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The July 1966 Coup:
A Full Account and Chronology of Massacre and Mayhem
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by Alosius Asonye Duruji |
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I will begin by reproducing below an "excerpt" from Nowa Omoigui's account of the events of the July 29, 1966 coup by Northern Officers against the Igbos. Nowa's account was published in the Hausa-Fulani Gamji.com and as expected, does not represent the true facts of the events as they happened. You can read Nowa's full account at the website:http://www.gamji.com/nowa2.htm. Nowa Omoigui exonerates T.Y. Danjuma, Murtala Muhammed as being the primary actors in the orgy of death and massacre that was visited on Igbo military officers by Northern soldiers and civilians. The account reproduced here is very long and I ask you to read it with patience, it is only to set the records straight and to preempt any further prejudiced motives and deliberate misrepresentations and lies from Nowamgbe Omoigu, an Edo tribe indigene of Edo state, Nigeria. We should never let Nowa Omoigui write our history. PLEASE READ ALONG, PRINT OUT, and SHARE WITH YOUR FRIENDS.
NOWA OMOIGUI'S ACCOUNT OF THE JULY 1966 COUP
[Excerpt in Quotes]
"Once it became obvious to northern soldiers in Lagos that killings had started in Abeokuta, Murtala Mohammed, Martin Adamu and others got themselves organized and launched operations in Lagos to "adjust" to the situation. Meanwhile, wearing a borrowed uniform, Major TY Danjuma, who was accompanying General Ironsi on a nationwide tour, cordoned Government House Ibadan with troops from the 4th battalion and arrested the General, along with Colonel Fajuyi. Shortly thereafter, certain junior officers and NCOs pushed Danjuma aside, took control of the situation and abducted both men. They were later shot. It was subsequently alleged that Muhammed used his key position as Inspector of Signals to communicate messages to northern conspirators in other parts of the country urging action. It was also alleged that he was the leader of the initially separatist faction among northern troops in Lagos and at one point commandeered a passenger jet to transport northerners out of Lagos back to the North in an apparent move to secede. This murky charge has never been satisfactorily explained and it is hard to get consistent accounts about it. As things settled down after the initial orgy of killings in Abeokuta, Lagos, Ibadan and Kaduna, the tentative Lt. Col. Yakubu Gowon (who was then Chief of Staff, Army, professionally senior to Muhammed, and by no means privy to or part of the coup) emerged as the choice of the northern rank and file, barely edging out the charismatic Lt. Col. Murtala Mohammed from the position of C-in-C. The bad feelings generated by this power rivalry was to dog their relationship from then on." [Nowa Omoigui, cited from: http://www.gamji.com/nowa2.htm]
THE GATHERING STORM
Below is a transcript, a complete account of how the July 29, 1966 coup was reported by Arthur Nwankwo & Samuel Ifejika in their book titled: "Biafra: The Making of a Nation" published by Praeger Publishers, (c) 1969, pp. 156-159. In presenting this account, I have relied exclusively on excerpts and corroborative accounts of Nwankwo & Ifejika (1969), and a recent book "Politics in Nigeria" (2002) published by Oladimeji Aborisade (a Yoruba) and Robert J. Mundt (an American), both of them internationally recognized scholars in the academia. There is a 30-year gap between both texts, but despite the time lapse, the original account remain the same and both of them corroborate each other. Unlike Nowa Omoigui, I refuse to inject my personal opinions, speculations, biased and one-sided interpretations, or make any attempt to conflate facts from fiction. Please read this with great objectivity and save it for history. I have asked the webmaster of gamji.com (Mr. Iroh) to publish this account on gamji.com, at least to counteract Nowa
Omoigui's incessant lies and bigoted anti-Igbo misrepresentations of events in Nigeria's tumultuous history. If the webmaster can be fair as well as professional, he would publish this account of the event of the July 29, 1966 Northern coup and the accompanying pogroms directed at the Igbos. For a complete list of the more than 300 Igbo military officers killed during the July 1966 coup, please consult Chuks Iloegbunam's "Ironside," or Robin Luckham,s "The Nigerian Military" (1971), Cambridge University Press. [Please compare to Nowa Omoigui�s adulterated and superficial account above and you can see why Nowa Omoigui remains an unreliable and dubious individual and has no credibility at all in relating the actual events].
