By Uche Ezechukwu
Next Friday, July
29th, will mark the golden jubilee milestone in Nigeria ’s bloody history. That was
the day in 1966, when Nigeria’s first military head of state, Major General
Johnson Thomas Ummunnakwe Aguiyi-Ironsi, was abducted and killed by officers
led by the then Majors Theophilus Danjuma and Murtala Muhammed, in what was
known as the counter to the first ever military coup in the country that had
taken place on January 15th of the same year.
*Gen Ironsi |
During the January 15 coup, top political leaders, predominantly from the
Northern and the Western parts of the country were slain by the young ambitious
military officers. Incidentally, apart from Colonel Arthur Unegbe, who was the
quartermaster-general of the army, no other person from the East was killed in
a putsch that severed off the top echelon of the political and military
leadership from the North. In that coup, both the powerful premier of the
North, Sir Ahmadu Bello, the Sarduana of Sokoto, who was the leader of the
ruling NPC was slain. So also was Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, the prime
minister of Nigeria .
Chief Samuel Ladoke Akintola, the premier of Western
Nigeria and the ally of the NPC was also slain; so was Sir Festus
Okotie Eboh, the minister of finance. Topmost Northern military officer
Brigadier Maimalari was also killed.
Incidentally, no politician of Eastern Region origin was killed. The powerful Dr Michael Okpara, the premier of
For one thing, the soldiers sent to Ikoyi to arrest and kill the chief of army staff, Aguiyi-Ironsi, could not meet him at home as he had gone to a party aboard a naval ship at the Marina, Lagos, and had learnt of the on-going coup there. From there, he had found his way to Obalende and Ikeja, where he organised some loyal troops to foil the coup in
Yet, how do you explain to the sorrowing Northerners that the coup, whose victims were unfortunately very lopsided at the expense of the North, was not a plot by the Igbo officers in the military? After all, on the list of the coup plotters was mostly Igbo, even as its two leaders, Majors Emmanuel ifeajuna and Chukwuma Kaduna Nzeogwu, as well as the other majors and officers were majorly Igbo. It hardly mattered that officers from all over the country including Major Ademoyega, Oyewole, Banjo, etc, were among the ring leaders of the coup. Neither, did it matter at those testy times that the coup plotters had planned to go to Calabar Prison, release Chief Obafemi Awolowo, who was serving a life–term for treason, and make him the prime minister. It also did not matter that Nzeogwu whose mother was Tiv and who was very angry over the military campaigns in Tivland in 1965, was only Igbo by name.
*Gen Danjuma |
But as is obvious in the affairs of men, it is not what happened that is the issue, it is rather the perception of what has happened, as it is generally accepted that perception is the reality. So, the fact that Aguiyi-Ironsi who foiled the abortive coup by his mutinous colleagues and assumed the reign of power as
Another ‘mistake’, which Aguiyi-Ironsi was blamed for was his abolition of the regions, which he claimed were divisive, by promulgating the mightily naïve Decree 34, otherwise known as the Unification Decree of 1966. The North had immediately interpreted it as another ploy of Igbos to dominate
One would have expected the North, when they got back power, to reverse the unitary government structure of
*Murtala Mohammed |
General JTU Aguiyi-Ironsi has been dead for 50 years now. Those he left behind, as well as the descendants and relatives of those many Igbo people who were killed in tow, have also moved on. Ironsi’s first son, Ambassador Tom, who, at only 12 years old, was with his father at Ibadan when Danjuma and his team came to arrest and kill him, and his siblings have also moved on. Tom has been a diplomat – an ambassador- as well as a minister of defence, just like Danjuma, had been. Ironically, Danjuma cannot be said to have fared as well.
In spite of having performed what he might have seen as the greatest duty for the North, he is struggling to be accepted as a Northern leader. He is not taken as a force in
This Friday, we will congregate at his modest family home in Umuahia, as we have done these several years, in a solemn celebration of a requiem remembrance Mass, to pray for the continued repose of the soul of the great soldier and the hero, and of Colonel Adekunle Fajuyi, his host and the governor of Western Nigeria, who offered to die by his side, in the hands of the coupists of July 29, 1966.
*Uche Ezechukwu is the Chairman of the
Editorial Board of The Authority, a national newspaper published in Abuja ( ezechukwu1@gmail.com)
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