We Saved Obasanjo From Being Removed As President – Gowon

Former Head of State, Gen Yakubu Gowon on Saturday narrated how he alongside other prominent Nigerians stopped former President Olusegun Obasanjo from getting impeached by the National House of Assembly.

Gowon said he and Former Head of State, Gen Abdulsalami Abubakar, were among the prominent persons that appealed to then-Speaker, House of Representatives, Ghali Na’Abba, and then-Senate President, Pius Anyim, to let peace reign and save Obasanjo’s successors from embarrassments by the legislature.

In his speech at the Maj Gen Emmanuel Abisoye Foundation lecture at the University of Abuja tagged, ‘Nation Building or Nation Fragmentation: Reflections on 20 Years of Post-Military Rule in Nigeria’, the former head of state claimed that other presidents would have suffered a similar fate if peace was not made. He said at the event which had Na’Abba in attendance;

“I can assure you that we had some very important discussions and I know that we had to appeal to him and the President of the Senate not to impeach Obasanjo. Of course, because of the respect they had for us, they listened to us. This is because if we had allowed them to impeach the President at that time of our democracy, no President in Nigeria would escape being harassed. So, I thank you very much for listening to us”