THE JULY 29, 1966 COUP: IRONSI MUST DIE
The aim of the July 29, 1966 coup (massacre) was two-fold: (1) to split the country and effect the secession of the North from the rest of Nigeria; and (2) in the alternative, to re-establish the hegemony and domination of the North in the federation. In accordance with these aims, the Federal Military Government, as led by General Aguiyi Ironsi had to be overthrown and the General himself must be eliminated. Lt. Col Yakubu Gowon was selected as the man who would replace Ironsi. He had been General Ironsi's Army Chief of Staff (Defense Headquarters) and a member of the Supreme Military Council. He had returned to Nigeria from Britain less than forty-eight hours before the Revolution of January 15, 1966, and subsequently a member of the Supreme Military Council. This shows the amount of confidence General Ironsi reposed in him - a confidence he betrayed. His position gave him the opportunity to study the inner workings of the National Military Government, preparatory to his revolt.
On July 28, 1966, General Ironsi addressed the country's natural rulers at Ibadan. In the evening he retired to the Government house, Ibadan, with his host, Lt. Col. Adekunle Fajuyi, the West Military Governor. With him were Lt. Col. Hilary Njoku, Officer Commanding the 2nd Brigade, Lt. Nwankwo, the Supreme Commander's Air Force aide-de-camp, and Lt. Bello, his Military aide-de-camp. Late that evening, the "Araba" was launched into operation in many parts of the Federation, Southern Nigerians in General Ironsi's body guard were removed, and a group of twenty-four Northern soldiers was sent to reinforce the remaining Northerners. Before midnight the Ibadan Government House was already surrounded.
Meanwhile operations had started at Abeokuta in Western Nigeria. A group of Northern soldiers broke into the officer's mess and shot Major Obienu, Lt. Orok (both Easterners, and Lt. Okonweze (Mid-West Igbo). An alarm was sounded, and Southeners who responded to it were arrested and locked up in the guardroom and the armoury, which had by now been emptied of its contents and converted into a guardroom. The Northern troops, now fully equipped with arms and ammunition taken from the armoury, went hunting, both in the barracks and in the adjoining civilian houses, for Southern troops who had failed to answer the alarm. Some of those caught were locked up, others were shot at sight, depending on the whims of their Northern captors. Later the Westerners were sifted out from the other Southerners and released. At sunrise, the non-commissioned officers (NCOs) amongst the detainees were brought out and shot, their bodies being bundled into a vehicle which was made available for the purpose.
Back in Ibadan, news of the disorders had reached the Government House. The Supreme Commander's Military ADC, Lt. Bello (a Northerner) had disappeared. So had Lt. Col Fajuiyi's ADC. Following a brief conference between the Supreme commander, his host and Lt. Col Njoku, it was decided that Njoku should hurry down to Lagos in plain clothes, take over control and quell the uprising. On his way, a group of Northern soldiers fired at him, wounding him in the thigh. He returned fire and made straight for the University Teaching Hospital, Ibadan. He had scarcely been admitted there for treatment when his assailants tracked him to the hospital. Fortunately, with the help of some hospital staff, he managed to escape to the Eastern Region.
UPSTAIRS AT GOVERNMENT HOUSE, IBADAN: THE ABDUCTION
The sound of the exchange of fire warned Ironsi and his host that they were in trouble. So they sent Lt. Nwankwo downstairs to find out what was happening. When he got downstairs, the Lt. was arrested and detained by the guards. When he did not return for some time, Lt. Col. Fajuiyi himself went downstairs and was himself arrested and detained. At about 9 am on July 29, Major T. Y. Danjuma, who was in command of the guards, took some men upstairs, and after quizzing the Supreme Commander, saluted him and ordered his arrest.
