The federal executive council yesterday approved the renaming of the University of Abuja (UniAbuja) to Yakubu Gowon University.
The minister of information, Mr Mohammed Idris, disclosed in Abuja while addressing journalists after the 14th council meeting of President Bola Tinubu’s administration.
The minister said the renaming of the 36-year-old institution is to honour the 90-year-old elder statesman and former head of state, General Yakubu Gowon (retd).
“FEC has taken that decision to write to the national assembly to change the name of university of Abuja to Yakubu Gowon University, in honour of the former head of state and elder statesman,” he said.
However, he said name change will be forwarded to the national assembly for formal approval.
Gowon served as the head of state from 1966 to 1975.
He became Nigeria’s youngest leader at the age of 31 following a bloody counter-coup of July 1966 that resulted in the murder of Nigeria’s first military head of state General Johnson Aguiyi-Ironsi and Lt Colonel Adekunle Fajuyi (who was hosting a visiting Aguiyi-Ironsi) in Ibadan.
Gowon led Nigeria during the civil war (1967–1970).
He delivered the famous “no victor, no vanquished” speech at the war’s end to promote healing and reconciliation.
In 1975, Gowon was overthrown in a bloodless coup d’état of 1975 by late General Murtala Mohammed while he (Gowon) was attending the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) summit in Kampala’ Uganda.
Following his ouster, Gowon went into exile in the United Kingdom, where he acquired a Ph.D. in political science as a student at the University of Warwick.
Established in 1988, UniAbuja was designed as a dual-mode institution, offering both conventional and distance learning programmes to cater to a diverse student population.
