Gowon accepts 48-yr-old lovechild

Former military Head of State, Gen. Yakubu Gowon (retd) has accepted paternity of a 48-year-old love son, Jack Musa Gowon, after a long legal tussle.

Musa was the product of a love affair Gowon had with late Princess Edith Ike Okongwu, a public relations expert, during the Nigerian civil war.

The acceptance comes after an extensive and conclusive DNA test.

The former Head of State said in a statement, yesterday, that “Following years of doubts and speculation, a DNA test was recently conducted to ascertain the paternity of Musa Gowon who recently returned to the country. The results of the tests were conclusive and they confirm his paternity. We, the family, are working to assist in his rehabilitation following a very difficult period in his life. As we look forward to the future with faith in God, we request that our privacy be respected. Thank you”

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The paternity of Musa, who had spent about 24 years in a US prison, had been the issue of a legal tussle, ending at the Supreme Court before his mother passed on in 2003 from cancer.

Though Okongwu won the suit, Musa was arrested shortly afterwards in Dallas and sentenced to 27 years in prison on a charge of importing heroin into that country.

He was released November 2015 on compassionate ground and good behavior, and was said to have pursued graduate school from prison and was of exemplary behaviour.

A younger Gowon and Okongwu were friends in the 60s, but Gowon later married Victoria Zakari, a nurse, in April 1969.

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