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25 October 1973, Nigeria broke diplomatic relations with Israel. It was General Yakubu Gowon who ordered it. Now why did Gowon do it? Listen and read carefully. It was not because Nigeria hated Israel. In fact, Nigeria and Israel had been friends before 1960. Israel had helped Nigeria with agriculture, education, medicine and technology. Many Nigerians had trained in Israel. The relationship was cordial. But in October 1973, the Yom Kippur War broke out between Israel and Egypt, and Israel pushed its troops beyond the 1967 ceasefire lines and held on to Egyptian territory, especially the Sinai. For Africa, that was a red line. Egypt is an African country. The Sinai is African land. The Organisation of African Unity, the OAU, had already passed a resolution that member states should cut relations with Israel if Israel refused to give up occupied Arab lands and return to the 1967 lines. And who was the Chairman of the OAU at that time. It was Gowon himself. He had become Chairman on 27 May 1973. So Gowon was in a tight corner. How could he be the Chairman of Africa and still keep quiet while African land was being occupied. How could he preach African unity and African liberation, and still keep full friendship with a country that Africa had condemned. Gowon himself had said it earlier that year. He said Nigeria would break relations with any country that treated Africa or Nigeria as a nonentity. He said, if Israel does not heed the OAU pleas and advice to relinquish occupied Arab lands, we will have no choice but to take steps we deem fit. When Israel advanced beyond the ceasefire lines, Gowon took that step. On that day, 25 October 1973, at 1pm in Lagos, the Federal Military Government announced that Nigeria had broken relations with Israel. The Israeli ambassador was told only one hour before the public announcement. So the reason was simple, but it was powerful. Gowon ordered the break because Israel was occupying Egyptian territory, because Africa had agreed to stand together on this, and because as OAU Chairman, Gowon could not lead Africa with his mouth and betray Africa with his hands. It was a decision of African solidarity, and a decision to defend the principle that no country should keep land it took by force, especially African land. Nigeria paid a price for it, because we lost a useful friend. But Gowon believed that Nigeria, as the giant of Africa, must stand with Africa first. That is why, in 1973, Nigeria broke with Israel, and relations were not restored until September 1992, under Babangida. Now You Know

1961: Nigeria was the first African nation to break diplomatic relations with France, and the day was 5 January 1961. That was not a quiet diplomatic quarrel. That was Nigeria standing up in front of the whole world and saying, enough is enough. France had gone into the Sahara Desert and exploded an atomic bomb, the third one, on 27 December 1960. They called it Gerboise Rouge. Nigeria had warned them before the test. African leaders had warned them. The people had warned them. The fear was simple and real. The harmattan wind could carry radioactive fallout south, into Nigeria and into other African countries, and poison the air, the water, the soil, and the bodies of innocent people who had never asked for any bomb. France tested anyway. Prime Minister Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa did not hide behind a statement. On the evening of Dec. 28th 1960, The French Ambassador, Raymond Offroy, was summoned to the Foreign Ministry and told of the Nigerian Government's “concern” over France's explosion of an atomic bomb in the Sahara, then January 5th, 1961, Prime Minister Tafawa Balewa summoned the French ambassador in Lagos, Raymond Offroy, and told him face to face that Nigeria was cutting diplomatic relations with France. He personally handed him the letter. In that letter, Balewa spoke of the greatest resentment at the unalloyed intransigence of the French Government and the utter disregard with which that Government had treated the feelings of Nigerians on the question of atomic tests in the Sahara Desert. Then came the part the French would never forget. The ambassador and his embassy staff were given only forty eight hours to leave Nigeria. Forty eight hours. And to make the message even sharper, Nigeria barred French planes and vessels from using Nigerian airports and ports, cancelled French transit rights through Nigeria, banned French ships from its coastal waters, and froze French assets in the country. Think about that. This was 1961. Nigeria had only become independent on 1 October 1960. Barely three months into independence, a young African country looked one of the most powerful nations on earth in the eye and said, if you will not respect African lives, you will not enjoy African friendship. That is why this story still matters. It was not only about a bomb in the desert. It was about dignity. It was about a new nation refusing to be treated as if its people did not matter. It was Nigeria saying that African lives are not expendable, and that no friendship is worth the silence that allows your neighbour to be poisoned. Nigeria paid a price for that courage. Relations with France stayed broken until 1965. But history remembers who spoke first, and who acted first. On 5 January 1961, Nigeria spoke, and Nigeria acted. Let us never forget that this country once had the courage to stand alone for Africa. If this history moved you, drop a comment and share it, so the next generation will know what Nigeria once stood for. Now You Know