January 15, Fajuyi And The Northern Christians

By Emma Okocha

 “Colonel Francis Fajuyi was the Commander of Operation Baby Chimra, the mock battle at Lenlete before Abeokuta few days to Operation Damisa…. Even if a tree stands in Yoruba land, Akintola will rule that tree!”

– Colonel Fajuyi addressing the Revolutionaries at the mock battle, Lenlete.

*Fajuyi

Revisionists of the Nigerian Civil war history distort the role, diminish the active participation of Colonel Adekunle Fajuyi’s support to the boys of the January 15 revolution. Without any scientific evidence, they have gone forward to present the Colonel as a hero, who sacrificed his life in solidarity with his condemned high priced guest. Encircled by the blood-thirsty Phalangists, who were in the Ibadan Government House to kill the Head of State and effect a change of government, the story went on to say that the Governor was offered an option… “The Governor decided to die with his guest when it was inevitable that the coup plotters wanted General Aguiyi Ironsi dead…” Bla bla bla.

Our researches on the other hand, counter that fable. In the first place, Adekunle Fajuyi did not belong to the same philosophical school of his guest. The late Colonel was a hero alright but his heroism was built out of his exceptional gallantry, as a field commander during the United Nation’s Peace Intervention in the Congo. Recently, in a Punch interview, Fajuyi’s sister shocked our present Roman leaders and governors when she revealed that her brother started to avoid her when she asked him to influence a contract job she had quoted for in one of the ministries under his government in 1966!

Like Kaduna Nzeogwu, who was going to die in the South African Liberation war, hence he refrained from getting married. Governor Adekunle Fajuyi had no house and would not allow his sister “disgrace his reputation” by getting him involved in contract jobs. Adekunle Fajuyi and the leaders of the January 15 revolution were pioneer African Revolutionaries, who were primarily motivated into action by their experience in the Congo. Kaduna Nzeogwu principally did not forgive the African conservative Monrovia Group led by Nigeria for their complacency, following the C.I.A conspiracy, which overthrew the legitimate government of the elected Prime Minister of the Congo. Since that despicable putsch and the murder of Patrice Lumumba, the Congo has remained on the cliff hanger. Indeed, Kaduna Nzeogwu’s January 15 spontaneous Declaration of the Revolution was as arresting and in delivery, a carbon copy of Patrice Lumumba’s independent speech, which challenged Imperial Belgian’s enslavement of the Congo.

Patrice Lumumba: An Amazing Story

Malcolm X called him the most impressive black man ever to walk the African continent. Just six months after becoming the first prime minister of the newly independent Republic of the Congo (later called the Democratic Republic of the Congo), and two days before John F. Kennedy’s inauguration in January 1961, Patrice Lumumba was shot down by a firing squad. But Lumumba’s surprising path and sudden death serve as a powerful reminder that for political leaders in many parts of the world, true reform has only one major prerequisite: survival.

Few countries today are as troubled as the Congo, a land of 68 million nestled near the center of sub-Saharan Africa. Belgian invaders looted the country for almost a century, during perhaps the most brutal colonization in Africa. But Congo, rich in mineral resources like rubber, was once poised to be an African success story, thanks in no small part to the man his people called by one name: Lumumba.

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