1966 coup not driven by ethnic sentiments, Nzeogwu, was only ‘Igbo’ in name –IBB

From Juliana Taiwo-Obalonye, Abuja

Former military president, General Ibrahim Babangida, has challenged the long-held narrative that the 1966 military coup was ethnically motivated. In his autobiography, “A Journey in Service,” Babangida argued that the coup’s original objective was not driven by ethnic sentiments, contrary to popular belief.

He described Major Kaduna Nzeogwu, the leader of the coup,  as an ‘Hausa,’ having been born and raised in Kaduna with parents from Okpanam in the old mid-western region.

He highlighted his cultural alignment with the Hausa people rather than the Igbo. He noted that Nzeogwu and his original team probably thought, even if naively, that they could turn things around for the better in the country.

He said Nzeogwu described the coup as “Operation Damisa,” a necessary “service to our country” to rid it of corruption and filth. Despite this nationalistic intent, IBB said the coup’s aftermath took on an ethnic dimension, leading to tragic consequences for Nigeria.

The former military president highlighted the role of Major John Obienu, an Igbo officer who helped quell the coup, and noted that several senior Igbo officers were also victims of the uprising.

He emphasised that the original intention of the coup plotters was to release Chief Obafemi Awolowo from prison and install him as president, further challenging the ethnic agenda narrative.

Babangida reflected on the period as a terrible time for the Nigerian military, stating, “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.” However, he acknowledged that the coup took on an ethnic coloration as it progressed.

Reflecting on what happened during the period, he said: “Talking of the military coup d’etat of 1966 brings me to one of the darkest moments in our national history. In the early hours of January 15, 1966, I was woken up from my sleep at about 5am, with loud, continuous bangs on my door by my good friend, Lt Christopher Ugokwe. I had just gotten home hours before from a late-night party and didn’t want to be disturbed. But, when the banging persisted, I grudgingly got out to confront a bewildered Christopher, all dressed up in field uniform, screaming at me, ‘Ibrahim, get up! We have to go.’ ‘Go where at this time?’ I queried in reply.

“Still breathless, Chris continued, almost incoherently: ‘Didn’t you hear that there has been a coup, and we have been told to report to the squadron to see our boss?’ Our boss was, of course, Major Hassan Usman Katsina.

“I quickly changed into my uniform as we headed out to the squadron. As we drove past Nasarawa, which housed the Ministers’ quarters and the official residence of the Sardauna of Sokoto and Premier of Northern Nigeria, Sir Ahmadu Bello, we noticed that the Sardauna’s home was on fire. Chris said he was sure the troops had bombed it. We soon arrived at the squadron headquarters, where Major Hassan Katsina was waiting to address us.

“Very sombrely, Major Hassan addressed us in his office and told us what he knew then. He told us that his friend and course-mate at Sandhurst, Major Chukwuma Kaduna Nzeogwu, had led a coup d’etat and that Nzeogwu had confronted him earlier in the day to make up his mind to join the coup or face the consequences of not doing so! Hassan said his agreement to play along with Nzeogwu saved his life. Major Hassan, then instructed us to ensure everybody in the squadron stayed inside.

“As a young second lieutenant, I was lost for words. I was only 24 and had never known the type of military intervention we were experiencing. I was only vaguely familiar with Gamal Abdel Nasser and his Free Officers movement ousting King Farouk of Egypt in 1952. But that was textbook stuff. To have to experience it first-hand was different.

“Later that morning, acting, presumably, as the leader of ‘the Supreme Council of the Revolution of the Nigerian Armed Forces,’ Major Nzeogwu addressed all officers in Kaduna at the Brigade in Headquarters. Looking quite ruffled in his bandaged neck and left arm, Nzeogwu, in a speech in which he referred to us as ‘comrades,’ informed us that the military had taken over the government of Nigeria and that he had secured northern Nigeria in the name of the Supreme Council of the Revolution. He then appealed for cooperation and understanding from all the officers present. At a subsequent press conference, Nzeogwu elaborated on what he described as Operation Damisa (Damisa being the Hausa word for the leopard, which never changes its spots), describing the operation as a necessary ‘service to our country’ to rid it of all its filth and corruption.

“Later in the day, the gory details of what had happened, not just in Kaduna but other parts of the country, started to emerge. In Kaduna, the Premier, Sir Ahmadu Bello, his senior wife, Hafsatu, his senior assistant security secretary, Malam Ahmed Ben-Musa, Ahmed Pategi, a government driver, and the head of his bodyguards, Zarumi, had all been killed before the break of dawn. There were other killings in Kaduna. The Commander of the First Brigade of the Nigerian Army, Brigadier Samuel Ademulegun, and his pregnant wife, Latifah (whom every senior officer jocularly referred to as Sisi Nurse), were gunned down in their bedroom. Not far away from their residence, the Deputy Commandant of the Nigerian Defence Academy, Colonel Raphael Sodeinde, was also murdered.

