•Says Ojukwu twisted Aburi accord to suit Biafra agenda
•Narrates clash with Awo over Civil War arms money
•‘How I stopped northern soldiers from pulling North out of Nigeria’
By Nnamdi Ojiego
Former Head of State, General Yakubu Gowon, says those who suggested that he did not do enough to stop the killing of Easterners in the North in 1966 -1967 or that the federal government did not try to bring the perpetrators to book after the sad occurrence were wrong.
According to him, the position of the accusers was not only full of mischief, it also deliberately ignored the undeniably and open efforts he made at stopping the killings in all parts of Nigeria.
Recall that the killings followed the counter coup of July 29, 1966 which claimed the lives of then Head of State, General Aguiyi Ironsi, and then Governor of Western Region, Colonel Adekunle Fajuyi, among others.
The coup plotters had accused Ironsi, himself an Easterner, of not doing enough to bring the organizers of the January 15, 1966 coup, perceived in some quarters to be mostly Igbo officers and which killed Nigerian political and military leaders, including the Prime Minister, Alhaji Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, Premier of the Northern Region, Alhaji Ahmadu Bello, Premier of the Western Region, Chief Samuel Ladoke Akintola, and Brigadier Maimalari, mostly of northern origin, to book.
The crisis led to the Igbo pogrom in the North and the Civil War that lasted from 1967 until 1970.
Amid the crisis, some northern military officers contemplated the breaking away of the North from Nigeria.
Gowon hinted in his just released autobiography, My Life of Duty and Allegiance, that at least two major world powers, Britain and the United States, said at the time that they would not support the breakup of Nigeria.
He also spoke on the moves to stop the Civil War, notably the Aburi Conference which was hosted by Ghana, and how, according to him, then Governor Emeka Ojukwu of Eastern Region twisted the outcome while preparing for war against Nigeria.
The former Head of State narrated how he tried to save Ironsi from death, Ojukwu’s refusal of his offer of friendship, the clash he had with the late sage, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, who had been made the Vice Chairman of the Federal Executive Council (FEC) after he had been freed from Calabar prison where he was serving jail term for treason, over payment for arms, and why he did not fight back after the coup of 1975 that ousted him from office while attending the OAU conference in Kampala.
Pogrom
On the pogrom in the North, Gowon wrote: “Some of my accusers have also suggested that I did not do enough to prevent the killing of Easterners in the North 1966 and 1967. They also alleged that the federal government did not even try to bring the perpetrators to book after the sad occurrences. This position is not only wrong and full of mischief, but it also deliberately ignored the undeniably and open efforts I made at stopping the killings in all parts of Nigeria”.
The former Head of State narrated: “Just the conference (Ad Hoc Constitutional Conference he had convened to discuss the future of Nigeria in the post-military era he had envisaged) was scheduled to reconvene, Radio Dahomey relayed a news item on purported mass killing of Northerners in the Eastern Region. This triggered mayhem in the North, especially in Kano which recorded reprisal killing of Easterners.
“These ugly developments never featured in my worst scenario planning, and they sure threw a spanner in the works of the government. Ojukwu swiftly ordered Easterners in the North and other parts of Nigeria to return ‘home’ to safety in the East.
“As was to be expected, the Eastern delegates to the conference put up a no-show when the conference was to reconvene on October 24. “Neither did they show up at the next adjourned date, November 17.
“They maintained a position that they would not return to the table as far as ‘Northern troops’ remained in Western Nigeria. The Western Region delegates supported this position. Left with no choice, I adjourned the Ad Hoc Constitutional Conference sine die, since the ultimatum demonstrated that the outcome of the conference could no longer be expected to be representative of the desires of all Nigerians as I had wanted.
“Apart from trying to determine the best form of government for Nigeria in the years ahead, I also focused on addressing the matter of restiveness in the North.
“As soon as I assumed office I treated this latter issue with urgency because nobody with a conscience would approve of or endorse the mass killing of Easterners, mostly Igbo, in various parts of the North, notably Kano, Kaduna, Zaria, Bauchi and Jos.
“It was doubly worrying and unfortunate that the Eastern intelligentsia continued to maintain that the central authorities and leaders of the North instigated the killings. This was not the case.
“Without ruling out the possibility of subtle encouragement by partisan politicians who probably wanted to make personal political gains out of the situation, it is safe to say that the mob action that led to the killings was executed primarily by ordinary people on the streets in reaction to the radio news item.
“But those of us in charge at the time tried our best to minimize what happened.
“Acting on my belief that the use of force in the short run would not be as effective as an address to the heart and conscience of the people to tackle the problem on the ground, I arranged to make a few public broadcasts in English and Hausa, which were specifically intended for the listening ears of the people of the North.
