ABURI WAS A START, NOT AN AGREEMENT - GENERAL GOWON

Former Head-of-State, General Yakubu Gowon has insisted that parties to the Nigerian Civil War failed to reach a concrete agreement on their differences before returning to the country from Aburi, Ghana.

He said the failure to engage in further discussions after Aburi talks led to the civil war. Gowon made the clarification during the launch of a book titled “The People’s Choice”, and authored by Rev. Fr. Charles Imokhai.
The book was written about President Goodluck Jonathan and unveiled at Aso Rock Villa Banquet Hall last Friday. The author, a Catholic priest, served as a military chaplain in Port Harcourt, Rivers State during the civil war.
Gowon, who represented the chairman of the occasion, Alhaji Yusuf Maitama Sule also wrote the foreword of the book.
Commending the author for the book, the former head of state, however, said the impression conveyed about his discussions with the late Biafra leader, Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu in Aburi was not quite correct.
Contrary to the impression created in the book that there was a concrete agreement between the participants at the Aburi talk, Gowon said the parties were meant to engage in further discussions upon returning to the country from Ghana.
“This (impression conveyed in the book about the discussions) was not correct as the major decision taken there was that further talks should take place in Nigeria,” he said.
He emphasised the Aburi deliberations were meant to “break the ice” and to make it possible for the Nigerian officers to hold further discussions at home. The follow-up discussions, Gowon regretted, did not hold and the result was the war that broke out.
Gowon said besides the allegedly wrong account of the Aburi discussions, he had no major disagreement with anything in the book, commending the author for enlightening the public on the personality of President Jonathan.