After the war, Gowon gathered all those of us that were released and took us to prison

After the war, Gowon gathered all those of us that were released and took us to prison” — Ojukwu 

Retired Nigerian Army officer, Major Juventus Ojukwu, has offered a rare personal account of his incarceration in the aftermath of Nigeria’s first military coups and the civil war, shedding new light on a turbulent chapter in the country’s history six decades later
According to a report by The Sun on Friday, January 16, 2026, Ojukwu recounted his experiences during an interview in which he reflected on his arrest, imprisonment, brief release, and eventual re-incarceration following the Nigerian Civil War. His account adds to the growing body of recollections emerging as Nigeria marks 60 years since the January and July 1966 coups that reshaped the nation’s political and military trajectory.

Major Ojukwu, who has consistently maintained that he had no role in planning or executing the coups, said he nonetheless became a victim of widespread arrests that followed the military takeovers. At the time, suspicion and fear permeated the armed forces, leading to the detention of many officers deemed potentially sympathetic to the coup plotters.

Explaining his ordeal, Ojukwu said he was first imprisoned in January 1966, shortly after the coup that overthrew the civilian government. Like many others, he was detained without formal charges as the military authorities sought to stabilize the country amid rising ethnic and political tensions.
“Altogether, I spent six years and one month in prison,” Ojukwu recalled. “The first period lasted one year and three months—from January 1966 to March 1967—after which we were released by Ojukwu.”
He explained that officers who were detained in prisons located in the Eastern Region found themselves caught in the deepening crisis between the then military governor of the Eastern Region, Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu, and the Federal Military Government led by General Yakubu Gowon.

According to Major Ojukwu, as tensions escalated and Nigeria edged closer to civil war, those detained in the East were released by the Eastern authorities. Many of them, including himself, subsequently fought on the side of Biafra when hostilities broke out in 1967.

“Those of us sent to prisons in the East were caught in the escalating tensions between Ojukwu and Gowon,” he said. “Naturally, Ojukwu released us, and we fought on the side of Biafra.”
However, the end of the civil war in January 1970 did not bring freedom for him and others in similar circumstances. Major Ojukwu said that after Biafra’s surrender, the federal government reviewed the status of officers who had been released earlier in the conflict.

In his word: “After the war, Gowon recalled all of us who had been released, declaring our earlier release unlawful, and we were returned to prison for an additional four years and ten months,” he said.
In total, Ojukwu spent six years and one month behind bars, a period he described as one of uncertainty and personal hardship. He noted that while he accepted the authority of the federal government after the war, the decision to return released officers to prison underscored the complex and often painful aftermath of the conflict.