“The truth has come and falsehood has vamoosed; surely, falsehood is meant to vamoose (in the presence of the truth)”. Q. 17: 81
Here is a season in which recalling certain aspects of Nigerian history if only to put the records straight. History is a living phenomenon that is common to all people around it in time and in space. Whether or not it is interpreted and relayed positively or negatively, the fact remains that history is not anybody’s personal property and cannot be anybody’s monopoly.
This article contains one of the most memorable aspects of Nigerian history which have consistently left a sour taste in the mouths of some of its actors. But despite the sour taste it can never get stale.
Death of an icon
One of the foremost political icons in Nigeria’s first republic and a patriarch of the political party called Northern People’s Congress (NPC), was Alhaji (Sir) Ahmadu Bello, the first and only Premier of Northern Nigeria. He became Premier of Northern Nigeria in 1954 through a popular election and was killed as Premier in January 1966 in a tribal/religious military coup plotted mainly by soldiers of Igbo extraction and led by one Major Patrick Chukwuma Kaduna Nzeogwu. The plotters had killed this icon in cold blood before looking for reasons to justify their heinous crime. The three reasons they later gave were corruption, tribalism and religious bigotry. It was a matter of calling a dog a bad name in order to hang it.
The Premiers’ flanks
Among the four Premiers in Nigeria at that time, only Ahmadu Bello could not in any way be evidently linked to corruption. Unlike others who lived opulently, Ahmadu Bello was an ascetic personality who served his people patriotically without any blemish. He left only a small residential bungalow in his home town of Sokoto at the time of his death. Who else left such a flank? Sir Ahmadu Bello could also not be singularly accused of tribalism because tribalism was the basis of all the existing political parties of the time. No Premier from 1954 to 1966 could be exonerated from tribalism directly or indirectly. They were all guilty of it.
It can be recalled that certain tribal groups such as Ibiobio State Union (IBU), Ibo Federal Union (IFU) Egbe Omo Oduduwa (EOO) and ‘Jam’iyyar Al-Ummar Nigeriya ta Arewa’ translated as Northern Elements Progressive Association (NEPA) which later transformed into Northern Elements Progressive Union (NEPU) were all socio-cultural organizations that metamorphosed into political parties. All those parties preceded ‘Jam’iyyar Mutane Arewa’ meaning Northern People’s Congress (NPC) to which Ahmadu Bello belonged. Many other ethnic-based political parties later emerged to broaden tribalism in Nigerian politics. If anything, Ahmadu Bello was the least tribally inclined Premier of his time. Why did his killers link him alone to tribalism?
His 1959 Christmas message
Of the four Premiers in Nigeria’s first republic, only Ahmadu Bello was bold and sincere enough to allay the fear of the minority groups in Northern Nigeria by making a public policy statement about his government’s stand concerning tribalism and religious bigotry. Here is an excerpt of what he said while sending a Christmas message to northern Christians in 1959:
“…We are people of many different races, tribes and religions, who are knit together by common history, common interests and common ideals. Our diversity may be great but the things that unite us are stronger than the things that divide us. On an occasion like this, I always remind people about our firmly rooted policy on religious tolerance. Families of all creeds and colour can rely on these assurances. We have no intention of favouring one religion at the expense of another. Subject to overriding need to preserve law and order, it is our determination that everyone should have absolute liberty to practice his belief. It is befitting on this momentous day, on behalf of my ministers and myself, to send a special word of gratitude to all Christian missions”.
“Let me conclude this with a personal message. I extend my greetings to all our people who are Christians on this great feast day. Let us forget the difference in our religion and remember the common brotherhood before God, by dedicating ourselves afresh to the great tasks which lie before us….”
The fabricated version
Years after Ahmadu Bello’s unjustifiable assassination, some evil elements in the media, in active conspiracy with certain political demagogues went to fabricate another statement and credited it to the late Premier as a justification for killing him. The concocted statement was culled from an unknown newspaper called ‘The Parrot’. Here is the fabricated statement:
“The new nation called Nigeria should be an estate of our great grandfather Othman Dan Fodio. We must ruthlessly prevent a change of power. We use the minorities in the north as willing tools and the south as a conquered territory and never allow them to rule over us and never allow them to have control over their future.” The statement was said to have been made on October 12, 1960. The question is this: how can a Christmas message in Nigeria be sent in October? But liars never think of the implications of their lies.
