ABURI ACCORD: YOU LIED, OJUKWU’S ASSOCIATES TELL GOWON

Associates of ex- Biafran leader, Dim Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu, yesterday lashed out at a former head of state, Gen. Yakubu Gowon, for saying that the departed Ikemba Nnewi misinformed Nigerians on the 1968 Aburi Accord.
The three associates, who fought with Ojukwu on the Biafran side during the civil war are Col. Emmanuel Nwobosi (retd); Col. Joe Achuzia (retd); and Col. Ben Gbulie (retd).
In separate reactions on the telephone, they dismissed Gowon’s comments as “untrue.” Gowon, who made the comments at a book launch in honour of President Goodluck Jonathan in Abuja, said Ojukwu returned to Nigeria from Aburi, Ghana and told Nigerians a wrong version of events that transpired at the parley. Gowon said he could not return immediately because he was down with fever.
While Nwobosi and Achuzia reacted expressly to the report credited to Gowon, Gbulie angrily said he would speak at a later date. Gbulie said that he would speak on the development and other matters “because I know some people are trying to distort history and we would not allow them to do that.” Nwobosi, a close confidant of Ojukwu until he died, said, “Whatever Gowon has claimed in his latest posturing that Ojukwu did, the content of the Aburi Accord was waxed into an LP (long playing) record by a recording company in Eastern Nigeria.
“During that period, they did not know that Ojukwu had a record of the proceedings word for word. So, Ojukwu and the people of the Eastern Nigeria waited for the official release of the communiqué of the accord to no avail, but when they returned to Lagos, instead of publishing the communiqué as it was reached, they tinkered with it.
“And after such a prolonged delay, they published a watered down version. Ojukwu warned them to do the right thing but they took his threat for granted. Then, he released the original recorded proceedings on radio and television in Eastern Nigeria and people were taken aback,” Nwobosi said.
“Ask Gowon if he did not know of the release of the original content of the accord on Eastern media at that time.” He said the record of the accord as released by Ojukwu became so popular that people bought dozens of copies.
On his own part, Achuzia said, “Gowon’s claim was not correct. They first distorted the content of the accord. We all knew what happened. Gowon himself knows actually what was the truth and it was that truth contained in the original accord that made him create states. That was because hitherto, he did not understand the advantage of doing so,” said the former Biafran military officer.
Source: Nigerian Pilot