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Yakubu Gowon: |
'Yakubu Dan-Yumma "Jack" Gowon' (born 19 October 1934) is a Nigerian general and statesman who served as the military head of state of Nigeria from 1966 to 1975. The Nigerian Civil War is listed as one of the deadliest in modern history, with some accusing Gowon of crimes against humanity and genocide. Gowon has mainta... |
An Anglican Christian from a minority Ngas ethnic group of Northern Nigeria, Gowon is a Nigerian nationalist, and a believer in the unity and oneness of Nigeria. His rise to power followed the July 1966 counter-coup and cemented military rule in Nigeria. Consequently, Gowon served for the longest continuous period as h... |
Early life. |
Gowon is an Ngas (Angas) from Lur, a small village in the present Kanke Local Government Area of Plateau State. His parents, Nde Yohanna and Matwok Kurnyang, left for Wusasa, Zaria, as Church Missionary Society (CMS) missionaries in the early days of Gowon's life. His father took pride in the fact that he married on 26... |
Early career. |
Gowon joined the Nigerian Army in 1954 and received his commission as a second lieutenant on 19 October 1955, his 21st birthday. He was trained in the prestigious Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, UK (1955–56), Staff College, Camberley, UK (1962) as well as the Joint Staff College, Latimer, 1965. He saw action in the C... |
1966 coup. |
In January 1966, he became Nigeria's youngest military chief of staff at the age of 31, because a military coup d'état by a group of junior officers under Major Chukwuma Kaduna Nzeogwu led to the overthrow of Nigeria's civilian government. In the course of this coup, mostly northern and western leaders were killed, inc... |
July counter coup. |
Then came Aguyi Ironsi's Decree Number 34, which proposed the abolition of the federal system of government in favor of a unitary state, a position which had long been championed by some Southerners-especially by a major section of the Igbo-dominated National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroon (NCNC) This was perhaps ... |
The original intention of Murtala Mohammed and his fellow coup-plotters was to engineer the secession of the Northern region from Nigeria as a whole, but they were subsequently dissuaded of their plans by several advisors, amongst which were a number of high-ranking civil servants and judges, and importantly emissaries... |
Head of state. |
In 1966, Gowon was chosen to become head of state. Up until then, Gowon remained strictly a career soldier with no involvement whatsoever in politics, until the tumultuous events of the year suddenly thrust him into a leadership role, when his unusual background as a Northerner who was neither of Hausa nor Fulani ances... |
Gowon promoted himself twice as Nigerian Head of State. Gowon was a Lt. Colonel upon his ascendancy to the top of the new Federal military government of Nigeria on 1 August 1966, however other senior military officers such as Commodore Joseph Wey, Brigadier Babafemi Ogundipe, and Colonel Robert Adebayo were a part of t... |
Civil war leader. |
In anticipation of eastern secession, Gowon moved quickly to weaken the support base of the region by decreeing the creation of twelve new states to replace the four regions. Six of these states contained minority groups that had demanded state creation since the 1950s. Gowon rightly calculated that the eastern minorit... |
The war lasted thirty months and ended in January 1970. In accepting Biafra's unconditional cease-fire, Gowon declared that there would be no victor and no vanquished. In this spirit, the years afterward were declared to be a period of rehabilitation, reconstruction, and reconciliation. The oil-price boom, which began ... |
Towards the end of July 1967, Nigerian federal troops and marines captured Bonny Island in the Niger Delta, thereby taking control of vital Shell-BP facilities. Operations began again in May 1968, when Nigeria captured Port Harcourt. Its facilities had been damaged and needed repair. Oil production and export continued... |
Minority ethnicities of the Eastern Region were rather not sanguine about the prospect of secession, as it would mean living in what they felt would be an Igbo-dominated nation. Some non-Igbos living in the Eastern Region either refrained from offering active support to the Biafran struggle, or actively aided the feder... |
