- 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’
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 the post of Head of State and Supreme Commander, I sensed that I had been considered on account of one or two possibilities.
“First, it was highly probably that the organisers of the coup had not agreed a primus inter pares ahead of the actual execution of the coup.
“There was also the probability that they had ab initio settled for leadership by the most senior serving Northern officer.
“What may not be in dispute, however, is that the timing of the coup, which was forced upon them by the events at Abeokuta the night before caught them in a hop when H-Hour suddenly became a reality that left them with no definite leader, hence the imperative to resolve the leadership question in the most pragmatic way.
“Having created a vacuum in the leadership of the country and resolved not to take instructions from any senior Southern officer, they needed to consolidate their relative success in a manner that would neither cost them the advantage they already had nor allow officers from other parts of the country to quickly regroup and turn the table.
“The need for a leader thus warranted the decision to mention my name.
“That decision was easy to reach because I was from the North and technically the most senior living Northern officer following the deaths of Maimalari, Kur Mohammed, Abogo Largema and Yakubu Pam who were my seniors both at Barewa College and in the Army.
“Were they to be alive, I would not have been picked nor would I have accepted it, particularly because of the natural mutual respect we give to our seniors.
“Another probable reason was that the young officers appeared to have been inclined toward maintaining the respect they had for me since my days as Battalion Adjutant and later Adjutant General of the Nigerian Army when I had the professional fortune of most officers in my hands by virtue of my office.
“This also extended to my then position as Chief of Staff, Army.
“I never aspired to and was unprepared for the new role that fate had now thrust on me.
“Barely 24 hours earlier, I had been an independent arbiter seeking to put an explosive situation under control.
“Now, without warning, I had become the issue. Set before me was a semblance of what could be considered as alternative between the rock and the deep blue sea.
“Outside the barracks were fellow senior officers of Southern origin feeling helpless after they appeared to have lost the authority to command.
“Within the barracks were junior officers who had altered the power equation yet could not seem to move forward without a central, stablising authority.
“Without argument, the Friday night coup of July 29, 1966 and the preceding one of January 15 irretrievably damaged the notion of esprit de corps that was at the heart of military service.
“It decidedly set Northern officers against their Southern comrades, especially those from the Eastern Region.
“As anarchy loomed, it was also evident that the balance of violence at that moment was skewed against the senior officers in the Army.
“Both sides believed I held the key to resolving the impasse that, expectedly, got the international community sufficiently worried because of fears that it could further degenerate if not swiftly arrested.
“It dawned on me that I could not hope to successfully resist the load of leadership responsibility that had been placed on my frail shoulders.
“I was apolitical and loyal to the government of the day.
“When it was clear that I could not get out of the commitment to be the new Head of State, I was suddenly overwhelmed by indescribable fear – that the buck ends with me!
“I had neither sought after nor prayed to assume the responsibility of the office.
“The only leadership training I had at that stage was all I got from childhood and the training of the faith behind it.
“Then I had the professional military training that taught us to be able to appreciate and analyse any situation despite its inherent difficulty.
“Our key objective in training was to determine the causes of problems and to find solutions to them”.
Ojukwu’s refusal of friendship
The former Head of State explained that despite his best efforts, Ojukwu rejected his offer of friendship. His words: “For the sake of continuity, I retained Ojukwu, Ejoor and Hassan in office as Governors of the East, Midwest and Northern Regions as appointed by the former Head of State.
“For the Western Region, I appointed Col. Adebayo, who had hurriedly returned home before completing his senior officer’s programme at the Imperial Defence College to replace Col. Adekunle Fajuyi who was killed alongside General Ironsi on July 29, 1966.
“I also left the police hierarchy intact, with Alhaji Kam Selem as head of the Police Force.
“I had no problem allowing Commodore Wey to remain in office as head of the Navy. Baba Bassey, who adored me to a fault from the day of my interview for officer cadet course, readily accepted me when I was Adjutant General and when I became the Head of State.
“Rather than announce my decision with executive fiat, l left each of these officers to decide whether to stay on or to leave.
“They chose to stay, which was acceptable because it indicated their willingness to collaborate with me in establishing a new direction for the country and, in doing so, promote loyalty, discipline, and respect within the military.
“If any of them had chosen to leave at that stage, I would have understood and respected his decision.
“The case of Brigadier Babafemi Ogundipe was, however, not as straight forward because the course of the coup had made it obvious that he could no longer function effectively in the command-and-control structure of the Nigerian Army and the Armed Forces.