“Outside Kaduna, the story was duplicated in Ibadan and Lagos. In Ibadan, the deputy Premier, Chief Remi Fani-Kayode was arrested and detained. The Premier, Chief Samuel Ladoke Akintola, was not so lucky. The coup plotters killed him after he tried to put up a fight.

“The Lagos scene was just as horrific. Apart from Prime Minister, Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa and Finance Minister Chief Festus Okotie-Eboh, who were kidnapped from their residences and later murdered, much of the leadership of the Nigerian Army was wiped out by the plotters. The Adjutant-General of the Army, Lt-Col. James Yakubu Pam, was the first to be picked up in the presence of his wife, Elizabeth. He never came back alive. Then came the turn of the acting Chief of Staff at Army headquarters, Colonel Kur Mohammed, who was also assassinated. Lt-Col. Abogo Largema, then the Commander of the 4th Battalion at Ibadan, was not spared either. He was gunned down at his Federal Palace Hotel room in Lagos.

“But one of the most painful was the killing of Brigadier Zakariya Maimalari. Having only just remarried a month before the January coup following the tragic death of his wife, Mariamu, Maimalari was, at 36, considered one of the finest officers of the Nigerian Army. “As I stated earlier, he embodied the best of the military – discipline, courage, service, respect, integrity and enduring leadership skills. As the Commander of the Southern Brigade, he had all the fighting forces of the battalions under him; the field artillery corps, the armoured and mechanised squads. It was said then that Maimalari could mobilise the entire brigade to fight back in the event of a foreign attack.

That was how important his position was at the time. The coup plotters knew that he needed to be eliminated for them to succeed.

“He initially escaped the mutineers when they struck at his 11 Thompson Avenue residence at Ikoyi, Lagos. But when, from his hiding place in the shrubs around his home, he spotted his chief of staff and Brigade-Major, Major Emmanuel Ifeajuna, driving past, he came out of hiding, believing he was safe. Unknown to him, Major Ifeajuna was one of the plotters. Almost instantly, Maimalari was gunned down by his chief of staff.

“By Monday, January 17, the situation had stabilised somewhat, following the arrest and detention of Major Nzeogwu and some of the other coup plotters. And it also became clear that Brigadier-General Johnson Thomas Umunnakwe Aguiyi Ironsi had assumed power as Head of the Federal Military Government and Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

“It was a terrible time for the Nigerian military. As I have said 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. 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.

“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. 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.

“It should, however, be borne in mind that some senior officers of Igbo extraction were also victims of the January coup. 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 immediately after the coup and make him the executive provisional president of Nigeria.’ The fact that these ‘Igbo’ officers would do this to a man not known to be a great ‘lover’ of the Igbo may have given the coup a different ethnic colouration. But, again, I may be wrong here since this view is speculative. I admit that my position here may be the naive insights of an unsuspecting young officer who viewed events from a distance!

“My determination to make sense of the bizarre unfolding events was short-lived because I left for the United Kingdom barely days after the 1966 coup incident. Long before the coup attempt, I had been pencilled down to attend a four-month Young Officers Course on Saladin armoured cars and gunnery at the Royal Armoured Centre in Bovington, Dorset, United Kingdom.

“Saladins are six-wheeled, 11 tonne-armoured vehicles designed for the British army in 1954 to replace the obsolete AEC Armoured Car used during World War II. Despite its age, the three-crewed armoured vehicle, armed with a 76 mm low-pressure rifle, remained in service, albeit in secondary roles, until the early 1980s. They were used during the Nigerian Civil War.

“The course in Dorset was fine and was over by April 22, 1966. The actual course of study included details of the maintenance and driving and an extensive workshop on signals and radio communications.

“But, in those four months, my mind was glued to events at home. When I returned to my reconnaissance unit in Kaduna, I saw and felt the tension in the air. The tension in the barracks was so palpable that you could touch it. It was clear that northern officers were spoiling for a fight to retaliate for the killings of January 15. The tension was compounded by the fact that there was a well-organised campaign to brand us, the so-called northern officers, as cowards for failing to avenge the killings of the Prime Minister, the Sardauna, and other northern officers who lost their lives.