On 30 May 1967, Ojukwu responded to Gowon's announcement by declaring the formal secession of the Eastern Region, which was now to be known as the Republic of Biafra. This was to trigger a war that would last some 30 months, and see the deaths of more than 100,000 federal soldiers and three million Biafran combatants a... |
"No victor, no vanquished". |
The end of the war came about on 13 January 1970, with Colonel Olusegun Obasanjo's acceptance of the surrender of Biafran forces. The next day, Obasanjo announced the situation on the former rebel radio station Radio Biafra Enugu. Gowon subsequently made his famous "no victor, no vanquished" speech, and followed it up ... |
Another decision made by Gowon at the height of the oil boom was to have what some considered negative repercussions for the Nigerian economy in later years, although its immediate effects were scarcely noticeable – his indigenization decree of 1972, which declared many sectors of the Nigerian economy off-limits to all... |
The post-civil-war years saw Nigeria enjoying a meteoric, oil-fuelled, economic upturn in the course of which the scope of activity of the Nigerian federal government grew to an unprecedented degree, with increased earnings from oil revenues. However, this period also saw a rapid increase in corruption, mostly bribery,... |
On 1 October 1974, in flagrant contradiction to his earlier promises, Gowon declared that Nigeria would not be ready for civilian rule by 1976, and he announced that the handover date would be postponed indefinitely. Furthermore, because of the growth in bureaucracy, there were allegations of rise in corruption. Increa... |
The cement armada affair. |
The corruption in Gowon's administration culminated in the notorious "cement armada" affair in the summer of 1975, when the port of Lagos became jammed with hundreds of ships trying to unload cement. Somehow, agents of the Nigerian government had signed contracts with 68 different international suppliers for the delive... |
Overthrow. |
These scandals provoked serious discontent within the army. On 29 July 1975, while Gowon was attending an OAU summit in Kampala, a group of officers led by Colonel Joe Nanven Garba announced his overthrow. The coup plotters appointed Brigadier Murtala Muhammed as head of the new government, and Brigadier Olusegun Obasa... |
Gowon was finally pardoned, along with the ex-Biafran president, Emeka Ojukwu, during the Second Republic under President Shehu Shagari. Gowon's rank of general was not restored until 1987 however by General Ibrahim Babangida. |
Later life. |
After earning his doctorate at the University of Warwick, Gowon became a professor of political science at the University of Jos in the mid-1980s. |
In November 2020, MP Tom Tugendhat, while speaking against the Nigerian government's repression of the 2020 #EndSARS mass protests, accused Gowon of looting "half of the Central Bank of Nigeria" after his overthrow in the coup d'état of 1975. The statement, the first-ever attempt to link Gowon with corruption, was face... |
In February 2024, Gowon, who is the last surviving founder of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), called on the bloc to lift sanctions against Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger, whose military-led governments had announced their countries' departure from the organization in response to the sanctions. |
Personal life. |
Gowon married Victoria Zakari, a trained nurse in 1969 at a ceremony officiated by Seth Irunsewe Kale at the Cathedral Church of Christ, Lagos. |
Renegades (Rage Against the Machine album): |
'Renegades' is the fourth and final studio album by the American rock band Rage Against the Machine, released on December 5, 2000, by Epic Records. It consists of covers of songs by Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan, Afrika Bambaataa, Minor Threat, Eric B. & Rakim, the Stooges, MC5, the Rolling Stones, Cypress Hill, Devo an... |
Unlike other Rage Against the Machine albums, Renegades was not accompanied by a supporting tour due to the band splitting up almost two months before its release. It was certified platinum a little over a month after release. Shortly after the release, the band members, with the exception of lead vocalist Zack de la R... |
Critical reception. |
At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, Renegades has an average score of 78 based on 26 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews". AllMusic critic John Bush wrote that the record "works well with just a bare few exceptions, in part because Rage Against th... |
