1966 coup plotters planned to make Awolowo Head of State — Olutoye

 50 years after, Oba Olutoye, participant in Nigerian Civil War tells the world that Nzeogwu coup was meant to install Awolowo

1966 coup plotters planned to make Awolowo Head of State — Olutoye

The Owa of Ido-Ani, Oba Olufemi Olutoye, is a retired Major-General in the Nigerian Army. In this interview with PETER DADA, he shares his experiences as a soldier and his level of involvement in the 1966 military coup

Can you share your background with us?

My name is Olufemi Olutoye. I was born in Ido Ani town, Ose Local Government Area of Ondo State. I spent the early part of my childhood days in Benin City, Edo State, when my father was the headmaster at St. James’ Primary School, Benin City. From there, I went to Government College Ibadan in 1945. I completed my secondary school education in 1949. I then gained admission to the University of Ibadan in 1950 and I graduated in June 1954. I also went to Cambridge University and concluded my course there in 1955. When I returned to Nigeria, I started teaching at the Olu-Iwa College, Ijebu Ode, (now Adeola Odutola College). Later, I left teaching to join the Nigerian Army in 1957 and I retired in 1977.

What informed your decision to join the army, when you were a university graduate?

I believed then that I had attained the height of the teaching profession because teaching then was different from what we have now. I worked in a private school and I believed I had already reached the limit and that there was nothing to look forward to again. Secondly, I wanted adventure.  I taught briefly in a public school in England where there was a Cadet Corps, where young boys were given uniforms. I asked myself then that why couldn’t we have such kind of school in Nigeria? I was the acting principal for a year, so I had to leave after that. That was when I got to the army where I rose through the ranks to become Major General before I eventually retired in 1977.

You were in the army when the first coup happened in Nigeria. Can you tell us about your experience?

I hope that I will have time to write more about that coup but I am doing something on it right now. The coup was led by Chukwuma Kaduna Nzeogwu. He was a Major in rank and of course, I was a Major then too but I was his senior. So I knew about that coup. I can say that now but I could not say that then because, in the army, the mere knowledge of a coup is a problem. We were together in India. So, he informed me about it and I enquired more about how he hoped to carry out the plot. When he told me that it would involve killings,  I told him to count me out. I told him that I did not join the Nigerian Army to kill Nigerians.

Was he the one that personally approached you to inform you about the plan?

Yes, he personally came to inform me about it in 1964 when we were in India and the coup was carried out in 1966. Few other things happened which we cannot say now until the time is ripe.

Lt. Col. Odumegwu Ojukwu wrote to Lt. Col. Victor Banjo

 BACK  TO  HISTORY :

 Lt. Col. Odumegwu Ojukwu wrote to Lt. Col. Victor Banjo commanding him to invade and liberate Western Nigeria (Yorubaland) from the “Hausa/Fulani dominated Nigeria”.

 From: The Military Governor,

Republic of Biafra,Enugu,

22nd August, 1967.

My dear Victor,

 1. For some time now, you and I have been discussing the circumstances that have led to the current and inevitable disintegration of what was the Federation of Nigeria. We have been fully convinced that the aim of the Hausa/Fulani complex has ever been, and will ever remain, the total domination of every other part of what was known as the Federation of Nigeria. It is impossible to forget that the crisis which led to the army take over in January 1966, the coup of the Northern soldiers led by Gowon in July 1966, the wholesale and indiscriminate massacre of the people of what is now Biafra- and, to a less degree,the people of the Mid-West and West, including the Yorubas, were all the direct result of Hausa/Fulani attempt to subjugate and use as tools,the gallant people of Western Nigeria namely the Yorubas. We do not need to remind ourselves of the heavy losses in life and property suffered by the Yoruba people in their fight for justice and freedom during 1965.

 2. Sharing our belief that the people of Yorubaland have a right to live a life of equality and self-respect and justice free of domination and dictatorship from any quarter, you have both identified with the cause of the Biafra struggle for survival and expressed your determination to see the people of Yorubaland freed from Hausa/Fulani domination.

We, the people of Biafra, for our part are willing and have decided to give you and the people of Yorubaland every assistance to achieve your aim.

 3. After clearing the whole question with my Executive Council, I, as the Commander in Chief of the Biafran Armed Forces, have decided to place at your disposal Biafran forces, for the liberation of

Yorubaland on the following clear conditions:-

 (i)You will have nothing to do with the Military Administrator in the Mid-West Territory during your sojourn there prior to your move to the West.

 (ii)The willingness and preparedness of Biafra to assist any part of the former Federation of Nigeria wishing and willing to liberate itself from the Hausa/Fulani domination, does not in anyway whatever

SIT-AT-HOME: Do Igbo really want to leave Nigeria?

