Word: yakubu
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Coups have become the rule rather than the exception in populous Nigeria, which is divided into four rival regions and torn by tribal competition. In 1966 alone, two rulers have been murdered, along with countless of their countrymen, in bloody riots and slaughters. When Army Boss Yakubu Gowon, 31, seized power in July in the last coup, he promised that his military government would quickly "fade away," presumably without the necessity of another coup. Last week Gowon announced that he had changed his mind, at least for now, and that he personally would draft a new constitution for Nigeria...
...Nations clattered a message from Secretary-General U Thant, condemning both sides and expressing "distress." Washington issued a "strong protest" to Guinea and dropped subtle hints that it might suspend its $70 million in foreign aid unless Ambassador Mcllvaine was released. Even Nigeria's military ruler, Lieut. Colonel Yakubu Gowon, was moved to send the commander of his ten-ship navy to Accra for explanations...
...diplomatic pressure from the West, they were persuaded that the backward, semiarid North would be hard put to go it alone without the natural resources of the South and the skills of the Southerners. Agreeing to one more try at nationhood, they named a 31-year-old lieutenant colonel, Yakubu Gowon, as Nigeria's new supreme commander...
...Matter of Chance. The man who rules Nigeria today is two years older than his country. He was born simply Abubakar, the child of Yakubu, a minor official in the regime of the emir of Bauchi. (According to northern custom, he later added to his given name that of his village-Tafawa Balewa.) Though Abubakar was not of the mighty Fulani-his family belonged to the Geri tribe-his father's position won him the rare privilege of schooling in a region almost totally illiterate. After secondary school he was even able to get into Katsina Teachers' Training...