Truth and falsehood
Now, looking at both statements very carefully, any sensible person should be able to see clearly, a distinction between truth and falsehood. The Premier’s Christmas message quoted above was made on Thursday, December 24, 1959 through a radio broadcast and it was published by all newspapers in the country including the vociferous ‘West African Pilot’ owned by Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe, the boisterous ‘Tribune’ owned by Chief Obafemi Awolowo, the clamorous ‘Daily Times’ jointly owned privately by certain prominent individuals at that time. It was equally published by many other smaller newspapers in Nigeria. All those newspapers are identifiable in Nigeria’s media history even though most of them are now defunct. On the other hand, the place and occasion of the fabricated statement credited to Ahmadu Bello was not indicated and cannot be traced in Nigeria’s newspaper history.
Evidence of fabrication
The first time any genuinely existing newspaper ever made reference to that fabricated statement was on November 13, 2002 (42 years after it was purportedly made. And ‘The Tribune’ newspaper that published it only claimed to have culled it from an online column published on October 24 2002 by a purported Yoruba Journalist (name withheld) who entitled it ‘the northern Agenda’. It can therefore be deduced that the statement was actually fabricated not in the 1960s but in October 2002, by the so-called columnist who credited it to a newspaper that never existed. The objective was to give it an undeserving credibility. What a country! What a people! What a shame! This is a typical case of an obvious mischief by heartless mischief makers just to fetch ephemeral fame and illegal income.
The belief was that once such a fabricated article appears on the internet and is ignorantly quoted by some inconsequential writers, it would automatically become a document of facts. That is Nigeria for you.
The Coup episode
January 15, 1966 was a Saturday like no other one in the history of Nigeria. It was on that day that the bitter seed which germinated and grew into the thorny tree that now feeds Nigerians with unpalatable political fruits was planted. The evil planting marked the beginning of an agonizing voyage of destiny on which Nigerians embarked without a compass. Coming up in the sacred month of Ramadan, the day actually came to confirm the axiomatic thought of an Arab poet who once asserted in a couplet that: “Nights are heavily pregnant; they give birth to wonders in the days….”
The preceding Friday
The preceding Friday (January 14, 1966) had been quite eventful for the then Premier of Northern Nigeria, Alhaji Sir Ahmadu Bello who was extraordinarily busy from morning to night. He had planned to travel to Sokoto with the then Ghana High Commissioner, Mr. Yakubu Tally, who had come to spend the weekend with him in appreciation of his role in ensuring the formation of the Organization of African Unity (OAU) through the merger of the Monrovia and Casablanca groups that had been mutually antagonistic on certain ideological grounds.
On that Friday, Sir Ahmadu Bello, as usual, observed the Jum’at Prayer in company of a retinue of his Ministers and government officials. He hosted the Premier of Western Nigeria, Chief Samuael Ladoke Akintola, (his political ally) in the newly formed Nigerian National Alliance (NNA). The latter had come to alert his colleague of a premonition hovering over Nigeria through an impending bloody coup d’etat that could clear the existing political stable wheat and chaff. His alert was not however strange to Sir Ahmadu Bello who had earlier got the same security hint.
The duo jointly reviewed the then volatile political situation in the country but failed to reach a conclusion on how to forestall the impending calamity.
Akintola’s effort
Chief S. L. Akintola, pleaded with his host to persuade the then Prime Minister, Alhaji Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, to act promptly to curb the impending disaster that was swinging restlessly like a pendulum over Nigeria before it could devour them all. But Sir Ahmadu Bello was reluctant. He believed that only the will of Allah could prevail in any given circumstance. His fear was that in the sacred month of Ramadan, it would be better to be martyred than to be an assassin. To him, any attempt to foil such a virtually mature coup would be so bloody that even the country would have nothing left to bleed with. By that belief, hardly did Sir Ahmadu Bello realise the implications of paving the way for a ruinous destiny to take its course.
The whole scenario was like a valedictory drama of fate in which the actors were blind to the denouement which the viewers had vividly perceived. And when it was time for the two Premiers to part, it became apparent that they were meeting perhaps for the last time alive. In a sober but sorrowful tone, the host bided his guest “bye for now,” and the guest, whose feet were already on the staircase of his aircraft on his way back to Ibadan replied: “if we ever get to see again”.
