"Great blessings belong to those who work to bring peace. God will call them his sons and daughters" (Matthew 5:9).Several months ago my wife and I were invited to Washington D.C. to join with hundreds of Nigerian expatriates to pray for peace in Nigeria. The event was organized by Nigeria Prays, an international prayer movement that organizes similar prayer events all around the world.
Nigeria Prays was founded by General Yukubu Gowon, who was Nigeria's head of state from 1966 to 1975.
Gowon was a career army officer who served twice in the Congo region as part of Nigeria's peacekeeping force there. After a military coup in 1966, he was appointed chief of staff and eventually emerged as the compromise head of the new government.
Following the coup, Gowon tried to resolve the ethnic tensions that threatened to divide Nigeria, but he was unsuccessful. In spite of his efforts, the Eastern region of Nigeria declared itself the independent state of Biafra. This resulted in a bloody war that took the lives of more than 100,000 soldiers and over a million civilians.
When the war ended in 1970, a remarkable reconciliation took place, which was largely attributed Gowon's personal influence. However, he was also held responsible for many of the attrocities committed during that period. Discontent began to brew within the army and on July 29, 1975, Yukubu Gowon was overthrown and replaced by Brigadier Murtula Muhammad.
My wife and I and a few others had a brief private meeting with General Gowon before the prayer gathering got under way. It wasn't a long exchange, but long enough to get a sense of the man. I found it hard to believe that he had been a man of war. He seems to have beaten his sword into a ploughshare. A man of war in the process of becoming an instrument of peace.
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