Daily
Sun
How Ironsi was killed, by his ADC
By PETRUS OBI, Abakaliki
Monday, June 28, 2004
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� Senator Andrew Nwankwo
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Photo.Sun News Publishing
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Senator Andrew Nwankwo from the Izzi clan in Abakaliki, Ebonyi
State, was a captain in the Nigeria
Air Force before the January 1966 coup that made way for Major General J. T. U
Aguiyi Ironsi to emerge as Head of State.
He became Ironsi�s Aide-De-Camp through the recommendation of Brigadier George
Krubo who was then in-charge of the Air Force and subsequently supervised the
late Head of State�s security.
Capt. Andrew Nwankwo (rtd) said he was to die with his boss, but for fate. He
was present when both Ironsi and Fajuyi were shot dead.
Tracking the 61-year-old former ADC down in his one story building residence in
Abakaliki was not as difficult as getting him to recall the events that led to
the death of his master 38 years ago.
He would start by taking you down memory lane when he served as a courier to
late Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia,
"I was manning the octopus-a helicopter that carries 105 artillery gun and
six other machine guns.
"So when Ethiopia
was at war with Somalia
in 1964/65 we formed the defence group of the emperor, we also formed an attack
force. When the emperor is going to the frontline to see what is happening, we
ring him round to clear the way for him".
It was part of these that Ironsi saw and handed over his security to the young
captain. "It was cool working with Ironsi, he understood everything about
what I should do because he had commanded the UN forces in Congo,
and that exposed him to the type of people he needed".
The coup
Recalling the events of that night, July
29, 1966, Nwankwo noted that they were in Ibadan,
"we had a small detachment of 106 Artillery, Commanded by one Walbe from
Plateau"
The Head of State had the previous day hosted traditional rulers from all parts
of the country in the Ibadan Government House. "He wasn�t feeling quite
well, he had a knee problem and had to go to bed early.
"Lieutenant Sanni Bello was the army ADC, and we were very close. So, we
left that night to go and look out and came back late. Lt. Adamu who was the
ADC to Fajuyi, Sanni Bello, Walbe and myself, we all slept together in one room
that night".
"At about 4a.m the telephone rang, I picked it up and that was Adeola, the
then commissioner of police, Ibadan he said he wanted to speak with Ironsi, I
said I was the ADC, he said he wanted to speak with him because there was a
coup and he gave me some names Orok and two others that had been killed in
Abeokuta.
"Immediately, I made a mental picture of it, and I knew that it was the
northerners that were responsible. So, I handed the phone to Ironsi and they
talked. I then alerted Adamu and Sanni Bello and said look, there is a coup and
the trend is this way.
"Bello assured me that if it
is his own people he will protect me, because, there was tension in the land
such that we knew a coup was imminent. So, we agreed to protect each other
depending on where it will be coming from. I later discovered that Walbe who
was sleeping with us was part of the coup; he later became ADC to Gowon.
"Around 5:30 we heard gunfire,
then Ironsi had called Col. Njoku to tell him about the coup. As Njoku was
going out, he was short at, but he escaped with bullet wounds. It was Njoku,
who was the commander of Lagos Garrison that alerted others outside the
Government House, Ibadan.
"Fajuyi later sent me outside the government House to find out what was
happening. I met Danjuma, who was then a major and he was my friend. He
pretended he didn�t know what was happening, he was asking me, and I said I
didn�t know. While I was trying to go back, one sergeant from Benue
almost shot me, but Danjuma stopped him and spoke to him in Hausa. Danjuma
later told me that he would like to see Ironsi, so that he could tell them what
to do.
"It was then that Fajuyi came out to find out what was holding me, and
there inside the Government House Danjuma ordered for his arrest and mine too.
That was when I saw Walbe. Then Fajuyi asked me to take him to Ironsi so that
they will obey him, that there should be only one person in charge. So, I took
them to Ironsi, and major Newman, immediately he saw Ironsi, he seized his
crocodile swagger stick, and then they started asking him about the January
coup, he said he didn�t know about it that he only agreed to be Head of State
so that he can restore confidence and normalcy. It was immediately they
arrested Ironsi that they turned violent".
The road to the valley of death
They marched us down, Ironsi and myself, to where Fajuyi was. They used
telephone cable to tie my hands behind and my legs, with a little space to
walk. Same they did to Ironsi, but they removed his shirt, he wore only
trousers, they also tied Fajuyi. Ironsi was in a Land Rover, Fajuyi in a mini
bus and myself in another bus. They drove us towards Iwo Road, 10 km from
Ibadan, there was a small forest were they stopped, marched us to the right
hand side of the bush, Fajuyi was leading and as he tried to cross a small
stream, he fell down, the soldiers were unruly, it appeared some of them had
for the first time taken Indian hemp, so when he fell down some of them started
beating him.
My escape
As Fajuyi fell down and they were beating him, Sanni Bello came to me and
tapped me and said, we could do something now. It was providence, may be I was
not destined to die. I took a few steps from them and jumped into a nearby
ditch, all in a split of a second, Bello
came and stood by the ditch and was shouting that I had escaped pointing at
another direction. So the soldiers ran around that direction shooting into the
bush, and when they felt they must have killed me, they shot Fajuyi and then
Ironsi there, by the side of the stream. So Bello
made sure that he was the last to leave the place.
The ADC, who was later elected senator in 1983 stated that the former Head of
State could have escaped if not that he wanted to make sure that there was no
bloodshed. He said if he sacrificed his life and prevented bloodshed in Nigeria,
it�s better for him. Even his chaplain urged him to escape but he said No. Also
many of his officers who were contacted instead of taking action ran away.
The ADC denied the prevailing story that Ironsi was tied to a Land Rover and
dragged along the road. He maintained that he saw Ironsi and Fajuyi shot dead.
"They shot him on the chest and it was a burst, so he would have died
after the first shot".
The crocodile staff
It was a swagger stick, which he made after his name Aguiyi (crocodile). It was
in the Congo, when he was commanding the United Nations Forces, the Indian
troops were to land at the Lumumbashi Airport but the Cameroon gendarmes went
and blocked the place with trucks, so that the Indian soldiers will not land,
so, he used a Land Rover and with the stagger stick waved as they were
shouting, he was eventually able to convince them to remove the trucks. Many
attributed that feat to extraordinary powers in his swagger stick. But there
was nothing in it, it was just a stick. Ironsi was not fetish; he was a devoted
Catholic and attended mass every morning, even the day he was killed.
