(b. Lur, Nigeria, 19 Oct. 1934) Nigerian; head of state (military) 1966 – 75 A member of the small Angas ethnic group, Gowon is both a northerner and a Christian, a combination which was important in his political career. A professional soldier, he was trained at Sandhurst, and appointed army Chief of Staff following the January 1966 coup d'état. Although he did not participate in the further coup in July of the same year he was chosen, as the senior surviving officer, to become the new military head of state.

He assumed power in a period of major political crisis and, although he worked hard to prevent the secession of Biafra under the leadership of Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu, Nigeria descended into civil war. The federal forces, under Gowon's overall leadership, finally defeated the Biafran secessionists and after the end of the war in 1970 he embarked on a process of reconciliation under the slogan "no victors — no vanquished" which was largely successful in reintegrating the, predominantly Ibo, rebels into the federal republic. In spite of his considerable personal triumph in this matter his regime became increasingly bogged down in inefficiency and corruption. Although there has never been any evidence to suggest that Gowon was personally corrupt, the legitimacy of his government became seriously eroded and was further damaged by his decision in 1974 to postpone indefinitely a promised return to civilian rule. In July 1975 he was overthrown in a bloodless counter-coup while he was attending an OAU meeting in Uganda. He went into exile in England, where he enrolled as an undergraduate student in political science at the University of Warwick. In 1976 he was accused, without any evidence, of complicity in a further failed counter-coup in Nigeria. He finally returned to Nigeria in 1983.

Gowon was arguably the most important, and certainly longest surviving, of Nigeria's post-independence rulers.

A Dictionary of Political Biography. Copyright © 1998, 2003 by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved.