By Daud Olatunji

ABEOKUTA—Former Head of State, General Yakubu Gowon (retd), yesterday, disclosed how he lobbied the matriarch of Awolowo family, late Mrs. HID Awolowo to convince her husband to
serve as federal commissioner for finance and vice president of the Federal
Executive Council under his
administration during the civil war.

Gowon, who ruled Nigeria between 1966
and 1975 ,however, urged Nigerians to be
patient with their leaders, describing the
country ”as most difficult to govern.”

The former Head of State, who is the
Chairman of Obafemi Awolowo foundation led his team which comprises former World Court Judge, Bola Ajibola, Professor Emeritus, Oladipo Akinkugbe and Afenifere chieftains Ayo Adebanjo’and Sir Olanihun Ajayi, among others to Awolowo family’s house in Ikenne, Ogun State over the death of HID Awolowo.

Gowon, who spoke on behalf of other members eulogised the late Mama HID Awolowo for her role in his government, saying, he had to lobby her to convince her husband to serve under him. According to him; ‘’In paying condolence
to Mama, you cannot do it without really
mentioning Papa Awolowo. And of
course, you know that Papa was very
instrumental to some of our successes in
government in those days. “

It was my fortune and I thank God that
it was me that had the opportunity to
release Papa from prison in Calabar to
Lagos and to be able to help us have
peace in the West at that time. Mama
was very grateful for what has happened and I can assure that was what earned
me the respect of Mama throughout her
life. “

But, despite the fact that what we did
was alright, there was also a need to get
papa involved and that would probably
seal what we wanted to achieve,
especially in the West, which was at the
time pretty dicey. ‘’

You’d remember Operation Wetie and then the coup and what not. So we had to seek Mama’s support to see if we could get Papa to come and join the government to help and of course, our hope was that when that happened we would be able to finish the war as quickly as possible so that we could return to democracy.

‘’Yes, we really pleaded with Mama; She
was the one who encouraged Papa to
accept that invitation and for that, we
will ever remain grateful to her for what
she did”, he said.

While urging Nigerians to be patient with their leaders, Gowon said; “You know what happened after then; we had a government that was not totally military but with some political juggernauts as the saying goes and we were able to start to make a move towards returning to
normalcy.

"Let me tell you this; it was not easy.
When I became Head of State, I hoped
that three, six months the most, we would
be done. But when you have problems in a
nation, it is not easy to solve them
overnight. So, you’ve always got to give time and you’ve got to be patient with
leaders to be able to put things in order”.

Speaking on Nigeria’s present
government, Gowon said “Whenever any
government comes in, give them time to be
able to really put things right. Nigeria is
not an easy place to govern.

“I can assure there are as many problems
as there are Nigerians in the world and
everybody wants to do things in his own
way and probably for his own interest.

‘’And you think of that, how are you going to get all that put together and put things right? I think we’ve got to be patient and then we got to cooperate with the government to do the right thing.
Always never be tired of telling the government what needed to be done in
order to improve things”.

Speaking on behalf of Awolowo family,
the eldest child , Omotola Oyediran,
lauded the members of the foundation for
their efforts.

Oyediran, who appealed to Nigerians to
pray for the family to continue enjoying
unity amongst themselves, assuring
Nigerians that, though , the family is
large, the unity of the family will be taken
seriously.

www.vanguardngr.com/2015/10/how-i-lobbied-hid-to-make-awo-work-for-me-gowon/

ok i have seen. what next ?

As much as I love Awo, i still can't figure why he served under a military Government, If he didn't serve this county would not exist anymore an to be honest we will be better off in the west,i know the argument that he joined the government to defend Yoruba land against the rebell army when they advance towards ore.

God has many ways of punishing people. Like He kept Gowon alive to watch his precious North go up in flames while the east he bombard blossom..lol. Tormented.

I don't care what he had to say sha

One of the men who destroyed Nigeria.

G-Go
O-On
W-With
O-One
N-Nigeria