Andy Ezeani
Tuesday,March 10,2026
In the first week of January 1967, at the height of the regional tension that engulfed Nigeria following two quick successive military coups d’état, the country came to the brinks. Concerned African leaders waded in with a last-ditch effort to save the day.
Under the auspices of Ghana’s head of state, General Joseph Arthur Ankrah, who was also the chairman of the Organization of African Union (OAU), the two protagonists in Nigeria’s festering disputation, General Yakubu Gowon on the federal side and the then Colonel Chukwuemeka Ojukwu, governor of the Eastern Region, were brought together at Aburi in Ghana.
The goal was to find a common ground on which confidence could be restored among Nigeria’s constituent regions.
The negotiations at Aburi went remarkably well. Getting Gowon and Ojukwu to parley had appeared a masterstroke, as they established the basis for restoration of trust in the people of their country.
The result of the negotiations came to be known as the Aburi Accord, a document that agreed on substantial regional autonomy for Nigeria. Each region was to control its resources and taxes while making set contributions to the common federal pool.
Other details of the Accord offered assurances to the regions.
The Aburi Accord did not prescribe what Nigeria had never seen before. Until the military intervened in 1966, with a concomitant centralization of power and resource control, the regions managed their affairs and developed at their respective paces.
At the end of the successful negotiations at Aburi, with the Accord in their pouch, Gowon and Ojukwu left for Nigeria. Ankrah felt accomplished. Gowon was to return home to announce the agreements. The new order, more like a return to the pre-military arrangement, was expected to present a new chance to Nigeria. That was not to be.
Gowon failed to announce the Aburi Accord. The high hope on the Aburi Accord evaporated. The military leader was reportedly prevailed upon by some political potentates on the federal side to repudiate the agreements he signed. The rest is history.
Nigeria had to fight a costly three-year war that ended 56 years ago, although it’s vestiges still define the country.
Almost sixty years after he bungled the golden opportunity that Aburi offered Nigeria, General Gowon has been searching for a passable explanation for his singular act that condemned Nigeria to what it is at the moment.
At one point, he explained that he had a running stomach on his return from Aburi and so could not make a national broadcast to release the agreement.
At another point, he said it was a high fever that prevented him from making the epochal announcement.
While he was down with either running stomach or fever, Ojukwu announced the agreement. Gowon turned around to declare that to be a breach of their agreement since he was supposed to make the announcement.
Those who corralled Gowon into repudiating the Aburi Accord never offered a plausible reason for undermining the Accord. The best that was heard often was that Ojukwu outsmarted Gowon in the negotiations and that the agreement favoured the Igbo. Who needed regional autonomy when Nigerians could all hold hands and live happily ever after as “one nation with one destiny”, as they have been doing since then.
On March 1,2026, 59 years after the Aburi Accord was censured and undermined as an Igbo agenda, the result of which was a three-year war, Afenifere, the pan-Yoruba association returned to the Aburi Accord.
They articulated and sent a detailed memorandum to the federal government, making a case for regional autonomy. Afenifere is asking for the laws of Nigeria to be appropriately altered so that the South West (Yoruba) can run its affairs and its resources the best they can for the best interest of its people.
Afenifere’s articulation of its stance on Nigeria is impressive. It is either epiphanic or it is cant. It is at once profound as it is intriguing. The problem is not with what Afenifere said as with what it refused to say.
A copious reproduction of parts of the Afenifere memo to the government of Nigeria is apropos. It was titled, “A letter of appeal for the initiation of the programme towards the decentralization of the Nigeria federation”, dated March 1 2026.
Among other submissions, the document stated that
“The current structure, which attempts to micromanage the diverse socio-economic realities of citizens across all 36 States and 774 Local Government areas from a single Federal Centre, has stifled local initiative, delayed critical developmental interventions, and alienated the grassroots from the dividends of democracy.”
Based on this apparent weakness of the Nigerian structure, the group proceeded; “We firmly submit that a Decentralised Governance Framework is the silver bullet urgently required to salvage the nation’s trajectory and unlock its boundless potential. History and recent realities have shown that mere electoral contests and the periodic changes in the configuration of occupants of political positions are very unlikely to produce satisfactory outcomes. Replacing individuals within a fundamentally flawed and over-centralised structure will not cure the systemic ailments afflicting our polity….
“We are persuaded that a genuinely decentralised governance framework offers the most viable and sustainable path forward for Nigeria. Immediate structural reform, rather than repeated electoral contests as envisaged in the 2027, 2031 or even 2035 permutations or changes in political personnel, holds the key to unlocking effective governance for a nation of nearly 200 million citizens and over 300 ethnic nationalities.”
In summary, Afenifere says, “It is in the light of the foregoing that we, the eminent sons and daughters of the Yoruba Ethnic Nationality of Western Nigeria, firmly but respectfully request that our people be allowed, enabled, and afforded the autonomy of political space to govern ourselves. We desire to take responsibility for our own destiny and development within the Nigerian space. We seek a Regional Governance Framework that has now been articulated and based on the foundational stipulations embodied in the Lyttleton Constitution of 1954…”
While Afenifere had no problem leaning on the Lyttleton Constitution of 1954, they conveniently ignored the Aburi Accord of 1967 which they spurned, but which had offered Nigeria what Afenifere is now canvassing, half a century down the line.
Not surprisingly, there was no place in the Afenifere document for acknowledgment that what it is asking for is not original to it, that indeed, it simply dusted up the Aburi Accord. It appropriated a 1966 document in 2026.
What is wrong in Afenifere declaring that it has seen the light and is aligning to the truth that will set Nigeria free?
Well, now that Afenifere has formally returned to Aburi, it remains for General Yakubu Gowon to summon the courage and honour in the twilight of his life to publicly declare that Aburi Accord held out the best door for Nigeria’s peace and progress and that he was misled into leading Nigeria to an avoidable war.
May the Tinubu government listen to Afenifere. If Ohanaeze sends such a memo for return to sanity in Nigeria, matters will arise.
