By Abubakar Yunusa
The Catholic Bishop of Sokoto Diocese, Matthew Hassan Kukah, has disclosed how former Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Nasir El-Rufai, allegedly revoked a plot of land belonging to former Head of State, Yakubu Gowon, in Abuja.
Kukah disclosed this in Abuja during the public review of Gowon’s autobiography, My Life of Duty and Allegiance, published by Havilah Group, yesterday.
The outspoken cleric, while reflecting on Gowon’s turbulent years after leaving office, said the former military ruler returned from exile without owning any property in Abuja.
According to him, Gowon only secured a plot of land after the intervention of senior military officers, including former military president, Ibrahim Babangida.
“He didn’t have a plot of land. And when he came back, it was just out of pity, let me put it that way, that General Babangida agreed,” Kukah said.
“Finally, they named one crescent after him, and after the crescent, they now gave him a plot of land, his first plot of land in Abuja.”
Kukah said Gowon had already mobilised resources and commenced construction on the property before the allocation was withdrawn during El-Rufai’s tenure as FCT minister.
“He mobilised resources to try and start building. He begins to build. Then El-Rufai, who was minister of the FCT, revoked the land,” the bishop stated.
The cleric, however, disclosed that retired General Theophilus Danjuma and other influential figures later intervened and helped Gowon recover the property.
Kukah described Gowon’s autobiography as a detailed account of Nigeria’s political history, noting that the nearly 900-page memoir captured the former leader’s years in power, exile and personal struggles.
He revealed that much of Gowon’s personal records and archives were destroyed in separate fire incidents in Bakori and Kaduna, forcing the former leader to rely heavily on memory while writing the book.
“It’s important to underscore the fact that whatever you read in the book is the result of what the author was able to recall,” Kukah said.
“You will find in the book evidence of excellent memory and details of things.”
The bishop also shed light on Gowon’s close relationship with former President Olusegun Obasanjo despite political tensions that followed the 1975 coup which removed him from office.
Quoting directly from the memoir, Kukah said Gowon described Obasanjo as his “informal guardian angel” whom he trusted “more than any other soldier.”
Beyond politics, Kukah painted an emotional picture of the hardship Gowon and his family faced while living in exile in the United Kingdom.
According to him, Gowon struggled to secure employment and even open a bank account, while his wife, Victoria Gowon, supported the family by sewing bed sheets and making pillows for sale.
“He himself said in the book that he became what he called a kept man because she was the one looking after everything in the house,” Kukah added.
The bishop further claimed that a domestic worker allegedly sent to assist the Gowon family was later discovered to be spying on them for Nigerian authorities.
“At the end of the day, the poor man could not find anything to report back home,” he said.
Gowon ruled Nigeria from 1966 to 1975 and remains one of the country’s most prominent military leaders, particularly for his “no victor, no vanquished” post-civil war policy and the establishment of the National Youth Service Corps.
