After 22yrs in US Prison, Yakubu Gowon's Son, Musa, granted Clemency by President Obama

Photo: The 1st pic was in prison when he was visited by his half brother Richard, at his graduation.
The 2nd pic was taken some days before he was arrested, he was 23 years then.

General Yakabu Gowon, Nigeria's former President had a son with late Edith Ike Okongwu and his name is Musa Jack Ngonadi Gowon. The story of how Musa Gowon landed in Prison in the US after he and his mother relocated to America is controversial. Read the full details below:

He was well behaved all through and eventually graduated with a degree in law while in prison...

On November 18, 1992, agents of the Drug Enforcement Administration and the United States Customs Service arrested Musa, Jack Spencer, for conspiring to import in excess of one kilogram of heroin. Jack Musa Gowon, who was 23 years old at that time was sentenced to 40 years in prison for the allegation of smuggling heroin from source countries. 

Jack Musa Gowon protested vehemently through his legal team that he was innocent and was framed up and his protest were ignored by the Jury and was harshly sentenced to 324 months in prison followed by five years of supervised release. 

Musa timely appealed, challenging the admission into evidence of the Hotel Guide, the sufficiency of the evidence supporting his conviction, and the district court's upward adjustment of his base offense level on the basis that he was an organizer or leader in the conspiracy. 

When the appeal to quash his conviction failed, Musa took that decision in his stride believing set back like this is not end of his life. 

As an inmate of Taft Correctional Facility, Musa Jack Gowon was a role model and a legal adviser to all the inmates. 

He was well behaved and a source of inspiration to co-inmates who have given up on life. The prison warden loved and worshiped the ground he tread on. 

Permit me to mention that Musa enrolled in one of the universities around and successfully graduated with a degree in Law as a prison inmate. 

This commendable act of Leadership did not go unnoticed and he was rewarded severally by prison authorities. 

While all these were going on, Musa's family has never stopped fighting to get him out of prison and calls for his release began to grow louder. 

Happy to report that President Obama heard the calls for Musa's release and acted in that regard by granting him a parole. 

Musa walked out of Taft Correctional Facility Bakersfield California as a free man on November 2nd and he is currently at ICE Detention Center Bakersfield CA where he will be deported back to Nigeria any moment from now. 

Musa Jack Ngonaadi is grateful to his Dad, General Yakubu Gowon, his friends and his relatives from his maternal side who stood by him and supported him also all through the period of his unjust incarceration that he did not commit the crime he was wrongly accused of. 

Musa will narrate his own side of the story very soon and he is grateful to God who kept him alive and well to see this day.

Written by Barrister Chukwudi Iwuchukwu

Principal founder of Visage Media, a PR company based in Lagos.