“My overriding objective was to calm their nerves and, in the process, restore normalcy.
“I achieved that goal, though my message created the impression that one was partisan. “But I spoke the way I did to really touch the conscience of the people.
“Days after my broadcasts, several public commentators and sections of the local media made attempts to criminalise my remark that ‘another Northerner had come back to authority.’ This was an inconvenient truth, but it was embedded in empirical facts.
“Nigeria’s first centre of political authority was the Prime Minister, Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa. He was a Northerner.
“After him was the Supreme Commander, Major-General Johnson Aguiyi Ironsi, an Easterner, who was also unfortunately killed. I am undeniably a Northerner from the Middle Belt area.
“But the import of my message was not to sell a Northern hegemony. Rather, it was to use the very point- Northern interest – that had been used to cause mayhem as an anchor to appeal against public disturbance and wanton killing of compatriots so we could restore peace, restore trust, and restore confidence amongst all Nigerians.
“Some of my accusers have also suggested that I did not do enough to prevent the killing of Easteners in the North in 1966 and 1967.
“They also alleged that the federal government did not even try to bring the perpetrators to book after the sad occurrences.
“This position is not only wrong and full of mischief, but it also deliberately ignored the undeniable and open efforts I made at stopping the killings in all parts of Nigeria.
“Although the soldiers calmed down, tension was not completely doused. There were reports of random killing of Igbo civilians, men and women by soldiers.
“News of occurrences of this nature deeply upset me and made me sad to the point of almost shedding tears when I called out the entire Army unit in Ikeja to address them on the issue.
“The only reason tears did not drop from my eyes was that I knew I would lose the respect of my men if I was seen to be crying.
“They would believe they had spotted my Achilles heel and would want to use that to get away with any wrongdoing.
“I told them that our mission was to protect every Nigerian and that the nonsense about wasting compatriots must stop.
“Eyes red with anger and annoyance, I threatened the officers and men that I would personally shoot anyone of them that hurt innocent citizens without just cause. Thank God I never killed anyone, friend or foe.
“By chance, we got information of another round of killings. A young officer was heard feeling so happy with himself for executing an ‘instruction’ to waste some saboteurs.
“This saddened and infuriated me to find out who was responsible for the heinous crime. It had to stop.
“On being questioned, the soldier said he acted on the orders of Lt-Col Murtala Muhammed based on information on ‘saboteurs’ supplied by so-called military intelligence sources.
“On checking the veracity of the sources, fingers pointed at Mr. Godwin Daboh, a renegade naval rating.
“He frequently reported people, labelled as ‘saboteurs,’ in his black book, particularly ladies who turned down his love advances.
“Such labelling occasionally led to the ‘wasting’ of such individuals in the ethnic tension-soaked period.
“My deputy, Commodore Wey, exclaimed: ‘Godwin Daboh? No, he is not a military intelligence officer; he did something wrong, and he was cashiered.’ Of course, this meant he was court-martialed, sentenced and discharged from the Navy.
“Although Daboh was effectively no longer in the Navy, he still surreptitiously associated himself with some of the intelligence officers, especially from his own area in Benue who occasionally rewarded him financially with which he used to enjoy himself in night clubs from where he came out his nefarious acts.
“An enraged Murtala stormed Lagos to look for and discipline Daboh after he found out that he had been fooled and misled.
“Daboh, too, seeing that he had been found out, made himself scarce to escape Murtala’s fury and wrath. That sad chapter was at last closed.
“Such occurrences were shocking and caused me several sleepless nights, much of which were spent making contacts with the leadership of all the former regions and discussing how to end the spate of bloodletting.
“In the North, General Hassan and I especially spent time speaking with traditional rulers as well as officers in the armed forces to make sure that the carnage stopped.
“We were unequivocal in letting the people know that if they did not want people from some parts of Nigeria to live among them, they must allow them to leave peacefully because God would not forgive anyone who took another man’s life with impunity.
“Having adjourned the Ad Hoc Constitutional Conference indefinitely because the political class had shown itself incapable of ‘evolving reasonable solutions’ to the brewing crisis, my only recourse was to turn to my primary constituency, the armed forces, believing we could succeed where the politicians had failed.
“I had all along tried to insulate the military from the prevalent general distrust in the country.
“Based on my beliefs, I addressed the nation on November 30, 1966 to keep citizens abreast of critical milestones we hoped to achieve”.
North’s ‘breaking away’ from Nigeria
On northern officers’ perspective of moving to the North as a first step and eventually exiting from Nigeria, he said: “The success of my visit to Ikeja on Saturday, July 30 owed to two factors.
