Research Café 2014: Sir Bob Reid – positive lessons from recent history

“I want to be sure that we examine what has gone right, and why, as well as examine what has gone wrong…. I had the extraordinary experience in the 1960s to witness the celebration of Nigerian independence

One of several videos from our highly successful ‘Leadership, democracy and hubris’, Research Café. This well-attended event, the fourth cafe so far, was organised jointly by the Daedalus Trust and the Centre for the Study of Democracy at the University of Westminster and was held Tuesday, 4 March 2014.

“I had the extraordinary experience in the 1960s to witness the celebration of Nigerian independence and to see it collapse by 1966 into a bloody civil war and return after four years of fighting, back to where it started.

“It was at the conclusion of these hostilities that the outstanding leadership of General Yokubu Gowon prevailed. His vision had three pillars, reconciliation, rehabilitation and return to political rule. Coming from a minority tribe in the middle of Nigeria, his pressures came from himself, not from his family or his tribe.

“It was in the humble nature of the man that when asked, on his departure from power, what would he do next, he humbly and humorously replied “I’m going to University to study Government.”

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“I want to be sure that we examine what has gone right, and why, as well as examine what has gone wrong