Variable not declared, inside a if..else statement

Because variables are only defined in the scope in which they are declared:

package main

import "fmt"

func main() {
    a := 1
    fmt.Println(a)
    {
        a := 2
        fmt.Println(a)
    }
    fmt.Println(a)
}

go play

The difference between = and := is that = is just assignment and := is syntax for variable declaration and assigment

This:

a := 1

is equivalent to:

var a int
a = 1

What you probably want is:

var req *http.Request
var er error
if strings.EqualFold(r.Method, "GET") || strings.EqualFold(r.Method, "") {
    req, er = http.NewRequest(r.Method, r.Uri, b)
} else {
    req, er = http.NewRequest(r.Method, r.Uri, b)
}


if er != nil {
    // we couldn't parse the URL.
    return nil, &Error{Err: er}
}

// add headers to the request
req.Host = r.Host
req.Header.Add("User-Agent", r.UserAgent)
req.Header.Add("Content-Type", r.ContentType)
req.Header.Add("Accept", r.Accept)
if r.headers != nil {
    for _, header := range r.headers {
        req.Header.Add(header.name, header.value)
    }
}