With the historical revision that reached fever pitch when Peter Obi unbelievably called General Gowon an ‘enemy’ that needs to be forgiven, there is a need to retell historical facts before fantasists and fallacious claims come to be taken as facts of history.
Since the claim by Mr. Peter Obi, many people, Obidients especially, have tried to downplay the January 15, 1966 coup as the trigger that ignited the series of unfortunate events that culminated in the Nigerian Civil War.
General Gowon was not a warmonger, and it is most uncharitable for Mr. Peter Obi to paint him as one. He was himself a victim of the vicissitudes that visited Nigeria as a direct consequence of Major Emmanuel Ifeajuna’s coup.
One of the reasons why the January 15, 1966 coup opened the Pandora’s Box in Nigeria and destroyed the almost idyllic communal coexistence between the North and South pre-1966 is the fact that Majors Ifeajuna, Nzeogwu, Anuforo, Onwuategwu, Okafor and Captain Nwobosi, and their subordinates were not sensitive to religious sensibilities enough to have planned their coup after Ramadan.
They killed their victims during the holy month of Ramadan, and that was [symbolically and demonstrably a hateful act] unforgivable on the part of {the core} Northern {Muslim} officers led by Lt. Colonel Murtala Muhammed.
Almost as bad is the fact that either through omission or commission, all those who were not killed during the participation of the coup were of the Igbo ethnic group, but those they killed were from other ethnicities, except for Lt. Colonel Arthur Unegbe [who was not on the kill list, anyway, and his killing was incidental].
The only reason he was killed was because he was the QuarterMaster-General, Army Headquarters, Lagos, and therefore was in charge of the armoury.
When Major Chris Anuforo went to his house to demand the keys to the armoury, he refused and was shot. He was NOT on the original list of people to be killed.
Major Adewale Ademoyega, in his book, ‘Why We Struck’, revealed that he had been tricked into participating in the coup by Ifeajuna in the belief that politicians from all regions would be ARRESTED.
Below is an excerpt from that book:
“The next most important cause of our failure was the behaviour of Ifeajuna himself. Having seen that Ironsi had got loose and was already raising troops against us, Ifeajuna took Okafor with him and both of them suddenly disappeared from our midst.
This raises the serious question of whether or not there was a common collusion between them and whether Okafor’s failure to arrest the GOC was not a case of deliberate or willful omission.”
Major Emmanuel Ifeajuna was the coup leader. He killed the Prime Minister, Sir Abubakar Tafawa-Balewa, probably the cleanest and most upright politician in Nigeria’s history. He also killed his [Ifeajuna’s] boss, [Brigadier] Zakariya Maimalari, [a Northerner, and the only specially-trained top military officer, Sandhurst, as the others, including Ironsi, rose through the ranks.]
The thing about the death of Brigadier Zakariya Maimalari was that he had escaped from Major Okafor, whom Ifeajuna had sent to kill him. He was barely 100 meters to the safety of the Federal Guards Brigade when he saw Ifeajuna’s Mercedes Benz car. He was so relieved At seeing Ifeajuna, whom he had just hosted some hours ago at his home, that he came out of the bushes.
He was Ifeajuna’s direct boss and was like a father to him, so he never believed that Ifeajuna was one of the plotters. As his car approached, he stopped Ifeajuna, who greeted him with a hail of bullets, killing him on the spot.
Ifeajuna was himself executed by Lt. Colonel Emeka Ojukwu on September 25, 1967, after a kangaroo trial on charges of treason.
Major Chukwuma Nzeogwu killed Sir Ahmadu Bello and his first wife, Hafsatu, who stood between him and her husband. He also killed some members of Sir Ahmadu Bello’s household and one of his men, Sergeant Daramola Oyegoke, who refused to kill innocent civilians.
Major Nzeogwu died in unclear circumstances. Rumours were rife that he was actually killed by Lt. Colonel Ojukwu, who was said to have felt threatened by his wide popularity in the Republic of Biafra. But Ojukwu denied this.
The official version is that he was caught in an ambush by troops of the Nigerian Army, who killed him. He died on July 29, 1967. It was the first anniversary of the counter-coup to his coup. Another coincidence?
Major Chris Anuforo was the most bloodthirsty of the mutineers. He killed the Minister of Finance, Chief Festus Okotie-Eboh, and Lt. Colonels Kur Mohammed and Arthur Unegbe. When Major Humphrey Chukwuka refused to kill Lt. Colonel Pam, who had been responsible for his rapid rise in the army, Anuforo got angry and killed him [Pam].
The manner in which Anuforo killed Lt. Colonel Kur Mohammed was particularly evil. Kur Mohammed did not resist or beg for his life. Rather, he started praying without asking for permission, at which point Anuforo rained bullets on his back.
Major Timothy Onwuatuegwu killed Brigadier Samuel Ademulegun and his eight-month-pregnant wife, Latifah Ademulegun, who stood in front of him, thinking that Onwuatuegwu would not shoot a pregnant woman. He did. He suit her and her husband in front of their two underaged children, who were left in the house with their blood-soaked bodies until Mrs. Ironsi came the next day and dumped them in an orphanage.
The children still live with the trauma of that incident and just a month ago, I spoke to Solape Ademulegun, the underaged daughter who was in that room. May God bless her.
He [Onwuategwu] was killed on January 15, 1970, the day Biafra surrendered. The circumstances of his death are unclear, but it is believed that he took advantage of Colonel Obasanjo’s kindness and tried to kill him in the process of surrender, and was gunned down by Obasanjo’s bodyguards. This is not confirmed.
Of the plotters, only Majors Ademoyega and Chukwuka refused to shed innocent blood. And they are the only ones who survived and lived well into old age. Is it a coincidence? You tell me!
And when Major General Ironsi took office, there was widespread angst that he also maintained a one-sided government.
Ironsi sacked the Federal Attorney General, Taslim Elias, and replaced him with a fellow Igbo, Chike Onyiuke.
Then, he appointed three advisers. Perhaps naively, ALL of them were Igbo, like him. They included Chief Francis Nwokedi, Dr. Pius Okigbo and Colonel Patrick Anwunah. Calls for him to appoint at least one token non-Igbo were disregarded.
Additionally, it was said that some Northern officers were upset that he appointed Pius Okigbo, whose brother, Chris Okigbo, helped Emmanuel Ifeajuna, the coup leader, escape to Ghana. To put this into perspective, after the April 22, 1990 Orkar coup, Major Saliba Mukoro’s brother was detained by the Babangida regime.
Honestly, that was not a wise move from Ironsi.
Finally, six months after the coup, Ironsi still refused to try the plotters.
All of these combined to spell his doom, and it is unknown which one triggered the July 29, 1966 counter-coup.
The above are what Archbishop Chukwuma and those who wish to apologise for him should consider before accusing God of punishing Northern Nigeria.
Reno Omokri
Gospeller. Deep Thinker. #TableShaker. Ruffler of the Feathers of Obidents. #1 Bestselling author of Facts Versus Fiction: The True Story of the Jonathan Years. Hodophile. Hollywood Magazine Humanitarian of the Year, 2019. Business Insider Influencer of the Year 2022.
