Word: yakubu
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Grudging Concession. While this activity went on behind the lines, the fate of troops at the front was still shrouded in a mist of claims and counterclaims. First, the federal troops of Major General Yakubu Gowon announced that they had captured the university town of Nsukka on the wooded northwestern plateau of Biafra, after days of shelling it with heavy mortars and howitzers. Radio Biafra grudgingly conceded the federal victory but accused the federals of using "white mercenaries who were painted black"-though no unprejudiced observer has spotted any such creatures. Then, next day, it proclaimed that Nsukka had been...
...NIGERIA. Far more serious, and likely to last far longer, is the battle between the Nigerian Federal Government of Major General Yakubu Gowon and the energetic Ibos of Eastern Nigeria, led by Lieut. Colonel Odumegwu Ojukwu, who declared their independence two months ago and proclaimed the Republic of Biafra. Since federal troops attacked the dissidents two weeks ago, both sides have tried to keep foreign observers out of the battle zones, enabling each to report glowing daily accounts of success in the fighting...
...million people waited with apprehension for another round in the bloodletting. Last week it began. "War, as everybody knows, is a necessary evil," proclaimed a Nigerian government newspaper, the Morning Post, in its "Teachings of Islam" column. Thus, with resignation, federal government forces led by Major General Yakubu Gowon, 32, rolled out of the lush green hills of the Northern region to attack Nigeria's secessionist Eastern region, which now calls itself Biafra. Gowon's aim: "A short, surgical police action" to crush the rebellion led by Lieut. Colonel Odumegwu Ojukwu...
...opting for secession,' Ojukwu directly challenged a onetime pal, Yakubu Gowon, 32, the military head of the Nigerian government based in Lagos. Gowon, who last week raised his own rank from lieutenant colonel to major general, denounced the secession of the 12 million Easterners as "an act of rebellion which will be crushed," ordered a mobilization of federal forces and sent two army battalions to the eastern border. He also ordered a naval blockade of the Eastern coast to choke off Ojukwu's economy. Though no fighting had broken out by week's end, Ojukwu predicted that...
Ojukwu thinks I'll be just a titular head and sign the papers for him. I will like hell. -Lieut. Colonel Yakubu Gowon...