By Seun Opejobi Former Military Head of State, Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida, IBB, has dismissed claims that the 1966 military takeover...
By Seun Opejobi
Former Military Head of State, Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida,
IBB, has dismissed claims that the 1966 military takeover was an “Igbo coup”.
Babangida said the leader of the 1966 coup, Kaduna Nzeogwu,
spoke Hausa fluently.
In his just launched book, ‘A Journey in Service’, the
former military Head of State said Nzeogwu was only Igbo by name but was more
of Hausa.
The former military ruler said it was heinously callous for
Nzeogwu to have murdered Sir Ahmadu Bello and his wife, Hafsatu, because they
were adored by many.
He wrote: “For instance, the head of the plotters, Major
Kaduna Nzeogwu, was only Igbo in name. Born and raised in Kaduna, his immigrant
parents were from Okpanam in today’s Delta State, which, in 1966, was in the
old mid-western region.
“Nzeogwu spoke fluent Hausa and was as ‘Hausa’ as any! He
and his original team probably thought, even if naively, that they could turn
things around for the better in the country.
“That said, it was heinously callous for Nzeogwu to have
murdered Sir Ahmadu Bello and his wife, Hafsatu, because not only were they
eminently adored by many but also because they were said not to have put up a
fight.
“From that moment, the putsch was infiltrated by ‘outsiders’
to its supposed original intention, and it took on an unmistakably ethnic
colouration, compounded by the fact that there were no related coup activities
in the Eastern region.
“It should, however, be borne in mind that some senior
officers of Igbo extraction were also victims of the January coup. For
instance, my erstwhile Commander at the Reconnaissance Squadron in Kaduna,
Lt-Col. Arthur Chinyelu Unegbe, was brutally gunned down by his own ‘brother’,
Major Chris Anuforo, in the presence of his pregnant wife, at his 7 Point Road
residence in Apapa, for merely being a threat to the revolution As a
disciplined and strict officer who, as the Quartermaster-General of the Army,
was also in charge of ammunition, weapons, equipment, vehicles, and other vital
items for the Army, the coup plotters feared that he might not cooperate with
them.
“It should also be remembered that some non-Igbo officers,
like Major Adewale Ademoyega, Captain Ganiyu Adeleke, Lts Pola Oyewole and
Olafimihan, took part in the failed coup. Another officer of Igbo extraction,
Major John Obienu, crushed the coup.
“Those who argue that the original intention of the coup
plotters was anything but ethnic refer to the fact that the initial purpose of
the plotters was to release Chief Obafemi Awolowo from prison immediately after
the coup and make him the executive provisional president of Nigeria.
“The fact that these Igbo officers would do this to a man
not known to be a great ‘lover’ of the Igbos may have given the coup a
different ethnic colouration. But, again, I may be wrong here since this view
is speculative. I admit that my position here may be the naive insights of an
unsuspecting young officer who viewed events from a distance.”
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