“I recall a particular incident that I shall never forget. Some of us young officers had gone out one evening for drinks at a nightclub near the Ahmadu Bello Stadium. As we settled down to our drinks, we were confronted by passers-by who recognised us. They rained abuses on us, calling us ‘big fools and cowards’ for not doing what they thought we should do. Articles in newspaper pages were replete with scorn for us northern officers. Stories made the rounds that even the wives of married officers fought their husbands, calling them cowards and threatening to withhold conjugal benefits from them. It turned out that the wives of Igbo officers, quite insensitively, had been taunting the wives of northern officers about what had occurred to officers of northern extraction.

“Meanwhile, the rumour mills went into overdrive with conspiracy theories. There were rumours that officers of Igbo extraction were planning a second coup to kill more northern officers. Unfortunately, in the absence of an official Federal Government’s announcement about the fate of the soldiers killed during the January coup, rumours were rife as to whether they were dead or alive. For instance, there was the story of a riot that broke out at the Second Brigade Headquarters in Lagos when an attempt was made to remove Brigadier Maimalari’s name plate because many low-ranking officers believed that Maimalari was so invulnerable that he could not have died and that since he was still alive, any attempt to remove his nameplate was a continuation of the plot against northern officers.

“There was also a rumoured plan to swap the 1st and 4th Battalions and rotate the military governors of the different regions. These rumours were amplified by stories of some Igbo gloating over the January killings. Contrary to a promise given after the coup was quashed that the coup plotters would be tried, none was ever brought to trial, although some were detained. On the contrary, a few of the coup plotters were promoted. These confirmed rumours that an Igbo domination of national affairs was in the works.

“Meanwhile, the role of disgruntled northern civilian propagandists and politicians picked up more steam. They deployed a combination of incitement and swirling rumours as psychological warfare to get northern soldiers to retaliate for the killings of January 15. Many civilian leaders kept hammering that we were cowards for not avenging the deaths of our leaders.

“This view is supported by General Gowon’s recollections of the Army’s official history of those years. General Gowon said: ‘The northern politicians infiltrated the northern soldiers and officers, trying to convince them that there was a need for them to retaliate.’

“Unfortunately, some of the decisions of the Central Command in Lagos fed into the fears of those who suspected imminent sectional domination. For instance, in late May, the General Ironsi-led Federal Government was convinced that the best way to unify the country was to issue the Unification Decree No. 34 of 1966, abolishing and replacing the regions with a group of 35 provinces. That Decree also unified the Civil Services. Decree 34 was a significant disadvantage to northern Nigeria, considering its inadequacy in human resources. This further fuelled the fears of a southern domination of northern Nigeria and subsequently, the entire country.

“Whether these fears of power domination were unfounded or not, it was clear that something was about to give from the sequence of cascading events. Unfortunately, the near collapse of the age-long tradition of military discipline during this period didn’t help matters. Embittered by the events of January 15, many young officers, particularly non-commissioned officers (NCOs) of northern Nigerian extraction, became unmanageable. Many of them refused outright to take orders from their superiors. And in an army where most of the infantry were northerners, that constituted a real problem.

“Suddenly, there was a rash of mutinies in different army formations in the country. There was, for instance, the case of the 4th Battalion in Ibadan, where northern officers refused to take orders from Major M. O. Nzefili, who, as second-in-command at the Battalion, replaced Lt-Col. Abogo Largema, who was murdered in Lagos during the January coup attempt. And even after another northern (Tiv) officer, Major Joe Akahan replaced Nzefili, the northern officers remained restive. Similar scenarios played out in other parts of the country. And by now, rumours of an imminent upheaval were so widespread you knew it was a question of time before we had a disastrous national crisis.

“On July 28, 1966, things came to a head, and what has come to be known as the counter-coup of 1966 in Nigerian military history began. The Commanding Officer of the Abeokuta Garrison, Lt-Col. Gabriel Okonweze, called a meeting of the rank and file of the Garrison to douse the rumours of another coup.

“Unfortunately, agitated and aggrieved junior northern officers who erroneously believed that the meeting was convened to complete the terrible killings begun during the January coup by Igbo officers burst into the forum, instantly killing Lt-Col. Okonweze and the Commander of the Recce Squadron, Major John Obienu. Lt A. L. Orok, who drove in from town and stumbled on the situation, was also gunned down, oblivious of the goings-on. Orok, by the way, was Efik, not Igbo. Later that night, other officers of Igbo extraction in and around the Garrison were identified and killed after a door-to-door search.