The three captives were stripped naked, tied up and, amidst floggings and beatings, bundle into separate police vans. Led by Lt. Walbe, Lt. Paiko, Warrant Officer I. Baka and Company Sergeant-Major Useri Fegge, the special team selected for this purpose took the captives to a small stream about 10 miles along the Ibadan-Iwo road, where the torture continued. At this stage Lt. Nwankwo escaped. Enraged by this, Lt. Walbe and his men sprayed Major-General Ironsi and Lt-Col. Fajuiyi with machine gun bullets.
[NOTE: This very chronology of events is equally corroborated by Oladimeji Aborisade & Robert J. Mundt, in their recently published book: "Politics in Nigeria" (2nd Ed.), New York: Longmans Publishers, 2002. Dr. Aborisade is a Lecturer in Political Science at Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile Ife; and Robert J. Mundt was a late Professor of Political Science at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill].
According to Aborisade & Mundt (2002, pp. 16), "At about 5.am the Government House (Ibadan) was surrounded and their guards disarmed. Ironsi himself was not confronted until 9.am when Major Danjuma of the 4th Battalion went upstairs in the Government House with an escort, saluted him, questioned him, and ordered his arrest."
[But in the account written by Nowa Omoigui on the Hausa-Fulani website called Gamji.com, He unreservedly and falsely exonerated Major T. Y. Danjuma of "being there," of having any role and complicity in the abduction of General Ironsi and murder of the General. Nowa Omoigui wrote "that Danjuma was pushed aside at the Government house by junior officers," who then, arguably, took charge of the situation and thus proceeded to arrest and eliminate Ironsi. This assertion is a complete misrepresentation of truth and total lack of human conscience on the part of Nowa Omoigui. I will let you be the judge on Nowa Omoigui's ignoble role at disinformation and revisionism of the most disingeneous kind].
At the Letmank Barracks, Ibadan, the process was the same as at Abeokuta. The armoury and magazines were seized by Northern troops, the alarm was blown, the Southern soldiers arrested, and the non-commissioned officers of Eastern origin among them were shot and bundled away in a waiting van. Then there followed a room-to-room hunt for Eastern soldiers, but this time the killings and arrests were accompanied by the raping of wives and looting of property of Easterners.
There were, however, a few differences. At 10 am (July 29), Lt. Col. J. Akahan, Commanding Officer of the 4th Battalion at Ibadan, called an officer's meeting. He did not attend. The officers of Eastern origin who attended were arrested and locked up in the guardroom. At night they were transferred to the tailors' shop, into which were thrown hand-grenades. The few surviving officers were shot as they tried to escape. Their corpses were bundled into a van and conveyed to a mass grave already prepared at the outskirts of the town. The next day, Lt-Col. Akahan disarmed the Northern soldiers and caused it to be announced that the fleeing officers should return, as their safety was now assured. Some Eastern officers who were in hiding in the city returned, but, at night, Northern soldiers attacked them with guns and knives, killing all they caught. Those who escaped fled to the East.
The same pattern was followed in the remaining Southern military stations - Apapa, Ikeja, Lagos Island and Yaba. [Major Okafor, the erstwhile Commander of the vaunted Brigade of Guards was buried alive].In the absence of General Ironsi, Lt-Col. Gowon was in overall command, and thus had a free hand to direct the operations. He later moved to Ikeja, where he established his headquarters. It is pertinent to note that, for over twenty-nine days after July 29, the Northern Nigeria secessionist flag of red, yellow, indigo, green, and khaki stripes was flown in the Ikeja Barracks. (So Eastern Nigeria was not the first to embark on a secessionist bid).
