Former military Head of State, retired General Yakubu Gowon has denied allegations of “looting half of CBN” levelled against him by a United Kingdom parliament member, Tom Tugendhat.
Speaking to BBC News Pidgin, the elder statesman described the allegations as “mere rubbish, a fallacy”, stressing that he served Nigeria “with utmost fear of God.”
“What the MP said was just mere ridicule and I don’t know as to where he cooked up such statement. I served Nigeria as much as I could and my achievements during those years are available to everyone,” he said.
The retired Army General who promised not to engage in any form of argument over the matter, said his legacies were visible to everyone.
He also noted that people who knew him very well would speak in his defence.
It would be recalled that On Tuesday, British MPs passed a vote for UK’s government to sanction some Nigerian government officials were involved in brutalising EndSARS protesters.
While debating, Mr Tugendhat alleged that bribery and corruption were the causes of Nigeria’s underdevelopment, citing an example that Gen. Gowon stole more than half of country’s worth in its central bank and stashed the sum in London when he was toppled.
Gen. Gowon ruled Nigeria from 1966 to 1975 before his government was overthrown while he was away from Nigeria. The Nigerian civil war also known as the Biafran War and the Nigerian-Biafran War was a war fought between the government of Nigeria while he was head of state and the secessionist state of Biafra led by late Lt. Colonel Odumegwu Ojukwu.
Following the coup that removed him, Gowon was directly flown to the United Kingdom and enrolled in a studentship at Warwick University.