“With the concurrence of the UK government, he was appointed Nigeria’s High Commissioner to the UK.
“Ojukwu refused my offer of friendship. By extension, he willfully refused to recognise my leadership.
“He felt that the ‘normal’ protocol of seniority in service should have been upheld in selecting General Ironsi’s successor under the new administration, regardless of the circumstances by which I assumed power.
“Admiral Wey effectively persuaded former Supreme Military Council members to take cognisance of the situation and support my leadership, highlighting my ability to command respect from junior officers and my willingness to lead during a difficult time.
“Left unsaid at the time was Ojukwu’s strong view that I was junior to him in the hierarchy. He failed to appreciate that he had been under serious threat because the young Northern officers believed he was complicit in the January 15, 1966 coup.
“I pre-empted any attempt to move against him, in part, because of my respect for all the Regional Governors and, more importantly, because I saw him primarily as a colleague and officer with whom I thought I had worked to restore normalcy in those early days of uncertainty.
“I believed that, together, we could rebuild the army and allow the country to continue its course in history.
“My decision to retain Ojukwu in office was altogether altruistic, though subsequent events made it seem a huge mistake.
“But with the situation at hand, it did not matter whether he agreed or not with the fact that change had occurred.
“Even if he did not agree with my new role, the soldier in him never said he would leave the Army. I let him be”
Aburi disagreement
He discussed at length efforts to avert war through the Aburi conference. His words: “Ojukwu eventually softened his stance after several entreaties by the United Nations, the Commonwealth and several friendly countries. “In this regard, Mr. Malcolm Macdonald, who used to be the British High Commissioner in Kenya, East Africa, was a major facilitator of dialogue between Lagos and Enugu both in his personal capacity and on behalf of the British Government and the Commonwealth.
“Ojukwu finally agreed for us to meet on January 4 and 5, 1967 at the Presidential Resort, Peduase Lodge, in Aburi, Ghana, which the Chairman of the Ghana National Liberation Council and Head of State, Lt-General Joseph A, Ankrah, had graciously offered us in the hope that the conducive environment would more readily help us to resolve our differences. “Coincidentally, the dates for the proposed meeting in Aburi fell within the holy period of the Passion Week and of Ramadan. I saw this as a divine answer to my prayer for peace.
“Granting the tension that had built up amongst us officers and leaders of the nation since the coup of July 29, 1966, the proposed gathering in Aburi presented the first real opportunity for a full meeting of the Supreme Military Council (SMC).
“Ojukwu and I agreed that participants would only be the principal military officers in government.
“We further agreed there would be no set positions that could constrain our resolve to discuss amicably.
“These pre-meeting agreements came about because the objective of our intended gathering in Aburi was very clear; it would be a purely exploratory assembly to help us break the ice, remove the veil of suspicion, and engender trust and confidence amongst the principal actors.
“Specifically, the meeting was intended to create an avenue for us to clear the misgivings that Ojukwu had about the circumstances of my assumption of office as Supreme Commander, even if the death of Ironsi had not been publicly communicated, either within the full SMC or to Nigerians in general.
“We believed that if we substantially clarified this issue, which was at the heart of the friction between Ojukwu and the rest of us, the atmosphere would become much more conducive for us to set the agenda for substantive national issues and reach a common ground at future meetings at home in Nigeria.
“I personally felt that any discussion of some of the burning issues in the country at the preliminary meeting we had contemplated could inflame passion rather than douse tension. That would ab initio have defeated our purpose.
“Since the meeting at Aburi was not intended as a forum for which an official position was required, I casually mentioned the itinerary to the Secretary to the Federal Military Government (SFMG), Mr H.A. Ejueyitchie.
“He was not exactly happy at my decision to have agreed those ‘personal’ terms with Ojukwu without proper consultation with senior public service officials who would have provided necessary bureaucratic support.
“It was well known that the SFMG, typical of the diligent civil servants of that era, adhered strictly to correctness.
“He once corrected me for referring to him as ‘my secretary’, promptly reminding me that he was ‘Secretary to the Federal Military Government.’
“That was not my first time of encountering civil servants who were fiercely loyal to civil service protocols.
“I recall that on assumption of office as Head of State on August 1, 1966, I considered it expedient to urgently fill the position of Secretary to the Government of the Federation, which became vacant in January 1966 with the departure of Dr. S.O. Wey, the first holder of the office under the Prime Minister, Alhaji Abubakar Tafawa Balewa.