In the North, the pattern was not much different except that operations did not start until the night of July 29. Here, however, ghastly bestialities were committed in broad daylight, and here too the atrocities were committed by both civilian and military authorities alike. In Kaduna, The Eastern officers were rounded up, sentenced to death and taken in batches to a waiting firing squad in the outskirts of town. In Kano, an alarm summoned the soldiers for parade at the basketball pitch. Then, as in other places, the Easterners who were present were arrested and locked up. Some were removed to unknown destinations. Others were tortured and eventually murdered. Some managed to escape and, after sleeping in the bush for days, finally found their way to the East. There were many who did not make it, however. The unfortunate ones ran into search parties of Northern soldiers, who invariably shot them at sight. [Elsewhere, Lt-Col. Okoro was tricked to a side �garage� by one of the Northern soldiers under his command who proceeded to shoot him point blank]
One thing that is peculiar to the July operations is the revolting bestiality that marks every aspect of it. Some victims were not even given the 'mercy' of a quick death from a bullet, but were slaughtered with knives. Others were made to swim in ponds of feces for several hours before being finally shot. It is difficult to understand the depth of hatred that must have driven Northern soldiers to these sadistic acts, the more so when it is realised, that, a few hours before the holocaust, the Eastern soldiers shared the same sleeping accommodations and dined at same table with their executioners. It cannot be argued that these killings were a sudden outburst of pent-up grievances. All available evidence points to a detailed and exhaustive programme - a premeditated and cold-blooded extermination of Easterners in the army. This is borne out by the uniformity of the procedure for carrying out the massacres in the different military stations, with slight modifications depending only on the degree of bestiality of the commanding officer and the whims of the executioners. The scrupulous separation of Western Nigerians from the Easterners before the latter were executed goes a long way to support pre-meditation. The genocide of the later months of 1966 is still more conclusive as evidence.
Another point which must be mentioned here is that the killing of the Eastern soldiers was indiscriminate. No attempt was made to ascertain whether any Eastern soldier was Igbo, Ibibio, Efik, Ijaw or Ogoja. As soon as the Yorubas were sifted from the detained Southerners, the rest, including Mid-Westerners were marched off to the firing squad, which is usually preceded by some torturing. Of the total 43 officers killed, 33 were Easterners, 7 from the Mid-West, and 3 from the West. The number of other ranks killed is estimated at 200, but, due to the fact that records of newly trained soldiers are not available, only 170 can be accounted for. Of these 153 were easterners, 21 Mid-Westerners, and 3 Westerners.
In the East, the operation Araba was a a complete failure in spite of the fact that, of the 950 soldiers in the 1st Battalion at Enugu, 700 were Northerners. By a stroke of sheer luck, Captain Ogbonna had escaped the killings at Abeokuta. Not realising the extent of the plans, he phoned the Quarter-Master General of a number of military stations to report what he believed to be an isolated mutiny. Fortunately the Quarter-Master General at Enugu (a Northerner) did not receive the call having gone out to get the Northern soldiers ready in full war dress. As soon as the report reached Lt-Col. Ogunewe, the officer commanding the 1st Battalion, he contacted Lt-Col. Odumegwu Ojukwu, the Eastern Military Governor, who took immediate precautionary actions. He ordered the immediate disarming of all soldiers, sealed off the armoury, called in the mobile police force, and moved into the Police Headquarter from where he contacted Brigadier Ogundipe, Chief of Staff, Supreme Headquarters, and the next senior officer in the absence of General Ironsi, whom he urged to assume command and leadership. In the course of his discussions with Ogundipe, he learned that the rebels were in firm control of Lagos and would only agree to a ceasefire on two conditions:
(1) the republic of Nigeria be split into its component parts,
(2) that all Southerners resident in the North be repatriated to the South, and all Northerners resident in the South be repatriated to the North.
