I lived off my staff after 1975 coup – Gowon

A former Head of State, Gen. Yakubu Gowon (retd.), yesterday, provided some insight into the corrupt tendencies of some of the nation’s leaders, who chose to loot its treasury.

According to him, the condition he found himself after his ouster from office in 1975, might have changed the leaders’ attitude towards corruption. Gowon, a retired general who led Nigeria through three years of civil war during his nine-year reign, was removed from office on July 29, 1975, by his junior colleagues while attending a meeting of the defunct Organisation of African Union (OAU), precursor of the African Union (AU).

Recalling the events of that 1975 Monday morning, Gowon said he had nothing apart from his salaries as at the time he left office. Successive Nigerian leaders have come under criticism for allegedly aiding and abetting corruption while on the saddle. The former leader, who spoke at the Eighth Annual General Meeting and Conference for Heads of Anti-corruption Agencies in Commonwealth Africa, in Abuja, jokingly said he “did not prepare for the future.”

According to him, “it was some of my staff who attended the OAU meeting with me that contributed their estacodes to let me have something to live on.” The former leader said the condition he found himself was perhaps the reason some leaders who came later decided to “prepare” for such times.

Gowon said he and officials of his government did not indulge in corruption, saying complaints of corruption against some of his ministers were appropriately treated. “Everything we had in the country belonged to the nation, belonged to the people and we must not touch anything.We made sure nothing like that happened, especially in the civil service,” he recalled Gowon regretted the action of some past leaders which gives all former Nigerian leaders “a very bad name and image.” He, however, condemned generalisation regarding corruption accusations on the past leaders, revealing that he “feels sad any time media reports lump up all Nigerian leaders on the issue of corruption.”

Although the succeeding regime of Murtala Muhammad did not find Gowon personally culpable of corruption, it seized assets from 10 of his 12 military state governors deemed to have been corruptly acquired, and dismissed them from the military

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