The air-conditioned office of Nigeria's leader, Major General Yakubu Gowon, is on the second floor of a villa in the Obalende quarter of Lagos. A well-thumbed copy of Carl Sandburg's Abraham Lincoln—The War Years lies amid a clutter of radio equipment and six telephones. A devout Methodist in a largely Moslem and animist nation, a member of an insignificant tribe in a federation of tribal giants, Gowon clearly sees himself in the Lincolnesque role of healer of his nation's divisions. TIME Correspondent Charles Eisendrath recently talked with the general. The subjects discussed and Gowon's replies:
On the War's End
I hope it will...