As Aborisade & Mundt (2002, pp. 17-18) report that "in the confusion following the July 1966 coup, many Northern officers, including Lt. Col. Murtala Muhammed argued for the secession of the North from Nigeria. [Note that it was the irascible Murtala Muhammed who along with Major T. Y. Danjuma and Martins Adamu planned the July 29 coup, and Muhammed used his role as Inspector of Signal to expedite and facilitate the unfolding dynamics and ruthlessness of the blood-letting that followed the coup]. However, many prominet civilians argued strongly against the breakup of the country, and the Northern officers acquiesced to keeping their units in Lagos only on the condition that Lt. Col. Yakubu Gowon, the Army Chief of Staff and the most senior Northern officer, assume control of the government. On August 1, 1966, Gowon announced by radio that he had taken the title of Supreme Commander and Head of the Military Government. One major figure was not a party to this agreement and immediately denounced it: the Military Governor of the Eastern Region, Col Ojukwu.
Gowon immediately rescinded Ironsi's Decree No. 34, and proposed creating a federal system of from 8 to 14 states. However, discussions of Nigeria's future were cut short by the outbreak of what has more recently been termed "ethnic cleansing," in this case of Igbos living in the North. Rioting had broken out across Northern Nigeria six weeks previously, following Ironsi's announcement of the unitary republic, with gangs invading Igbo sections of towns, looting their shops and killing the owners. An exodus toward the East had begun at that time, which swelled significantly with the July coup.
By mid-August, the New York Times reported that 300,000 Easterners had left the North; the Times of London put the figure at 500,000. Simultaneously, a much smaller number of Northerners began to move in the opposite direction. As the "brain drain" of educated Easterners began to take a toll on public services, military officials urged the civil servants among them to stay at their posts [Lt-Col. Ojukwu even urged many Easterners who had already returned safely to the East to go back to the North. Many obeyed and returned only to be hacked into pieces by Northerners, burned alive or brought back to the East rolled up dead in shreds of blankets. Many of the returnees were brought back to the East either "headless" or burned to the bones after Northern soldiers and civilians poured petrol on them an set them on fire alive. The stomachs of pregnant women were gauged open with knives (daggers), their still and yet unborn children were ripped off their mothers umbilical cords and slaughtered. Ojukwu was to regret this decision for all eternity].
During the first week of October 1966, violence again broke out in the North against Igbos and other Easterners, and in the East against Northerners; reports of each in the other region rapidly inflamed passions, and before the weekend was over, some where between 5,000 and 50,000 people (Easterners) had been killed and a panicked exodus of the estimated two million Igbos living in the North had begun. Thus the lines were drawn for the East's de facto withdrawal from the political control of the center, and the secession and civil war that followed in 1967. However, that outcome was not preordained, for all the major actors each originally had a range of options that overlapped with others, and the breakdown of bargaining was not inevitable. The combination of factors that led to secession included the massacres, the position of Ojukwu at the head of a battalion and in control of the regional government and the Eastern media, and the failure of Western and Midwestern leaders to follow the Eastern lead in secession. Several months of negotiation began between the Gowon government and Colonel Ojukwu's command in Enugu, the Eastern regional capital.
Negotiations were conducted at a distance because of Ojukwu's doubts concerning his safety outside of his own region, but a last series of face-to-face talks were held in January 1967 in Ghana (The Aburi Accords) at the invitation of that country's military government. An apparent agreement reached there was variously interpreted by the different sides on their return to Nigeria and was never implemented.
Late in May 1967, Gowon issued a decree abolishing the four regions and creating 12 states. Northern solidarity was broken, but more important to the Igbos was the fact that the Eastern Region would now consist of three states, with non-Igbo majorities in two of them; the ports and oil facilities would be outside Ojukwu's control. Gowon hoped to forestall secession but instead precipitated it. On May 30, 1967, Lt-Col Ojukwu broadcast a dawn message declaring Eastern Nigeria a sovereign independent state and proclaiming the birth of a new Republic of Biafra." Gowon declared war on Biafra and fired the first shot near Gakem in the Northern part of Biafra. A brutal war that was to last three years has begun. About 2 million lives were lost. The rest is now history.
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