“My plan was to appoint the then Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Defence, Alhaji Musa Daggash, to the office.
“This was because we had worked closely together and I could vouch for his competence, loyalty and patriotism.
“Surprisingly, Daggash altrustically declined my proposition arguing that there were officers who were senior to him in the hierarchy of the bureaucracy.
“When I sought his advice on who then to name to the position, he mentioned Ejueyitchie, then the Permanent Secretary (Establishment), whose appointment as SFMG I announced on August 4, 1966.
“I was not overly concerned when Ejueyitchie expressed apprehension that I might have inadvertently walked into an ambush by Ojukwu.
“But I told him I was honour-bound to keep my word to the Governor of the Eastern Region.
My stance did not sit well with him, because he found a good civil service excuse to avoid going to Aburi.
“Instead, he nominated the Permanent Under-Secretary in the Cabinet Office, Prince S.I.A. Akenzua, who later became the Oba of Benin, to make the trip and record the minutes of the impending meeting.
The SMC team that headed for Accra from Lagos comprised the Governor of the Western Region, Colonel Robert Adeyinka Adebayo; Governor of the Mid-West Region, Lt. Col. David Ejoor; Governor of the Northern Region, Lt. Col. Hassan Usman Katsina; Administrator of Lagos, Major Mobolaji Johnson; Head of Navy, Commodore J.E. Akinwale-Wey; the Inspector-General of Police, Alhaji Selem and his Deputy, Mr. Timothy Omo-Bare.
“We were accompanied by Mr. Peter Odumosu, Secretary to the Military Government, Western Region; Mr D.P. Lawani, Under-Secretary in the Military Governor’s Office in the Mid-West and Mr. Ali Akilu, Secretary to the Military Government, Northern Region.
“This later group of civilians, who were all top civil servants, was invited as observers at the meeting because of their positions as chief scribes to their respective regional governments.
“The Eastern delegation later arrived in Ghana on board an aircraft provided by the Government of Ghana.
“Rather than admit the truth of the courtesy of the Ghanaian government, the Eastern government’s propaganda machinery loudly proclaimed that Ojukwu purchased an ‘executive jet’ to convey him and the team from the region to Aburi.
“The deception was obviously intended to send a message to the people of the Eastern Region that Ojukwu was determined to meet with the Federal Government at ‘any acceptable venue.’ Again, this was far from the truth.
“All through our journey from Lagos to Accra, my mind played back various incidents on the road that we had to travel to get to where we were.
“A few days before the journey to Aburi, I had assured all Nigerians in my Christmas message that God had not forsaken Nigeria’s despite all the upheavals that were recorded between January 15 and September 30, 1966.
“But I warned that peace and goodwill would elude us as a nation except we let go of bitterness and were willing to forgive one another whilst we tried to forget the pain.
“In my follow-up ‘New Year Message’, I described 1966 as a ‘most momentous and tragic year’ in the history of our nation. I counseled that it did not pay to shed innocent blood and that misguided violence would not solve our political problems. I ended the New Year Message with a prayer based on my hope that 1967 would usher in peace and happiness in our land.
“I was happy to note that young people across the world shared my vision and belief in one, undivided Nigeria.
“This became evident about a year later in 1968 when I played host to a delegation of global young leaders under the aegis of the Coordinating Secretariat of University Student Unions worldwide (COSEC) who paid me a courtesy visit in Dodan Barracks.
“The delegation was led by a young Nigerian, Julius Adelusi-Adeluyi, a Prince of Ado Ekiti who was COSEC’s Secretary General and later a celebrated pharmacist and founder of the famous Juli Pharmacy.
“No sooner did we arrive in Accra than I got the first hint of trouble, even before the Aburi meeting began.
“I was reliably informed that a phalange of civil servants from the Eastern Region had accompanied Ojukwu to Aburi.
“This certainly was against the spirit of our prior agreement that the meeting he made a strictly military affair.
“I was not perturbed by the blatant breach of our gentleman’s agreement.
“I told the officials that accompanied us not to worry because we would stick to what I had agreed with Ojukwu to make Aburi happen.
“But there is need for me to clarify the undercurrent of issues before our deliberations in Aburi so that the basis, course, and outcomes of the meeting would be put in proper historical context.
“Ojukwu anchored his objections to any meeting with me in ‘Nigeria’ on his discomfort with the presence of ‘Northern soldiers’ in the Eastern and the Western Regions.