Written by Clifford Ndujihe, Deputy Political Editor

~vanguard Nigeria. MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 24, 2018

• Igbo will be comfortable in a restructured Nigeria - Agbakoba
  
  
• 98% of Igbo will say no to Nigeria in a referendum -Elliot Ukoh

Today's largely successful compliance, for the third time, with the sit-at-home order of the Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB, in most cities of the South-East geo-political zone; parts of Port-Harcourt, Rivers State; and Asaba, Delta State, has many implications for the polity.

It shows the ground and support that the IPOB and other pro-Biafra groups are gaining in the South-East. It has also raised the question of whether or not the Igbo really want to leave Nigeria. Arguably, the Igbo are the most dispersed and travelled people in Nigeria. They are found in virtually all villages in the country and reputed to have huge investments in terms of buildings and businesses outside Igbo land. Put in another way, they have invested more in other parts of the country than any other ethnic group. Hence they stand to lose more if anything untoward happened to Nigeria as an entity.

However, in spite of these massive investments that could be endangered, a host of Igbo are deep in the struggle for the actualization of the Republic of Biafra. The first battle for Biafra ended 48 years ago after claiming an estimated three million lives in a 30-month civil war. Since 1999, various struggles for Biafra have claimed thousands of lives.

Yesterday's sit-at-home by IPOB was to protest the killings of unarmed IPOB and Igbo youths during peaceful protests by soldiers; the maltreatment, arrest, detention, and humiliation of 127 Igbo women, who protested in Owerri, recently; and Operation Python Dance III in the South-East among others.


Igbo will be comfortable in a restructured Nigeria- Agbakoba

Asked his take on the success of the sit-at-home order in many parts of Igbo land, former President of the Nigerian Bar Association, NBA and human rights lawyer, Dr. Olisa Agbakoba, SAN, said the development has worrying implications for the country.

His words: "I think the reality is that the nation has gone out of control. The rudiments of governmental authority have been seriously eroded. In the latest ranking of the failed states index, Nigeria is listed as a distressed state. This means Nigeria has ceased to be in control of its territorial environment as a result of insecurity, breakdown of law and order, ethnic insurrections and a host of other actions.

"What this shows is that Nigeria is in a very parlous state. It is questionable how far the Federal Government is exercising its territorial authority over the sovereign regions of Nigeria. IPOB is a rebel government whether we like it or not. The extent the rebel government can generate enthusiasm among the people is another question that will be answered by the success of the sit-at-home order. There are many rebel governments in Nigeria. Boko Haram is a rebel government. Niger-Delta militants are rebel governments, etc. There is a crack in the sovereign control of the Nigerian government.

"It is very worrying that within Nigerian territorial environment, an ethnic group can generate enthusiasm and recognition from the people. It has great implications because if they can do it successfully now, they can do it at the 2019 general elections and that is not good for the peace and good governance of Nigeria."

ASABA MASSACRE: SEEKING HEALING 50 YEARS AFTER (AN ADDENDUM)

Written by Temple Chima Ubochi
Email: ubochit@hotmail.de
Bonn, Germany

We come nearest to the great when we are great in humility (Rabindranath Tagore)The parents eat sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge'? (Ezekiel 18:2)
The thought that really crushes us is the thought of the futility of life of which death is the visible manifestation (Giacomo Leopardi)Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player, that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more; it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing (William Shakespeare)

After reading Azuka Onwuka's heart-rending masterpiece on the Asaba massacre (link below), I started soliloquizing, wondering why Lt. Col. Muritala Mohammed, assisted by Major Ibrahim Taiwo, and their men of the Second Division of the Nigerian Army, during the genocide called civil war, were so callous and evil to massacre unarmed Asaba civilians even when they declared they were for peace; pledged their allegiance to Nigeria; and renounced any support for Biafra?

The government that took over Nigeria after the failed first coup, but was sacked by the northern counter coup led by Muritala Mohammed, TY Danjuma et al: Head-of-State and Supreme Commander of the Nigerian Armed Forces, Major-General Johnson Thomas Umunakwe Aguiyi-Ironsi (centre) with his Regional Military Governors from left to right; Lieutenant-Colonels, Hassan Usman Katsina (North), Francis Adekunle Fajuyi (West), Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu (East) and David Akpode Ejoor (Mid-West), 1966 (Courtesy: Alex Otti)

Then, I started looking for answers why the second battalion of the Nigerian army, under the leadership of Muritala Mohammed, isolated Asaba town, and why the Asaba people were marked out for elimination, afterall, Asaba is not inside the Igbo mainland? It then occurred to me that the calculated effort to massacre Asaba people was vindictive.

