Former Head of State General Yakubu Gowon has revealed in his newly launched autobiography that Biafran leader Lt-Col Odumegwu Ojukwu mortgaged the region’s mineral wealth to the Rothschild banking family for $10 million in exchange for French-backed military support.
Former Nigerian Head of State, General Yakubu Gowon, has revealed that the leader of the breakaway Republic of Biafra, Lieutenant Colonel Odumegwu Ojukwu, mortgaged the mineral wealth of the region to the prominent Rothschild banking family for approximately $10 million during the Nigerian Civil War. The startling historical revelation is contained in Gowon’s newly published 859-page autobiography, My Life of Duty and Allegiance, subtitled “No Going Back,” which was officially launched on Tuesday, May 19, 2026, during a high-profile event in Abuja. According to the wartime leader, the financial transaction was explicitly designed to secure sophisticated covert hardware and French-backed diplomatic and military support for the secessionist movement as the federal forces intensified their encirclement strategy.
Gowon explained that as the hostilities escalated between 1967 and 1970, the government of France funneled immense logistical and military aid to the rebel administration through its proxy networks in francophone African territories. The book outlines that the true depth of these transnational economic arrangements only came to light through a significant counter-intelligence breakthrough achieved by Nigerian diplomats stationed abroad. Federal operatives managed to track the movement of illicit funds back to European banking institutions after analyzing suspicious procurement documents linked to clandestine military aviation contracts.
Detailing the exact moment the secret transaction was unraveled by the federal government, Gowon noted that the intelligence discovery completely shifted Nigeria’s diplomatic strategy against the breakaway republic. “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. Indeed, he had pawned the mineral wealth of Biafra to Rothschild for about $10m or an estimated N5m at the time. 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, highlighting how the intercepted aircraft purchase ultimately exposed the financial underpinnings of the Biafran resistance.
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