” General Yakubu Gowon is the 32-year-old Head of State who, inspite of the political problems Nigeria was involved in, had time to make an ordinary student smile.”
It was 1966. I was a student of University of Nigeria, Nsukka. I was on State Scholarship, being on of the best students in 1964-65 session. Colonel Odumegwu Ojukwu, Military Governor of Eastern Nigeria, has just announced non-easterners should leave the Eastern Nigeria.
That announcement by Ojukwu meant lecturers and students of the University of Nigeria (UNN) who were non-easterners had to leave. And I was one of them.
Governor Colonel Robert Adebayo had literally forced the University of Ife, UNIFE (now Obafemi Awolowo University) Ile-Ife to admit us. That is a story for another day.
Here was I, a poor student, poor as a church rat at UNIFE. I couldn’t transfer the State Scholarship. And UNIFE wouldn’t register a student who hasn’t paid.
General Yakubu Gowon, A Benevolent Head of State
In my sadness, I wrote, by hand, a letter to then Lieutenant Colonel Yakubu Gowon, the then Head of the Federal Military Government (FMG) and narrated my unhappy situation. I posted the letter at the General Post Office, Dugbe, Ibadan to the Dodan Barracks address.
After two weeks, I got a reply personally signed by Yakubu Gowon, inspite of the political crisis he was handling in late 1966, and copied UNIFE.
In the reply, Yakubu Gowon assured that the FMG will take over the scholarship and pay.
The Head of the FMG, General Yakubu Gowon, personally replied to a handwritten-letter by an ordinary student and gave me succour!!! That kind act ensured that I graduated from Ife and laid the foundation of what I have become.
That was Nigeria of 1966….a Head of State replied to my letter as a student.
In 2026, if I write the president, he would not get to read it, not to talk of replying.
I eventually met General Yakubu Gowon in 2011. I was a Guest Lecturer, and he was Chairman. I told the story to the national conference of THE LIONS.
Almost 2000 people stood up to give this great humble General a rousing ovation. General Gowon became emotional and shed tears.
General Yakubu Gowon is the 32-year-old Head of State who, inspite of the political problems Nigeria was involved in, had time to make an ordinary student smile.
If I have ₦3 billions, I will donate.
But I have been donating my prayers every day since September 1966.
