To any concerned Nigerian who still seek an objective perspective on the events of history and events that has shaped our national and democratic experience, a new but dangerous trend of discuss has emerged in the social media that to all intent is poised to shred the already tattered fabric of our national unity: this is the distortion of events, appeal to primordial sentiments and emotions all aimed at wipping up already buried ethnic tensions and suspiciions which were a fall out of these events.
Latest in this trend is the distortion of the facts and events of the first Nigerian military coup de tat led by Major Kaduna Chukuma Nzogwu on 15 January 1966..
These unpatriotic elements and ethnic jingoists in discussing the January 15 1966 Coup have chosen the unpatriotic and ignoble part of demonizing Major Kaduna Chukuma Nzogwu, the central figure of that coup and to many, including this writers as a symbol of the even now much needed revolutionary spirit by painting him as a tribal rabel and ungrateful murderer who gunned down his benefactor in the person of Sir Ahmadu Bello, the Sarduana of Sokoto, leader of the then ruling party and Premier of the Northern Region at the time. In doing this, they portrayed Nzogwu as a savege who shot pregnant women. They have chosen to rewrite history without any reference to the well recorded political events that led to this coup, neither did they take into consideration Nzogwu”s equally well documented patriotic favor which was the driving force that motivated him and his cohorts; the five Majors who masterminded the coup. To counter this false narrative, let us first take a look at the Nigerian State and it’s political situation prior to January 15 1966.
The Western Region was on fire due to electoral crises as a fall out of the 1964 general elections. Chief Obafemi Awolowo, Leader of the main opposition party and former Premier of the Western Region was sentenced on trump up charges of treason was in jail while Samuel Adegoke his former deputy with the full support of the Ahmadu Bello/ Tafawa Balewa led NPC Federal Government was terrorizing opposition and turned the region to a boiling cauldron of political bloodbath later known as operation Wetie.
Corruption, nepotism and tribalism that are still the bane of Nigeria’s progress and development started taking traction. The international community even at this early stage started muted expressions of labelling Nigeria a failed State. A ready example of this fact was the statement of General Charles De Gaul of France who was quoted to have stated that the Giant’ Nigeria is sick. In fact, Nigeria was tittering under Ahmadu Bollo’s fidualistic oriented indirect rule on the brink of distruction.
It is also instructive to note that the Idealistic Major Kaduna Chukuma Nzogwu before his posting to Kaduna was the Military Attache to the House of Parliament then in Lagos. His posting to Kaduna was said to have been a discplinary action after he granted a press interview bemoaning the derailment of Nigeria political and developmental progress occasioned by politicians, especially the rulling Northern People’s Congress.
All available literature, foreign and local alluded to Nzogwu as a visionary and Idealistic young man whose love and patriotic zeal for Nigeria forbade any compromise.
Nzogwu was not an Ibo man. He was from the Midwestern Region now Edo Delta. He was born and brought up in Kaduna. A Pan Nigerian, he was more comfortable speaking Hausa than Igbo Language that is even if he spoke it at all. His friends and professional cycles cut across tribe and religion. His best friend and flatmate at the time was no other than General Olusengun Obasanjo.
In looking at the coup proper, it is unfortunate that due to the ethnic make up of it’s leaders, it has been repeatedly and erroneously dubbed an ethnic coup. But tell me, was Major Adegboyega an Ibo man? Was Major Banjo an Ibo man? Even Major Gbuele is not a full fledged Ibo man..
Another question begging answers here is; was Ahmadu Bello the sole target and victim of the coup? Sir Francis Okotiebor was from Nzogwu’s Midwestern Region, Sir Adegoke Akintola was from Adegboyega’s Western Region.
Even the top military officers who lost their lives were mostly Southerners. Brigadier Ademolegun , Col. Shodinde were killed while Col. Hassan Kastina also then the Senior Northern military officer was not touched and even participated in meetings with Nzogwu after the coup.
It is also instructive that the man who eventually frustrated the coup was an Ibo man, Lt. Colonel Odumegwu Ojukemwu, the Bragade Commander in Kano, Northern Nigeria commercial center who frustrated the coup by refusing Nzogwu access to funds to pay his troop salary.
The most interesting angle was the suggestion that the coup plotters if the coup had succeeded had planned to bring out Awolowo from prison and make him head of a transitional government they planned to put in place Awolowo in his person memos and read years back had given credence to this by stating that he was taken out of his cell and told to prepare to leave on the evening of January 14 but returned to his cell later without explanation on 15 January 1966 It was reported that a military aircraft was waiting for him in Calabar to fly him to Lagos before the coup failed.
Given the foregoing, it is mischievous to say the coup was an ethnic coup. The most dangerous aspect of the ongoing distortion of this saga was the appearance of an account of the coup by the late Sheik Abubakar Gumm who was the Adviser to Ahmudu Bello on Islamic Affairs and father of these present controversial Islamic cleric Sheik Gummi. In that account, the late Gummi was said to have claimed that Nzogwu had invited him to his office the morning after the coup and immediately after he had buried Ahmadu Bello at the Sultan”s Palace and had questioned him with the allegation that Ahmadu Bello had planned to Islanize Nigeria.
Why is it that this allegation was not part of the reasons given by Nzogwu while announcing the coup?
Why has this soon called account by Gummi never surfaces in the last sixty years? Why now? I think this alone is a clear pointer in the direction this unpatriotic and divisive narrative is coming from and to what intent.
