How my trusted security aide helped overthrow me — Gowon

Former Head of State, Gen. Yakubu Gowon, retired, says that his trusted security aide, Joseph Garba, the Commander of the Federal Guards Unit whom he had appointed to protect his life, played a role in his overthrow during the July 1975 coup.

In his 859‑page autobiography, “My Life of Duty and Allegiance,” Gowon describes the event as the deepest personal betrayal of his public life because it was carried out by men he had elevated on the basis of trust and, in Garba’s case, family ties.

According to him, Garba had sworn before him, days earlier, that he had no knowledge of any plot against his government.

He recounted how his Chief Security Officer and head of the Special Branch, M.D. Yusuf, warned him that some officers were planning a coup ahead of the OAU summit in Kampala, Uganda, naming two key figures: Garba, then Commander of the Federal Guards Unit, and Anthony Ochefu, then Provost Marshal of the Nigerian Military Police.

He stressed that the warning placed him in an acute dilemma, adding that he had appointed Garba to the most sensitive position in his security architecture, the elite unit whose singular mandate was the physical protection of the Head of State.

The Head of State also pointed out that Garba’s appointment as head of the Brigade of Guards was partly influenced by family ties and the confidence he had in him.

“As commander of the Federal Guards, which is the elite entrusted with the responsibility of protecting the person of the Head of State, Garba was supposed to have unquestionable loyalty.”

“Not only did I intimately know both men, but I had also grown to like and trust them over the years.”

“Coincidentally, both were Christians and from my original home state, Benue Plateau,” he narrated.