Yakubu Gowon says no agreement was reached at the Aburi meeting on Biafra’s independence, countering claims made by Ojukwu
Former Nigerian Head of State Yakubu Gowon has rejected claims that the 1967 Aburi meeting in Ghana produced an agreement for the Eastern Region to secede and establish Biafra, insisting that no such consensus was reached with then Eastern leader Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu.
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Gowon made the clarification in his autobiography, My Life of Duty and Allegiance, where he revisited events leading to the Nigerian civil war and disputed interpretations of the Aburi peace talks held on January 4 and 5, 1967.
He said he was surprised by what he described as a misrepresentation of the outcome of the meeting in Ghana, adding that he was shocked to hear Ojukwu present the discussions as an agreement to partition Nigeria.
Gowon wrote, “I rose from bed, aghast as Ejoor summarised the thrust of Ojukwu’s address to the people of Eastern Region. Among other things, he had told his people that we had agreed to partition Nigeria so that each Region could, from that point, go its separate way.”
He dismissed the interpretation as incorrect, stating, “That was completely wrong.” He maintained that the Aburi talks were intended to ease tensions and preserve Nigeria’s unity rather than formalise any secession arrangement.
According to him, the discussions followed earlier political tensions in the country and were aimed at finding a peaceful resolution to growing divisions among the regions.
Gowon also argued that the resolutions reached at Aburi did not support claims of agreed independence, insisting that official records of the meeting contradicted such assertions.
He further stated, “What Ojukwu said, therefore, merely confronted to his own personal agenda, not the agreed position at Aburi and not what the generality of Nigerians wanted. Records of the meeting did not support his stance either.”
The former leader maintained that the intention of the meeting was to preserve national unity amid rising political and ethnic tensions at the time.
He added that misunderstandings surrounding the Aburi accord contributed to the breakdown of trust between both sides, eventually leading to the outbreak of the Nigerian Civil War in July 1967.
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The war, which lasted until January 1970, resulted in significant loss of life and remains one of the most defining chapters in Nigeria’s history.