“Deep down, however, was his fear of being seen as obeying instructions from his ‘junior’ in the military hierarchy, a fact he openly spoke about during our heated telephone conversation in January 1966.
“He preferred to believe he was my senior, never minding that I was commissioned two years before he received his commission.
“I was commissioned in 1956, with service number N/20 while he, with service number N/29, was commissioned in 1958, and he was one of the first set of university graduates to be directly recruited from outside the army.
“But Col Victor Banjo was already a degree holder and a qualified Mechanical Engineer before Ojukwu joined the Army.
“By 1963, the Army had more than six graduate officers, the most notable being Victor Banjo, Olufemi Olutoye, Oluwole Rotimi, Austen Peters and Ahmadu Ali (the latter two being medical doctors), Adewale Ademoyega and Emmanuel Ifeajuna.
“At the time, the Army board had a system in place that compensated university graduates with a few years’ seniority according to the quality of their degrees, namely, First Class, Second Class (Upper or Lower Divisions), Third Class, or Ordinary Pass.
“This was to allow for time spent in the university. Our own dates of commission were in general similarly adjusted to recognise the dates we started our cadet training at Sandhurst or elsewhere.
“In my own set and group, we were commissioned from Sandhurst in December 1956, but we started our cadet training at Teshie, Accra, Gold Coast (now Ghana) in May 1954.
“Whereas Ojukwu was commissioned in 1958, he was given a backdate of three years of a first degree.
“However, these things really did not matter after attaining the rank of Lt. Col because, from the point, any officer could be lucky to advance faster than his colleagues.
“As it happened, we were both promoted to the rank of Lt. Col on the same day, April 1, 1963.
“I was subsequently appointed as Adjutant General while he was Quartermaster General of the Nigerian Army.
“We held these posts until May 1965 when I attended the JSSC course in Latimer, UK while Ojukwu was posted as Commanding Officer of the Fifth Battalion, Nigerian Army in Kano. “After the January 15, 1966 coup, he was appointed the Governor of the Eastern Region while I was appointed the Chief of Staff (CoS) to the GOC, General Ironsi.
“In strict military hierarchy, therefore, I was senior to him by my appointment, yet Ojukwu refused to recognise me as such.
“This issue was at the root of his refusal to acknowledge me as the ‘de facto’ leader of Nigeria after the second coup of July 29, 1966. “Being in Enugu and out of the loop of the situation in Lagos during the July 1966 coup also did not help matters for him.
“As Commodore Wey would later say at Aburi, distance made it difficult for Ojukwu to properly appreciate the enormity of the problem that we all grappled with in Lagos where we had an unprecedented disciplinary situation on our hands.
“The situation was so bad that Wey easily concluded that if soldiers refused to take orders from superior Army officers, they would not think much of disobeying naval or other officers from sister arms of the service. As he later told Ojukwu at Aburi: ‘It would have been very unfair to Ogundipe or any other person for that matter to take command and there is no point accepting to command a unit over which you have no control’.
“I set eyes on Ojukwu after nearly six months of non-physical contact when he arrived at the venue of the meeting in Peduase Lodge.
“He was accompanied by some officials of his government, as the Nigerian delegation was already aware. I noticed that his beards had grown into a virtual wilderness in the mould of Cuba’s Fidel Castro.
“This, perhaps, was in keeping with the posturing of fiery revolutionaries found in history books.
“When we shook hands, I casually told him he now looked very much like Castro and that, despite our differences, he remained my brother-in-arm and fellow Nigerian.
“He merely smiled in response. As we had always done, we called each other by our first names, not ranks and we followed this protocol all through our deliberations.
“Our host, General Ankrah, did very well to ensure that the atmosphere was as relaxed as could engender fruitful deliberations.
“He struck the right notes by first emphasising that the issue at hand was the ‘domestic affair of Nigeria’, after which he enjoined us to resolve our differences with ‘patience, understanding and mutual respect’.
“He charged that as military leaders, we must be mindful of our’ onerous responsibility of rebuilding and reconstructing’ our country and, unlike politicians, we must be the last to hastily commit our men to war.
“His position very well aligned with mine because it was in tandem with my vision of a peaceful, progressive, and undivided Nigeria.
“I was hopeful that we would have a good meeting. Some of the pictures we took at Aburi validated my optimism.
