
quoted by the Chicago Daily News on August 29 as
saying:
“The trouble with military rule is that every colonel or
general is soon full of ambition. The navy takes over
today and the army tomorrow”
He was right.
However, in his book, “Crisis and Conflict in Nigeria”,
Kirk-Greene reflected on a quotation from JG
Randall’s book Lincoln, “One can say that [he] was
honest, but not that the country was free from
corruption during [his] administration.” Even at this
stage some of Gowon’s Governors were already
perfecting the art of provocation. Back in February
1970, for example, as domestic and international
organizations were scrambling to rush food and
medical supplies into starving Biafran enclaves, and
plant yam seedlings, Rivers State Governor Diete-
Spiff ordered champagne and caviare for a wedding.
The act created an international Press furor – but it
would not be the last.
From an ethnic standpoint, one of the consequences
of the creation of 12 States and the ethnic
distribution of top policy making appointments at the
center in his regime was that none of the three major
ethnic groups (Hausa, Yoruba, Igbo) exercised much
political power. Unlike during the first republic, the
minorities were in a very strong position. On a
strategic political level Gowon had to decide whether
to pursue post-war constitutional or administrative
reforms prior to handing over to civilians.
Meanwhile, with the war now over, Colonel Murtala
Mohammed ran into Colonel Olusegun Obasanjo
again and reportedly said:
“We told you not to end the war the way you did so
as to sort things out, you went gadam…gadam…
gadam…and finished it. And now you have a lion in
your hand, a lion that does not roar, bite nor claw –
absolutely inefficient and ineffective.”
The Nine Point Plan
In October 1970, Gowon announced a six-year nine-
point plan, which he said, must be accomplished
“before the government of the country can be
handed over with a full sense of responsibility”.
The points were as follows:
1. Reorganization of the Armed Forces.
2. Implementation of the National Development Plan
and reconstruction of wartime damage.
3. Eradication of corruption.
4. Creation of more States.
5. Adoption of a new Constitution.
6. Introduction of a new revenue allocation formula.
7. Conducting a National census.
8. Organization of new genuinely national political
parties.
9. Organization of elections at state and federal level.
According to Gowon, “The target year for completing
our political program and returning the country to
normal constitutional government is 1976.”
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