Former Head of State General Yakubu Gowon (retd.) has made a stunning allegation against the late Biafran leader, Lt-Col Odumegwu Ojukwu, claiming he mortgaged the secessionist region’s entire mineral wealth to the Rothschild banking family for approximately $10 million (then estimated at N5 million).
Gowon revealed this in his newly launched 859-page autobiography, My Life of Duty and Allegiance, subtitled “No Going Back,” which was presented to the public on Tuesday in Abuja.
According to the former military ruler, the deal was struck in exchange for French-backed support for the Biafran secession effort during the Nigerian Civil War (1967–1970).
In the memoir, Gowon detailed how France, hoping to benefit from a successful breakaway, provided enormous support to the rebel government through former African territories it then controlled.
“It later emerged that this was in exchange for what they had hoped to gain from him in the event of a successful breakaway from Nigeria,” Gowon wrote. “Indeed, he had pawned the mineral wealth of Biafra to Rothschild for about $10m or an estimated N5m at the time.”
Gowon explained that the Nigerian government only became aware of the secret transaction by chance. Intelligence intercepted by the Nigerian Consulate in New York revealed the purchase of a B-26 aircraft, which was being routed through a South American country for delivery to Biafra.
“Our knowledge of this deal was fortuitous because the Nigerian Consulate in New York had intercepted information regarding the purchase of a B-26 aircraft that was to have been sent to Biafra through a South American country,” Gowon narrated, adding that this intelligence breakthrough exposed the deeper financial arrangement between Ojukwu’s administration and the Rothschilds.
The claim comes as part of Gowon’s broader effort to document his perspective on the civil war, which raged from July 1967 to January 1970. The book launch was attended by top government officials, with President Bola Tinubu represented by Vice President Kashim Shettima.
Gowon’s allegation—if accurate—would suggest that Ojukwu was willing to mortgage the resources of the would-independent nation to foreign interests in exchange for military and diplomatic backing. The Rothschild family, a European banking dynasty with deep historical ties to resource financing, has not publicly commented on the claim.
The autobiography, spanning 36 chapters, also covers other sensitive aspects of the civil war. In a related chapter, Gowon revealed that the refusal of the United States and Britain to supply arms to Nigeria forced his government to turn to the Soviet Union and a Lebanese black-market businessman, Ali Jamal, to turn the tide of the conflict.
Gowon noted that Western allies were militarily aggressive in Vietnam and Cambodia but remained aloof to Nigeria’s plight, leaving him with no choice but to “go to any devil” to keep the nation united.
The allegation against Ojukwu, who remains a heroic figure to many Igbo and proponents of self-determination, is likely to reignite debate about the motivations and decisions made during the civil war.
While Ojukwu died in 2011 without responding to these specific claims, Gowon’s memoir places a controversial financial dimension at the center of the secessionist struggle—suggesting that Biafra’s vast oil, gas, and other mineral resources may have been pledged to foreign bankers long before the war ended in Nigerian government victory in 1970.
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