“In 2013, I again saw some of these photos in a magazine produced by Nigeria Prays, a non-denominational, non-governmental organisation of which I am the Convener and Chairman.
“The memories they evoked reinforced my belief that Aburi truly was an excellent opportunity for the military leaders to discuss and evolve lasting solutions.
“The photographs certainly captured the cordiality of the meetings though the course of subsequent events was misplaced and became unfortunate.
“The meeting had barely been called to order when, again, Ojukwu exhibited to breach of our earlier agreement.
“He produced a fundamental aide memoire that had purposely been put together for the meeting in utter disregard of our initial agreement before we left home.
“To avoid causing the meeting to be deadlocked before it got off ground, I decided against insisting on the agreement or reminding him of our word against set positions.
“Doing either would have brought all our efforts over the past few months to nought.
Instead, I made a joke that he had brought his ‘Pink Papers’. At the Staff College, officers or students generally usually presented all their answers on typed white foolscap sheets while the Directing Staff (DS) prepared solutions on ‘Pink Papers’ which were used to grade students’ answers to questions.
“This was unmistakable evidence that Ojukwu, ab initio, had a different understanding of our coming to Aburi as officers trusting in esprit de corps to achieve some results and return home to deal with identified problems properly and amicably.
“From all indications, Ojukwu and I worked from the extremes of whatever values we placed on our word as officers and gentlemen.
“He had no problem with admitting that he ‘prepared for the negotiation’, contrary to our understanding to have a simple relationship mending meeting.
“His assertion that he did not know if the rest of us thought we had come to Aburi for a ‘night club session’ further demonstrated his palpable misreading of human nature.
“I have no regrets about not falling back on the intellectual firepower of our team of highly cerebral and patriotic civil servants who had proved their love for a united country beyond doubts, especially during and immediately after the events of January 15 and July 29, 1966.
“Since I had no plan to have a slinging match with Ojukwu or to forcibly justify any position or try to browbeat anyone, it was a lot easier for me to have made a promise in utmost good faith and kept to it despite obvious provocations. “Without laying claim to a morally superior high ground, I refuse to accept the judgment of some historians that my decision to meet the rebels man-to-man and devoid of any prepared briefs, as agreed, was foolhardy.
“The while idea of our meeting was to establish personal communication, so my colleagues in the SMC and I were receptive to the idea of examining ad seriatim all issues raised by Ojukwu in his position paper.
“As far as the military was concerned, none of us denied that terrible things had happened in the country politically from the conduct of the elections in 1964 to the events of January 15, 1966 onwards.
“But we were determined, despite everything, to properly appraise the situation and deal with it in great details and with a high degree of level-headedness.
“We were confident that whatever requests we endorsed at Aburi, for the sake of country, would form the basis of lasting agreements to be reached at our subsequent meetings in Nigeria.
“Ojukwu’s motion that all parties renounced the use of force in the settlement of the brewing crisis certainly sat well with me and the rest of the SMC members.
“Indeed, it was the most pragmatic thing to do if we were to set on an honest path to peace. It did not matter that his plan was to buy some more time to enable him stockpile arms and ammunition.
“We were also mindful that he had cleverly planned to apply the brakes on our ability to deploy the numerical advantage of existing firepower of the Nigerian Army in the event of an immediate outbreak of hostilities.
“We knew he was compelled to buy time because his surreptitious arms build-up had suffered a serious setback in October 1966 with the crash in the hills of Northern Cameroons of the DC-4 aircraft with which he had hoped to smuggle in a cache of arms.
“Several months after the Aburi meeting, Ojukwu confirmed our belief that he had been bidding his time to enable him to stock his armoury.
“In May, 1967, at a meeting in Enugu with a delegation of the National Concillation Committee that comprised Chief Obafemi Awolowo, Prof. Samuel Aluko, Chief Jereton Mariere and Chief J.I.C Onyia, who represented the West and Mid-West Regions respectively, Ojukwu confidently declared he had attained ‘equality of arms’ that would make it possible for the East to discuss the future of Nigeria based on equality: ‘Quietly I built up. If you do not know it, I am proud, and my officers are proud, that here in the East6 we possess the biggest army in Black Africa. I am no longer speaking as an underdog: I am speaking from a position of power.’
“I did not believe Ojukwu’s play to the gallery; I only said to myself that we would see about that. This was because we knew better. “Regardless of his posturing, the reality was that a rough count of military installations and troops in station placed the Eastern Region at an obvious disadvantage compared to the rest of the nation.