Mojo wrote: "This crisp, Rick Rubin-produced outing packs away a machine that was well-oiled to the last." Kitty Empire of NME labeled the record "a brilliant archaeology" and "a sonic history lesson". The Rolling Stone critic Tom Moon said the band executed "diverse tracks" such as Bruce Springsteen's "The Ghost of To... |
Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies: |
The 'Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies' ('PIMS') is a research institute in the University of Toronto that is dedicated to advanced studies in the culture of the Middle Ages. |
Governance. |
The Roman Catholic Archbishop of Toronto, currently Francis Leo, T.O.P., acts as the chancellor of the institute. The Praeses (or president) of the institute is Augustine Thompson, O.P. |
History. |
It was founded in 1929 as the 'Institute of Mediaeval Studies' at St. Michael's College of the University of Toronto. Étienne Gilson, then of the Sorbonne, was instrumental in its foundation, along with Henry Carr and Edmund J. McCorkell of the Congregation of St. Basil and St. Michael's College. In 1939 it was granted... |
In 1964 the University of Toronto established the Centre for Medieval Studies as part of the School of Graduate Studies, for students pursuing a master's degree or doctorate in medieval studies. Teaching at these levels gradually passed from the institute to the centre. (The centre officially uses the spelling "medieva... |
Up until 1958 the institute had its own charter. From 1958 to 2005, PIMS was a division of the University of St. Michael's College. The Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies Act of 2005 gave the institute academic autonomy from the university, with which, however, it remains affiliated. Under the act, PIMS is admin... |
Postdoctoral Program and Licence in Mediaeval Studies. |
In 1998 the institute became an exclusively postdoctoral research centre, and it accepts students who have recently completed their doctoral studies and wish to conduct specialized research in medieval studies. PIMS offers a Licence in Mediaeval Studies (LMS) as a degree exclusively for students who have completed thei... |
Étienne Gilson Lecture. |
Since 1979 the institute has hosted an annual lecture from "a senior medievalist" in honour of its co-founder and his research interests. Previous lecturers include Jaroslav Pelikan, Mark D. Jordan, John F. Wippel, Peter Brown, and Francis Oakley. Lectures have been given on topics such as medieval philosophy, medieval... |
Library. |
The institute has its own library with over 150,000 volumes, one of the largest collections of medieval documentation in North America. The library is part of the larger system of the University of Toronto Libraries. The library contains over 9,000 reels of microfilm and over 60,000 slides. Materials are non-circulatin... |
Publishing. |
PIMS also has an extensive publishing program that includes its annual journal of research on the Middle Ages, Mediaeval Studies, which began in 1939. In 2004, it had reached the 66th volume. A collection of Gilson Lectures focusing on Thomas Aquinas was published in 2008. |
Faculty and fellows. |
Faculty and research fellows, visiting and otherwise, associated with PIMS have included: |
Rogue planet: |
A 'rogue planet', also termed a 'free-floating planet' ('FFP') or an 'isolated planetary-mass object' ('iPMO'), is an interstellar object of planetary mass which is not gravitationally bound to any star or brown dwarf. |
Rogue planets may originate from planetary systems in which they are formed and later ejected, or they can also form on their own, outside a planetary system. The Milky Way alone may have billions to trillions of rogue planets, a range the upcoming Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is expected to refine. The odds of a ... |
Some planetary-mass objects may have formed in a similar way to stars, and the International Astronomical Union has proposed that such objects be called sub-brown dwarfs. A possible example is Cha 110913−773444, which may either have been ejected and become a rogue planet or formed on its own to become a sub-brown dwar... |
Terminology. |
The two first discovery papers use the names isolated planetary-mass objects (iPMO) wandering planet in different press releases. |
Discovery. |
Isolated planetary-mass objects (iPMO) were first discovered in 2000 by the UK team Lucas & Roche with UKIRT in the Orion Nebula. In the same year the Spanish team Zapatero Osorio et al. discovered iPMOs with Keck spectroscopy in the σ Orionis cluster. that were spectroscopically confirmed years later in 2004 by the US... |
Observation. |
