24th April, 2013
By Henry Chukwuemeka Onyeka
Awoyokun should have done more research before concluding that the coup was an Igbo affair. Northern officers and men were involved, especially at the execution stage. Max Silloun, the military historian, mentions them in his landmark online article ‘The inside story of Nigeria’s first military coup Parts 1 and 2.’ It can be accessed from most search engines. Prominent among these Northern officers was the then Lieutenant John Atom Kpera who later became the Benue State governor in the Babangida regime. Kpera participated in the coup under Captain Ben Gbulie, Nzeogwu’s right hand-man in Kaduna. (See Ben Gbulie: ‘Nigeria’s Five Majors.’).
In an interview with Nzeogwu by the Kaduna-based ‘New Nigerian’ newspaper, 18th January 1966, he described the detachment he used to overrun Premier Ahmadu Bello’s compound as a ‘truly Nigerian gathering.’ He said that the northern soldiers with him ‘had the chance to drop out. More than that, they had bullets. They had been issued with bullets but I was unarmed. If they disagreed they could have shot me…most of the other ranks were Northerners but they followed.’ (See Silloun’s article).
Although Ademoyega was the most prominent Yoruba participant in the coup, there were other Yoruba officers who were involved at the dangerous execution stage of the coup. One of them is Second Lieutenant Olafimihan, an officer serving under Madiebo in Kaduna. He was sent by the plotters to gauge his commander’s loyalty. (See Madiebo pp.17-18). Another is Lieutenant (some books refer to him as a Captain) Fola Oyewole. He, like Ademoyega, went on to fight for Biafra and wrote a book on his coup and wartime experiences. The book’s title is ‘Reluctant Rebel.’ There is also Captain Ganiyu Adeleke who became an instructor in the Biafran Infantry School. For confirmation, see the list of coup plotters detained by Ironsi’s regime in Ademoyega pp.106-108, and this quote from Nowa Omoigui’s online account: Mid-Western Invasion of 1967: “Captain Ganiyu Adeleke, who had taken part in both the January 15 coup and the Mid-Western invasion before becoming an instructor in the Biafran School of Infantry was released at a later date after his co-plotters had been freed.” Omoigui’s work is significant because, though he exhibits a high level of professionalism in his research, he has no sympathy for the January 15 coup. If his facts corroborate Ademoyega’s they are worthy of attention.
To my surprise Awoyokun sought to consign the Awolowo connection to January 15 to the dung heap. Even the poet and polemicist, Odia Ofeimun, did not sit history on its head in spite of his trenchant criticism of Achebe’s ‘There was a Country’ (see ‘The News’ magazine, 12 November, 2012, pp.14-27). Awoyokun should download ‘The Forgotten Documents of the Nigerian Civil War’ which is freely available on the internet.
Ofeimun wrote and published it. It will provide fresh insights on the Awolowo link. Nobody is saying that Awolowo was involved in the putsch. But the plotters saw in him a man who they thought would guide Nigeria aright and so they wanted him to be in charge, with or without his consent! Awoyokun’s claim that “in reality there was no army unit heading to Calabar to spring Awolowo from jail” in contrast to Ifeajuna’s revelation to Action Group’s chieftain, S.G. Ikoku, that they wanted to free Awolowo and make him Prime Minister is inaccurate. Pages 68-69 of Ademoyega’s book counter this inaccuracy:
“There was one arrangement that had been left till the date (of the coup) was fixed. It was the arrangement for the release of political prisoners, particularly Chief Awolowo. Now that our own date had been tentatively fixed for mid-January, it became necessary to gear up that arrangement.
“At the end of the first week in January, Major Anuforo and I, arranged to meet Captain Udeaja, a young engineering graduate from the Royal Military College of Science, Shrivenham, UK….Having briefed Udeaja generally and got his consent, we gave him his task. He was to fly a special plane provided for the purpose to Calabar on the morning of the D-day, to effect the release of Chief Awolowo and bring him to Lagos on the plane. We had already arranged for a plane of the Nigerian Air Force to be made available for that morning. This was done through Major Nzegwu (not Nzeogwu) of the Air Force. The Captain was to be assisted by a young officer on the D-day.”
With the lightning counter-coup measures by Ironsi that put the January 15 plotters on the defensive, this plan could no longer be carried out.
I have gone to this extent to let all those who wish to justify the near-extermination of their fellow human beings because of what a group of who Ofeimun aptly described as “hotheaded Nigerians who believe their country needed to be better run” did know that history is like pregnancy which cannot be covered. Thank God the facts came from a Yoruba. God knows why He allowed Nzeogwu and Ifeajuna to go first and spared Ademoyega long enough to write his book.
• To be continued.
•Onyema is the author of ‘Nigeria from 1966-1970: The American Files Are Not From Heaven,’ a polemical response to the American files on the Nigerian Conflict. Email:[email protected]