Politics
Ethnic sentiment didn’t drive Nzeogwu coup, he wanted to reset Nigeria – Babangida
General Ibrahim Babangida (rtd), a former military president, has declared that it was unlikely that ethnic sentiments drove the January 15, 1966 military coup led by Major Kaduna Nzeogwu, as according to him, evidence suggests that the officers only wanted to reset Nigeria, but were naive.
Babangida who stated this on page 39 of his autobiography, “A Journey in Service,” presented in Abuja on Thursday, noted that as a young officer who observed things from a distance, he could tell that the coup had no ethnic colouration, contrary to the widespread suggestion that it was an Igbo coup.
According to him, “elsewhere, as a young officer who saw all of this from a distance, probably, ethnic sentiments did not drive the original objective of the coup plotters,” he said . “For instance, the head of the plotters, Major Kaduna Nzeogwu, was only ‘Igbo’ in name. Born and raised in Kaduna, his immigrant parents were from Okpanam in today’s Delta state, which, in 1966, was in the old mid-western region. Nzeogwu spoke fluent Hausa and was as ‘Hausa’ as any! He and his original team probably thought, even if naively, that they could turn things around for the better in the country.”
Babangida, however, noted that it was callous for Nzeogwu to have murdered Ahmadu Bello, then premier of the Northern Region, in the manner that he did, while noting that things were further compound by the fact that the coup did not happen in the Eastern Region.
“That said, it was heinously callous for Nzeogwu to have murdered Sir Ahmadu Bello and his wife, Hafsatu, because not only were they eminently adored by many but also because they were said not to have put up a fight,” he said.
“From that moment, the putsch was infiltrated by ‘outsiders’ to its supposed original intention, and it took on an unmistakably ethnic colouration, compounded by the fact that there were no related coup activities in the Eastern region.”
The former military president, however, also pointed out that while the coup did not take place in the East, some of the victims were indeed officers of Igbo extraction, while a good number of non-Igbo officers also took part in the coup.
“It should, however, be borne in mind that some senior officers of Igbo extraction were also victims of the January coup,” he noted.
“For instance, my erstwhile Commander at the Reconnaissance Squadron in Kaduna, Lt-Col. Arthur Chinyelu Unegbe, was brutally gunned down by his own ‘brother, Major Chris Anuforo, in the presence of his pregnant wife, at his 7 Point Road residence in Apapa, for merely being ‘a threat to the revolution. As a disciplined and strict officer who, as the Quartermaster-General of the Army, was also in charge of ammunition, weapons, equipment, vehicles, and other vital items for the Army, the coup plotters feared that he might not cooperate with them.”
“It should also be remembered that some non-Igbo officers, like Major Adewale Ademoyega, Captain Ganiyu Adeleke, Lts Fola Oyewole, and Olafimihan, took part in the failed coup. Another officer of Igbo extraction, Major John Obienu, crushed the coup.
“Those who argue that the original intention of the coup plotters was anything but ethnic refer to the fact that the initial purpose of the plotters was to release Chief Obafemi Awolowo ‘from prison.”