There are two techniques to discover free-floating planets: direct imaging and microlensing. |
Microlensing. |
Astrophysicist Takahiro Sumi of Osaka University in Japan and colleagues, who form the Microlensing Observations in Astrophysics and the Optical Gravitational Lensing Experiment collaborations, published their study of microlensing in 2011. They observed 50 million stars in the Milky Way by using the MOA-II telescope a... |
In September 2020, astronomers using microlensing techniques reported the detection, for the first time, of an Earth-mass rogue planet (named OGLE-2016-BLG-1928) unbound to any star and free floating in the Milky Way galaxy. |
Direct imaging. |
Microlensing planets can only be studied by the microlensing event, which makes the characterization of the planet difficult. Astronomers therefore turn to isolated planetary-mass objects (iPMO) that were found via the direct imaging method. To determine a mass of a brown dwarf or iPMO one needs for example the luminos... |
The first iPMOs were discovered in the early 2000s via direct imaging inside young star-forming regions. None of the iPMOs found inside young star-forming regions show a high velocity compared to their star-forming region. For old iPMOs the cold WISE J0830+2837 one alternative scenario explains this object as an ejecte... |
Total number of known iPMOs. |
There are likely hundreds Follow-up observations with spectroscopy from the Subaru Telescope and Gran Telescopio Canarias showed that the contamination of this sample is quite low (≤6%). The 16 young objects had a mass between 3 and 14 , confirming that they are indeed planetary-mass objects. |
Formation like a star. |
Objects with a mass of at least one Jupiter mass were thought to be able to form via collapse and fragmentation of molecular clouds from models in 2001. Pre-JWST observations have shown that objects below 3-5 are unlikely to form on their own. Sometimes young iPMOs are still surrounded by a disk that could form exomoon... |
Disks. |
Some very young star-forming regions, typically younger than 5 million years, sometimes contain isolated planetary-mass objects with infrared excess and signs of accretion. Most well known is the iPMO OTS 44 discovered to have a disk and being located in Chamaeleon I. Chamaeleon I and II have other candidate iPMOs with... |
Formation like a planet. |
Ejected planets are predicted to be mostly low-mass (<30 Figure 1 Ma et al.) and their mean mass depends on the mass of their host star. Simulations by Ma et al. predicted that exomoons can be scattered by planet-planet interactions and become ejected exomoons. Higher mass (0.3-1 ) ejected FFP are predicted to be possi... |
Formation via encounters between young circumstellar disks. |
Encounters between young circumstellar disks, which are marginally gravitationally stable, can produce elongated tidal bridges that collapse locally to form iPMOs. These iPMOs host expansive disks similar to observations, |
Other scenarios. |
If a stellar or brown dwarf embryo experiences a halted accretion, it could remain low-mass enough to become a planetary-mass object. Such a halted accretion could occur if the embryo is ejected or if its circumstellar disk experiences photoevaporation near O-stars. Objects that formed via the ejected embryo scenario w... |
Warmth. |
Interstellar planets generate little heat and are not heated by a star. However, in 1998, David J. Stevenson theorized that some planet-sized objects adrift in interstellar space might sustain a thick atmosphere that would not freeze out. He proposed that these atmospheres would be preserved by the pressure-induced far... |
During planetary-system formation, several small protoplanetary bodies may be ejected from the system. An ejected body would receive less of the stellar-generated ultraviolet light that can strip away the lighter elements of its atmosphere. Even an Earth-sized body would have enough gravity to prevent the escape of the... |
List. |
The table below lists rogue planets, confirmed or suspected, that have been discovered. It is yet unknown whether these planets were ejected from orbiting a star or else formed on their own as sub-brown dwarfs. Whether exceptionally low-mass rogue planets (such as OGLE-2012-BLG-1323 and KMT-2019-BLG-2073) are even capa... |
Discovered via direct imaging. |
These objects were discovered with the direct imaging method. Many were discovered in young star-clusters or stellar associations and a few old are known (such as WISE 0855−0714). List is sorted after discovery year. |
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