By Azubike Nass
I am a seeker after facts in historical matters. I have read, and continue to read books and commentaries on the events of January 1966; and the developments that followed, leading to the 30 months civil war of 1967-1970.
I have also sought and had personal discussions with three of the active planners and participants in that coup, asking frank and uncomfortable questions. I have tried to keep aside emotions and sentiments, to confront the naked facts.
The fact is that about 90% of the original planners of that coup were officers of Igbo extraction. Among the prominent victims of the coup included: Sir Ahmadu Bello (Premier of Northern Region), Chief Samuel Ladoke Akintola (Premier of Western Region), Sir Abubakar Tafawa-Balewa (Prime Minister), Brigadier Samuel Adesujo Ademulegun (Commander, 1 Brigade Kaduna); Brigadier Zakariya Maimalari (Commander, 2 Brigade Lagos); Col. Raphael Shodeinde (Commandant NDA, Kaduna).
The others were Lt-Cols James Pam, Kur Mohammed, Abogo Legema and Arthur Unegbe. Unegbe was the Quartermaster-General: an Igbo who was shot when the coup was already on. Some of the plotters got to him and demanded more arms and ammo from the arms store. He got shot when he attempted to notify Ironsi on the phone, of what was happening).
Though there were other lesser known victims, the officers that led the teams that executed the killings were virtually all of Igbo extraction.
Who were Nigeria’s Five Majors — the title of a book, by Ben Gbulie — that originally hatched the 15 January 1966 coup? Majors Chukwuma Nzeogwu, Emmanuel Ifeajuna, Donald Okafor, Chris Anuforo and Humphrey Chukwuka. They were all of Igbo extraction.
There were other officers, though, mostly captains and lieutenants. They included Capts Ben Gbulie and Emmanuel Nwobosi — both again, Igbo.
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But there were also Capt. Adewale Ademoyega: a Yoruba and signal officer based in Lagos, who was mostly communicating the timing with the groups in Lagos, Ibadan and Kaduna, and some others.
There were yet some other coup participants who were not really part of the planning, such as Lt Harris Eghagha: an Urhobo native, who had turned out for a programmed training exercise in the Nigerian Army Training School, Jaji, Kaduna, only to discover that Major Nzeogwu and other Igbo officers had turned it into a coup plot; and had secured live ammo.
He was briefed on the spot and asked to declare his position. He paused for a moment and declared to go along. It was obvious he would be eliminated if he did otherwise.
After any failed coup, there would be multiple arrests, which would include identified plotters and any officer whose movement at that time could attract suspicion, whether you travelled on official pass, or you attended a night party somewhere. The Special Investigating Panel (SIP) would sift through the arrested people and decide who to free and who to indict to face trial for what offence. That’s the normal thing.
From this perspective, the number of officers arrested and detained for the coup may not be a good indication of those actually involved in the coup. And in the January 1966 coup, the benefitting Head of State, Major-Gen Thomas Aguiyi-Ironsi, flatly ignored persistent calls to investigate and try the coup plotters, in accordance with standard military law.
Was it an Igbo coup? Semantics of language may come in here, but certain facts remain sacred.
The Igbos as an ethnic group never sat down in a meeting or had any consensus to plan a coup. The coup, which was very bloody, was a military boys’ affair. But the killings were skewed against other regions and ethnic groups. Every military officer planning a coup knows the consequences of failure.
The coup had failed and was causing much anger and bitterness among those who bore the brunt of the killings. And Ironsi, who became a beneficiary of the coup, flatly ignored all calls to try the coup plotters, as if he didn’t even want them to lose their ranks and commission.
He acted as if they were welcome revolutionaries who had committed no serious crime. He had hawkish Igbo advisers, in control of national authority, preening in their Igbo exceptionalism.
Besides, Ironsi was enjoying the glamour of unexpectedly acquiring national authority. Clannish advice from his close Igbo aides drummed into his head that it was his golden turn.
In the heat of the explosive anger, created by the actions and inactions of the Ironsi military government, more related actions were adding salt to the injuries of those adversely affected.
Just one sample: in the annual Army promotion exercise of April 1966, out of 21 officers promoted from Major to Lt-Colonel, 18 were Igbo-speaking. Only three were non-Igbo. That was the height of insensitivity to the sensibilities of other members of the Nigerian space. The fuse of the time bomb was burning fast. Soon, it exploded in catastrophe — a catastrophe that consumed Ironsi’s military government with no remedy.
I remain blunt and fearless in condemnation of such stupid and insensitive actions of the past. I remain convinced that if one refuses to learn from past stupid actions, he/she would remain incapable of making correction and will be condemned to cycles of disaster, always pointing accusing fingers elsewhere, and blaming the gods for misfortunes, when the gods are really not to blame.
It’s from this perspective that I repeatedly condemn the shenanigans of some of our Igbo leaders on the matter of Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) leader, Nnamdi Kanu.
He and his group have committed every imaginable form of bestial criminality and hate violence, in the name of fighting to re-establish the dead and decayed Biafra Republic, which was a misery better forgotten.
It has been an explosive cocktail: wild claims of marginalisation without any rigour of verifiable evidence to prove the case. Endless propaganda and hate against other members of the Nigerian space. No apology, no remorse, no repentance. Clearly curting disaster in many ways!
I have told some of my Igbo close friends that if President Tinubu ever made the mistake of releasing Nnamdi Kanu — just like that — he would have faced a negative whiplash from the military and other law-enforcement institutions; just as there would be a furious reaction from the North, who were the primary victims of Kanu’s hate propaganda and gun attacks.
I remain unapologetically stubborn to my conviction on this matter. I fear no evil. “Death is a necessary end which will come when it will”.