Thus, both spoke in coded language in the presence of their entourages who could not decode their language. By the time when cities started to return to life, in the wee hours of the following morning, the die had been cast as the picture had become clear that the night had tragically discharged the contents of its cargo to the amazement of the entire world. A bloody coup in Nigeria had swept the country’s democracy away with the rulers as casualties. It confirmed the maxim of the above quoted poem and the rest has since become history.
The major casualties
The heartless rascals in Nigerian military who struck in the January 1966 coup to terminate a democratically elected government must have foreclosed the consequences of their criminal action. They killed virtually all the major key players in the then Nigerian politics except those of Igbo extraction and of course, some non-Igbo people who were then in prisons. The Prime Minister, Alhaji Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa and the Minister of Finance, Chief Festus Okotie-Eboh were killed in Lagos. The Premier of Northern Nigeria, Sir Ahmadu Bello, was killed with his wife and some other people in Kaduna, the then Headquarters of Northern Nigeria. The Premier of Western Nigeria, Chief Samuel Akintola was killed in Ibadan, the then Headquarters of the South Western Nigeria while some military top brass of non-Igbo extraction were killed in different military barracks across the country.
Except for Lt. Col. Arthur Unegbe who was killed for being too close to Maimalari and could not be trusted, no other Igbo man of note, politician or military, was killed in that coup. As a matter of fact, if there was any feeling of the coup in the Eastern Nigeria at all, it was that of victory and heroism. The top military officers who were killed in the senseless coup included: Brig. S. A. Ademulegun (South West); Brig. Zakari Maimalari (North East); Col. Kur Mohammed (North West); Lt. Col. J. Y. Pam (North Central); Col. S. A. Shodeinde (South West); Lt. Col. Largema (North Central); Lt. Col. A. G. Unegbe (South East); S/Lt. James Odu (Mid West) and a host of others.
The false allegations
After the dust had settled, it became evident that virtually all the planners of that coup as well as its executors were of Igbo extraction. Thus, the other ethnic groups who were severely affected saw the coup as a tribal one. But much more than that, the Muslims in the country saw it as a religious coup that could not be sensibly justified or defended, the killing of Chiefs Akintola and Okotie-Eboh notwithstanding. This was because the then Governor of Eastern Nigeria, Sir Francis Akanu Ibiam was as deeply involved in religious matters as Sir Ahmadu Bello. The one was a Vice-President of the World Council of Churches. The other was the Vice-President of the Muslim World League. If religion was therefore the reason for the coup, the two of them ought to have been killed for bigotry. But history entails a variety of interpretations especially in a society where conscience hardly plays a role.
Coup planners and executors
That overwhelming majority of the planners of that coup as well as its executors were of Igbo extraction could not have been a mere coincidence. It is particularly notable that the chief beneficiary of the coup (Major-General Johnson Aguiyi Ironsi) was also of Igbo extraction. Almost all the military appointments after the coup were for men of Igbo extraction and none of these, except Hassan Katsina and Muhammadu Shuwa was a Muslim. How else could a coup be tribal and religious in? After all, as far back as 1953, a frontline Igbo politician had set such agenda for his tribe’s men when he quoted as saying that “Ibos’ domination of Nigeria is a matter of time”.
Nigeria’s founding fathers
Despite all said above, the great fathers of Nigeria’s independence left a legacy that can be called a footprint on the sands of time. By whatever standard they are measured today, the late Sardauna of Sokoto, Alhaji Ahmadu Bello; Nigeria’s first and only Prime Minister, Alhaji Abubakar Tafawa Balewa; the first Premier of Western Region, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, Nigeria’s first President, Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe as well as Mallam Aminu Kano, Chief SL Akintola and Chief Denis Osadebey were all exemplary in their styles of life given the circumstances of their governance, their personal weaknesses notwithstanding.
No matter what those weaknesses might be, their legacy was a fortune which amazingly turned into misfortune in the hands of their successors. Thus, the great hope which those fathers had embedded into our destiny as a people became colonized and turned into personal property by their political heirs. Were those great fathers to wake up from their graves today and see what has become of their sweat, they would just shake their heads in sorrow and return quietly into their graves without comments. Yet, the situation remains unchanged today as tribalism and religion take the front burner of Nigerian politics. Where can we go from here?
