Former Head of State Yakubu Gowon is finally telling his side of the story, and the revelations are as gripping as anything from Nigeria's history books.
In his newly released autobiography, My Life of Duty & Allegiance, Gowon pulls back the curtain on some of the most controversial and deeply personal moments of the 1967–1970 Nigerian Civil War, including a shocking behind-the-scenes confrontation with the man who would later become one of Nigeria's most iconic military figures, Murtala Mohammed.
One of the most dramatic chapters in the memoir centres on a federal military operation to cross the River Niger into Onitsha, a mission Gowon says he knew was doomed before it even began.
"As the C-in-C, I considered his plan quite suicidal," he wrote bluntly.
Military headquarters had warned that Biafran forces could destroy the bridge mid-crossing and trap federal troops on the other side. But according to Gowon, Murtala Mohammed pushed ahead anyway not purely for strategic reasons but because of a personal rivalry with fellow commander Colonel Shuwa.
"His pride did not allow him to wish to pass through 1 Division area owing to his rivalry with Colonel Shuwa," Gowon stated.
Gowon said he personally advised Murtala to take safer, already-controlled routes instead, but the advice was ignored. Murtala crossed the river by boats and barges, and the consequences were catastrophic. Men were lost, equipment was destroyed and the operation failed.
Yet even in recounting the disaster, Gowon found room to acknowledge Murtala's raw courage.
"Despite the disaster, his audacious exploit showed his courage as the field commander," he wrote.
But the River Niger disaster was not even the most explosive part of their relationship during the war. What happened next nearly ended Murtala Mohammed's military career entirely.
In the heat of battle, a furious Murtala reportedly sent Gowon a signal from the frontlines that crossed every conceivable line of military protocol.
"In a fit of anger, he went beyond the bounds of reason or military decorum to send me, his Commander-in-Chief, an impertinent signal that I should get my fat butt off my chair to sort out things in the battlefield instead of giving orders from the comfort of my office in Dodan Barracks," Gowon recounted.
The message left Gowon livid; he was ready to dismiss Murtala on the spot.
"His unconscionably rude signal to me from the war front made me angry enough to consider removing him from command with immediate effect," he admitted.
Just as Gowon was preparing to act, late nationalist leader and then Federal Commissioner for Finance, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, stepped in.
Awolowo read the room, noticed the depth of Gowon's fury, and immediately went to work behind the scenes.
"Chief Awolowo noticed the depth of my anger with Murtala after I received the signal. He promptly intervened on his behalf and pleaded that I should not respond the way I had intended," Gowon recalled.
Given the desperate shortage of experienced military officers at the time, Gowon eventually chose to overlook the insubordination and allowed Murtala to continue commanding his troops. The rest, as they say, is history – Murtala Mohammed went on to become Nigeria's Head of State in 1975.
The memoir also addresses one of the most emotionally charged questions of the civil war — what would have happened if Biafran leader Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu had been captured before fleeing into exile?
Gowon's answer is clear and surprisingly gracious.
"I always thank God we did not capture him before or during the war. But to kill him? Never, except in the battlefield where whoever got the first lucky shot survives!" he wrote.
He pushed back firmly against suggestions that the federal government sought personal revenge against Ojukwu or the Igbo people, insisting that the war was always about preserving Nigeria's unity and not destroying any individual or ethnic group.
"There were people who wanted him crushed completely. But I believed there had to be a future after the war," he noted.
That belief, he says, was the foundation of the federal government's famous post-war declaration – "No Victor, No Vanquished" – a statement that shaped Nigeria's path toward reconciliation.
"We needed reconciliation, reconstruction and rehabilitation. That was the only way Nigeria could move forward," Gowon wrote.
Whatever one's views on the civil war and the decisions made during it, Gowon's memoir offers something rare – an unfiltered, first-person account of one of the most defining periods in Nigerian history, told by the man who was at the centre of it all.
The stories of pride, rivalry, fury, intervention and, ultimately, mercy paint a picture of a war that was as deeply human as it was politically complex.