Former Military President, General Ibrahim Babangida, has given more insight into why Gen Yakubu Gowon (rtd) was removed as head of state by military officers led by then Brigadier Murtala Mohammed.
Gowon was overthrown on July 29, 1975, while he was attending the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) meeting in Kampala, Uganda.
The reason given then was that the former head of state reneged on his promise to hand over to civilians in 1976, as he earlier promised.
But Babangida in his recently published memoir said Gowon was under pressure to succeed himself as civilian president. In chapter 5 of the book, Babangida stated that Gen Gowon claimed as his reason to extend the handover date, that there was “high degree of sectional politicking, intemperate utterances and writings,” which he added, were designed “to whip up ill feelings within the country for the benefit of a few.”
The former military ruler also said he faced the same challenge 19 years later when presided over Nigeria’s longest transition programme.
Babangida recalled: “Looking back now, Gowon’s fears that it would not take politicians long ‘to return to the old cut-throat politics that once led the nation into a serious crisis’ was the same dilemma I faced as president.”
According to him, Gowon invited senior military officers from the rank of colonel and above early September, to deliberate on his plan to extend his military government, before his October 1, 1974 announcement.
He, however, said that opinions were divided, noting that while “some officers believed that the administration’s earlier promise of a handover date of 1976 to a democratic government should, on principle, be retained, others supported the extension of the date of return to civil rule indefinitely to ensure the establishment of more enduring political stability in the country.”
Babangida identified the officers in support of indefinite extension as those who “probably felt they had not been compensated enough, presumably with ‘political’ appointments for their sacrifices during the civil war or for sustaining Gowon in power. “An extension of military rule would, of course, be of benefit to them.
“On the periphery of this group were military officers and top civil servants alike who were convinced that the viable way forward was for Gowon to transform himself from a military head of state to a civilian executive president since the call by former President Nnamdi Azikiwe and others for a form of diarchy, where the military and politicians would share power, was beginning to gain traction.”
Babangida disclosed that some other officers expressed displeasure at the ostentatious lifestyle of some of the military state governors and wanted them redeployed in the event of an extension.
“This request for redeployment was made even more poignant because, during those years, military governors doubled as Supreme Military Council (SMC) members, and became too powerful and difficult to rein in.
“Within this group of officers were those who were also angling for a change in the administration’s leadership while supporting an extension of military rule,” he stated.
He added that apart from corruption, Gowon’s administrative procedures were ill-defined, to both civilians and military alike, stating that following the Udoji Commission’s report on Public Service Review, “not even the increase in civil service salaries succeeded in assuaging the people’s feelings.”
According to him, the increase in salary of public servants and backdating it “to months before the September 1974 implementation date of the recommendation” backfired.