“First, I was fortunate that the young officers deferred to me because they knew me as the only surviving Northern officer; the former Adjutant General, Nigerian Army; Adjutant of the 4th Battalion, Ibadan and new Chief of Staff, Army before the insurrection.
“Secondly, they thought and hoped that I would support their position to change the leadership of the country or, if finally it came to the worst and they failed, to secede from Nigeria.
“Since they had already perceived and accepted me as their leader and an ally, my first task was to sufficiently calm their nerves, so they could listen to me even if they initially did not agree with my point of view.
The respect they accorded me gave me relative room to manoeuvre as I tried to persuade them to see the other side of the coin.
At Ikeja, I discovered that the soldiers were still angry over what they perceived to be Ironsi’s role in the death of Maimalari and his reluctance to put the perpetrators of the January coup on trial.
“Although there were talks by the Supreme Commander of setting up a panel of enquiry to deal with the culprits, nothing serious was done in this regard. Talks of me heading an enquiry or court martial to try the January 15, 1966 coup plotters are false.
“Nobody gave me any assignment in this regard despite my going to General Ironsi to complain that if nothing was done to them, we would have problems on our hands sooner than later.
“Worse was that nobody told me when or where Maimalari and the other officers were to be buried; I got to know of their burial by the Nigerian Police team purely by accident. This got me doubly angry.
“Knowing the way I felt at the time, I probably would have been quite prejudiced against the plotters because I was one of the people most hurt by the killings. I was close to all the deceased senior Northern officers, all coming from the same school – Barewa College.
“For one thing, I certainly would have passed very harsh judgments on the people who carried out the coup, which was a treasonable act. They were not only disloyal, but they were also treasonable felons and murderers because it was un-military to eliminate your colleagues, especially senior colleagues in cold blood. “However, many of them were eventually located and killed in various prisons after the July 29 coup.
“At that stage, the only thing one could do was to take and maintain control, seek to calm down the agitated soldiers, and try to repair the severe damage done.
“The overriding goal would have been to restore the high standard of discipline and loyalty for which the Nigerian Army was known before the situation became abnormal.
“However, talking with the aggrieved soldiers in Ikeja made me aware of the extent to which they had been conditioned by some junior and middle-piece officers one of whom I later learnt to be Lt. Colonel Murtala Muhammed.
“Their perspective was that rather than allow the status quo to remain, the Northern officers and men would move to the North as a first step and eventually exit from Nigeria.
“I quickly disabused their minds and made them understand the futility of the North leaving the union, as this was the least of their problems.
“I painted a vivid picture of what the North stood to lose from leaving the Nigerian union, particularly in terms of the sharing of the country’s assets and liabilities if the Region left the union in a huff.
“I succeeded in persuading them to see my point of view that there was merit in keeping Nigeria united and ultimately living peacefully together with their compatriots in other parts of the country.
“Much later, Murtala relayed to me the decision to stand down agitations for secession.
“I was happy to hear this, but I told him to go back and undo the damage that had been done by properly explaining the new position to the men to whom he had been talking.
“During these tense moments, the military unit in Ikeja planned with the British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC, the precursor of British Airways) to use the airline’s aircraft to ferry some family members of mostly Northern officers and men to Kano for safety.
“The situation, therefore, demanded that I stayed a while longer in Ikeja to assess and control affairs until a successor leadership was decided.
“For this, my continued stay and dialogue with the officers and men in the barracks gave rise to speculations that the soldiers had detained me. This is incorrect.
“My extended stay was necessitated by a dire need to continue to do everything necessary to defuse tension, take charge and avoid a catastrophe.
“In the state of uncertainty that pervaded the country in the hours immediately after the coup, some intrepid senior civil servants that included the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Defence, Alhaji Musa Daggash; his predecessor in office, Alhaji Abdul-Aziz Atta who by then was in the Ministry of Finance; Ahmed Joda, Yusufu Gobir, Edwin Ogbu, Phillip Asiodu, James Ebong and Allison Ayida defied obvious risks to their personal safety to look for me in the barracks in Ikeja.
“They were agitated by prospects and strong rumours of a break-up of the country and had expressed their reservation not just amongst themselves but to some senior officers.
“At the instance of Brigadier Ogundipe, they had headed for Ikeja to see me.
“The civil servants were escorted by Captain Joe Garba of the Federal Guards who provided security cover that enabled them to enter the heavily fortified barracks.
“Later accounts of their visit gave rise to story of the ‘rising grass’ because all they saw as they gained admittance to the barracks after properly identifying themselves was ‘rising grass.’