“This was plain for all to see, except the Governor of the Eastern Region who believed that he could silence machine guns from the Federal side with the ‘120 rifles’ he claimed to have had and sheer bravado.
“For us, therefore, debating the non-use of force at Aburi was an unnecessary exercise that was very much like preaching to the converted.
“Our decision to accede to this proposal did not confer any advantage on the government of the Eastern Region were we to meet on the battlefield.
“Before we went to Aburi, there had been a sustained clamour for the restructuring of the Army owing to upheavals across the country.
“In the West, for example, the political leadership levied all manner of allegations including harassment against Northern troops in the Nigerian Army stationed in Ibadan and other towns in the West.
“At the height of their agitations, they came to me in the company of some senior Yoruba officers, notably Col Adeyinka Adebayo, Majors Olusegun Obasanjo and Olufemi Olutoye, among others to demand that the ‘soldiers of occupation’ from the North be moved out of the West to their region of origin. “I asked the officers if they were in accord with the views expressed by the politicians and they answered in the affirmative. I felt sad and disappointed with the senior officers, though to be very honest, many of them came back one after the other after the meeting to dissociate themselves from the political stance of the group.
“At the Ad Hoc Constitutional Conference in 1966, delegates from the East had put forward this same demand among pro-conditions for their return to the table.
“They insisted that Northern troops be moved out of the West, failing which they would stay away from continued participation in the conference. Western delegates concurred with this position. Ojukwu’s demand for the setting up of Army Area Commands, therefore, was not new because it was consistent with the clamour.
On the tough time Gowon had with Awolowo paying for arms to prosecute the Civil War, he wrote:
“While we were waiting for the Soviets to help, we had to find other means of getting ammunitions to the men on the warfront. This was necessary because we needed to by-pass the restrictions imposed by our official armament suppliers in the West, which denied us access to supplies of ammunition, spare parts and hardware equipment. With the situation getting more critical, I sought the assistance of alternative suppliers. A good Lebanese friends of Nigeria, Mr Ali Jamal, a businessman who strongly believed in a united Nigeria linked us with the ‘black-market’. I had known him shortly after I became Army CoS and we thereafter remained good friends.
“Jamal was not deterred even after I told him that I had no money with which to make immediate payments for the purchases. He told me not to worry and that he would use his own money to provide the ammunition we needed but would want to be reimbursed interest-free at the shortest possible time. “With his support, we were able to get some of the hardware, and the ammunition we needed to change the face of the war. It was only after he had made good on his promise that I was able to order the troops back to full action whilst we awaited the fulfilment of the promise made by the Soviet Union.
“Ironically, the battle in the theatre of war almost became child’s play when time came for me to honour payment to Jamal. At the Federal Executive Council, the Finance Commissioner, Chief Awolowo, especially gave me a tough time by his decision not to make the payment to Jamal. Despite my gentle plea that he should reason with me considering that I had given Jamal my word of honour that he would be paid as soon as we got the goods, Chief Awolowo did not shift ground. I was further upset by his firm explanation that he could not make the payment because the process of getting help from the Lebanese was not properly followed and documented and, as such, was an extra-budgetary expenditure.
“I was aghast because it suddenly appeared to me that the Finance Commissioner and others at the FEC did not understand the depth of the problem I was in to ensure the survival of the men in the field and that war was successfully prosecuted. I had lived everyday with the anxiety that anything could go wrong at any moment if I were unable to supply our young men at war with the means to defend themselves. I knew if they turned their back and began to flee the battlefield, they would not stop until they crossed to the other side of the River Benue at Makurdi and what a disaster that would be! I did not want the failure and the avoidable death of the men to be on my head and conscience. I told Chief Awolowo that I was honour bound to pay Jamal.
“I’m afraid I’ll want to use my powers and authority, which I think I can do as Head of State and Head of Government, to give any department the order to do what is required to be done.
“This was about the only time that I really got upset with the Vice Chairman of FEC during our time together. The atmosphere in the Council chamber became charged as we argued back and forth. To defuse the tension after I had issued the order to the Vice Chairman, I called that we moved on to other matters on the agenda because I was not going to discuss the ieeue any further. Although I used anger and the power of my office to win the argument and retain the integrity of the nation with my friend, I felt proud of my team that always insisted on following due process to justify every action and every expenditure, Jamal subsequently was paid in full”.
@By Nnamdi Ojiego, Vanguard