Former Nigerian Head of State referenced in the UK parliamentary debate of a petition against the violent clamp down on protesters against police brutality has denied the claim.

General Yakubu Gowon was referenced in MP, Tom Tugendhat’s submission at the debate as having arrived London after his removal from office ‘looting half of Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).’

Speaking in an interview with Channels TV, Gowon who ruled Nigeria from 1966 to 1975 said he is not guilty of the money laundering allegation against him by a member of the British parliament.

“It is certainly surprising, and I am disappointed that a British parliamentarian could make such a statement without checking the facts of what he was saying. I honestly was disappointed that such a remark is made.” 

Gowon said that there was no time when he was held or questioned for money laundering, “The record of my service to the nation is there for everybody to see and even the British government itself, and I don’t know why somebody got the information to make such a very ridiculous statement.

“I am disappointed with that one and I hope the British authority will do something to rightly bring that parliamentarian to order to check his facts before he makes such allegation because it is more or less an insult to the leadership of Nigeria and certainly an insult to me to say that I did something of the sort to take half of Nigeria’s Central Bank and I must have put it in a British bank.”

Gowon was Nigeria’s military head of state from 1966 to 1975, including during the time of the oil boom. He was deposed while attending the OAU meeting in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia from where he proceeded to UK on exile.

He enrolled at Warwick University where he studied political science and international relations as an undergraduate.