“They were shocked when the ‘grass’ (soldiers in combat fatigue crouched on the ground) suddenly rose with guns in hand to challenge their effrontery for driving into a military formation in disregard of the state of full alert. “Even with the tense atmosphere of the barracks at the time, I was bemused by how deeply the ways of the military shocked civilians.
“But I deeply appreciated the sense of patriotism that made these top civil servants to risk life and limb for the sake of unity and peace in their fatherland”.
World powers position on Nigeria breaking up/taking office as Head of State
Gowon highlighted Britain and the US position on Nigeria breaking up: “The British High Commissioner, Sir Francis Cumming-Bruce and the American Ambassador, Elbert Matthews, also visited me at Ikeja not long after the Permanent Secretaries left.
“Again, the thrust of our discussions was the preservation of the unity of the Republic of Nigeria.
“The similarity of thoughts made me believe the foreign envoys and the civil servants had discussed the subject matter prior to their visits to Ikeja to see me.
“It seemed like they had agreed to play the ‘good cop, bad cop’ card in their discussions with me.
“I had a feeling the Permanent Secretaries came to function as ‘voices of reason’ whilst the British High Commissioner and the US Ambassador acted the part of ‘muscle’ to let me know that the major international powers at the time would not support the breakup of Nigeria.
“In noticeably clear terms, both envoys told me that neither a dime of the American dollar nor a penny of the British Pound would come in the form of financial or material aid to any part of Nigeria that opted to secede.
“They put the message across to me in a manner that was at once thought-provoking and fascinating.
“After that meeting I resolved that if I ever wrote a book on my experience, a chapter of it would be titled ‘Not a Dime; Not a Penny’ because it underscored the determination of citizens and non-citizens to put their weight solidly behind a united Nigeria.
“When, however, Nigeria got to a critical point in the war of unification that broke out about a year later, the vacillation and restrictions of the British and American governments to some of our requests for assistance contributed to prolong the end of the civil war and nearly made possible the breakup of Nigeria that their envoys had spoken against.
“The period from Saturday, July 30 to Monday, August 1, 1966 was particularly challenging for me during my time at the Ikeja barracks.
“So much had happened amazingly fast within and outside the barracks that no one could predict where the ship of State was headed. “Outside the Ikeja barracks, the killing of General Ironsi and Governor Adekunle Fajuyi, who had both previously been declared missing, became public knowledge.
“The death of Gen Ironsi, who was the Military/political head of government, had now obviously created a leadership vacuum that was worsened by the absence of a definite and immediate successor.
“At the officers Mess in the barracks, all the available officers who conducted the coup to forcefully bring about change tried hard to grapple with the problem of filling the vacuum the situation had created.
“As we discussed the matter, it became evident that the coup planners had not given as much thought to filling the position as they had to removing the incumbent, General Ironsi, from office.
“But they were determined not to accept leadership, particularly from Southern officers or anyone they did not trust.
“That was the reaction as I suggested the names of various senior officers in the Army, Navy and even the police, like Brig. Babafemi Ogundipe, Commodore Akinwale Wey, Col. Robert Adeyinka Adebayo, Navy Captain Nelson Soroh and Commissioner of Police Theophilus Fagbola.
“I further suggested drafting any of the senior officers and key leaders of the coup, notably Murtala Muhammed, Martin Adamu, or Yakubu Danjuma, who might be interested in the office and should be considered.
“I requested that I be left to look after the military to restore the discipline and loyalty of the Army and the Armed Forces to what they were pre-the insurrection.
“Rather than consider my suggestions, the loud voices of the junior officers in the hall hit me with the force of a three-ton truck.
“They wanted me to be their leader! They wanted me to assume the position of Head of State and Supreme Commander; the title General Ironsi had adopted when he became Head of State.
They added that I was the only officer acceptable to them.
“Otherwise, they would keep up the momentum of the coup and execute it to its logical conclusion, which certainly would not be devoid of more bloodshed! I certainly did not want this. I instantly declined the offer.
“As an outsider to the plot that led to the coup, I was not privy to the discussions that led in the first instance to my being considered suitable to lead after they had taken the risk of executing the plot.
“If I had any hint at all on the goings on, it was in respect of reports of gossips picked by girlfriends of young Southern Igbo officers who had bragged about an ‘unfinished business.’
“As I had earlier recounted, I merely advised the Northern officers to be more at alert to avoid being caught unawares like they were at dawn on January 15, 1966.
“Much later, I heard whispers that the coup planners had taken a deliberate decision to keep me out of the loop for two key reasons.
“First, they believed that I was highly unlikely to go along with them and, secondly, that I was an ace to be called up if the plot failed.
“They reasoned that, as the most senior Northern officer, I would have found a way to save their skin.
“As I pondered their discussions to get me to accept to give them leadership and to assume