“The killings quickly spread to Ibadan and Lagos. Captain Okoye, who was in transit at the Ikeja airport in Lagos, was arrested and killed. In Ibadan, hostile troops surrounded the state house at Agodi, where General Ironsi, the state’s military governor, Lt-Col. Francis Adekunle Fajuyi, and the Second Brigade commander, Lt-Col. Hilary Njoku, were located. The hostile troops abducted Ironsi, Fajuyi, and Ironsi’s Air Force ADC, Captain Andrew Nwankwo. Ironsi and Fajuyi were later killed. However, Nwankwo managed to escape.

“The killings continued in Kaduna. The first victim was the commander of the Kaduna-based 3rd Battalion, Lt-Col. Israel Okoro. His death in Kaduna was followed by that of the commander of the Second Recce Squadron, Major Isong. In Kano, where the 5th Battalion was under the command of Lt-Col. Mohammed Shuwa, the situation seemed initially under control until the troops mutinied, leading to the deaths of many Igbo civilians in Kano. “Apparently, what started as an attack on Igbo officers became an attack on Igbo civilians and officers alike. Unfortunately, the violence got out of control and spread to parts of Bauchi, Sokoto, Katsina and Zaria. Hundreds of Igbo died between Sunday, May 29, and Sunday, June 5, 1966.

“The collapse of discipline within the military was so devastating that even northern officers had to be protected from rampaging northern NCOs. For instance, Lt-Col. Joe Akahan’s unruly junior officers shut him out of his barracks. There was the story, for example, of the Army’s Provost Marshal, Major Ekanem, who was shot dead for no reason by Sergeant Lapdam on Carter Bridge in Lagos while on an errand for Lt-Col. Gowon.

“In August 1966, a detachment of the 4th Battalion in Ibadan, consisting of NCOs and junior officers, raided the old Benin Prison to release northern soldiers, who had been held there since the January coup attempt. While inside the prison premises, they murdered five Igbo officers who were also detained in the same prison for their role in the January coup, including Majors Chris Anuforo and Donatus Okafor.

“The chaotic period of indiscipline was widespread enough for unruly and devious officers to attempt to use the occasion to settle old scores with their superiors. This situation almost cost the life of a fine officer like Samuel Ogbemudia. Before the counter-coup, Major Ogbemudia had detained Lieutenant Bukar Suka Dimka (yes, my same old friend, Bukar Dimka!) ‘for violating an order forbidding unauthorised troop movement.’ But after Dimka protested that he was the unfair victim of ethnic profiling, Ogbemudia released him from detention.

“Angered by this ‘provocation,’ Dimka hatched a plot to kill Brigade Major Ogbemudia. Fortunately, Ogbemudia was tipped off by Colonel Hassan Katsina and Major Abba Kazir, who then provided Ogbemudia with an escape Land Rover, complete with a submachine gun.

“Meanwhile, Dimka, who got wind of this, marshalled a group of northern soldiers who then pursued Ogbemudia from Kaduna to Owo in Ondo State, sometimes shooting at him. At Owo, Ogbemudia abandoned his Land Rover when he ran out of fuel and was said to have scaled a six-foot fence into a thick forest to escape Dimka’s soldiers. It must have been an awful experience for a man like Ogbemudia, who would, after that scary experience, have an exemplary career in the Nigerian army.

“In Enugu, as was the case during the January coup attempt, the situation was calmer, thanks to the prompt intervention of the Commander of the 1st Battalion, Lt-Col. David Ogunewe. Once he got knowledge of the killings in other parts of the country, he quickly locked up the battalion’s armoury and ‘placed it under the joint guard of northern and southern officers.’

“Those were truly terrible times. The killings, which started on May 29, peaked on September 29, 1966. According to Official Army Records, no less than 213 predominantly Igbo officers and other ranks were killed during that period. And many civilians in different parts of the country also lost their lives.

“This period was, undoubtedly, a dark phase in our history as a nation. The first coup attempt, which led to the counter-coup, should never have occurred. The young, idealistic officers bit off more than they could chew. Without question, both events, the first coup and the counter-coup, deepened the distrust among ethnic groups in the country, distrust that continues to plague us to this day. But, even more fundamentally, those coups led to one of the bloodiest fratricidal conflicts in modern Africa, the thirty-month Nigerian civil war, with devastating consequences that we have never fully recovered from as a country.

“My participation in the Nigerian civil war as a combatant left deep scars on me, both literally and metaphorically. It redefined for me the very essence of human existence. But even more fundamentally, it drove home the simple fact of the futility of war, whether on a national scale or a continental scale. And that the consequences of war, including the physical and psychological effects, take time to heal if they ever do.”