A year before the massacre, some junior army officers sacked the First Republic government of Nigeria through a failed bloody coup. One thing leading to another, few prominent Northern leaders were killed, and a military government was enthroned - the then Nigeria's Prime Minister, two Premiers, politicians and top ranking soldiers were killed, and that coup later led to that civil war of 1967-1970. The northerners termed that coup an Igbo one, despite the fact that the officers who carried it out came from all parts of Nigeria. The leader of that coup was Major Kaduna Nzeogwu, and was from Asaba. The massacre was a payback for Asaba for producing Nzeogwu who led the coup that killed some northern leaders.

Muritala Mohammed; as a military officer; civil war commander; and head of state was a fiend incarnate; unfortunately, people didn't know or see how devilish he was, before he went the way of those he sent to their early graves. Tell me why Asaba people should be singled out for elimination, because Kaduna Nzeogwu was from there? Afterall, Dimka or Orka's respective towns or people were not sequestered for elimination after their own failed coups.

Ojukwu's 1967 speech that called for secession of Biafra

Source: From the archives: Declaration of Biafra.

~Vanguard Nigeria. Tuesday, May 30, 2017.

Late Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu

Exactly a day like today, 30 May 1967, Lieutenant-Colonel Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu, the then Military Governor of Eastern Nigeria declared the sovereign state of Biafra in a speech that got Ndigbo fighting for self independence from Nigeria.

For three years, the defunct Country, Biafra, fought Nigeria in a civil war that claimed millions of lives.

Today, the Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB led by Nnamdi Kanu, Movement for the Actualisation of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB), Biafra Independent Movement, BIM, and other pro-Biafra groups have declared a commemoration to mark Biafra Day.

However, below is the speech delivered by Ojukwu in 1967, urshering in the civil war.

By Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu:

Fellow countrymen and women, you, the people of Eastern Nigeria:

Conscious of the supreme authority of Almighty God over all mankind, of your duty to yourselves and posterity;

Aware that you can no longer be protected in your lives and in your property by any Government based outside Eastern Nigeria;

Believing that you are born free and have certain inalienable rights which can best be preserved by yourselves;

Unwilling to be unfree partners in any association of a political or economical nature;

Rejecting the authority of any person or persons other than the Military Government of Eastern Nigeria to make any imposition of whatever kind or nature upon you;

Determined to dissolve all political and other ties between you and the former Federal Republic of Nigeria;

Prepared to enter into such association, treaty or alliance with any sovereign state within the former Federal Republic of Nigeria and elsewhere on such terms and conditions as best to subserve your common good;

Affirming your trust and confidence in me;

Having mandated me to proclaim on your behalf, and in your name, that Eastern Nigeria be a sovereign independent Republic,

Now, therefore, I, Lieutenant-Colonel Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu, Military Governor of Eastern Nigeria, by virtue of the authority, and pursuant to the principles, recited above, do hereby solemnly proclaim that the territory and region known as and called Eastern Nigeria together with her continental shelf and territorial waters shall henceforth be an independent sovereign state of the name and title of "The Republic of Biafra". And I do declare that-

1. all political ties between us and the Federal Republic of Nigeria are hereby totally dissolved;
2. all subsisting contractual obligations entered into by the Government of the Federal Republic of Nigeria or by any person, authority or organization or government acting on its behalf, with any person, authority or organization operating, or relating to any matter or thing, within the Republic of Biafra, shall henceforth be deemed to be entered into with the Military Governor of the Republic of Biafra for and on behalf of the Government and people of the republic of Biafra, and the covenants thereof shall, subject to this Declaration, be performed by the parties according to their tenor;

iii. all subsisting international treaties and obligations made on behalf of eastern Nigeria by the Government of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, shall be honored and respected;

1. Eastern Nigeria's due share of all subsisting international debits and obligations entered into by the Government of the Federal Republic of Nigeria on behalf of the Federation of Nigeria shall be honored and respected;
2. steps will be taken to open discussions of the question of Eastern Nigeria's due share of the assets of the Federation of Nigeria and personal properties of the citizens of Biafra throughout the Federation of Nigeria;
3. the rights, privileges, pensions, etc. of all personnel of the Public Services, the Armed Forces and the Police now serving in any capacity within the Republic of Biafra, are hereby guaranteed;

vii. we shall keep the door open for association with, and would welcome, any sovereign unit or units in the former Federation of Nigeria or in any other parts of Africa desirous of association with us for the purposes of running a common services organization and for the establishment of economic ties;
viii. we shall protect the lives and property of all foreigners residing in Biafra; we shall extend the hand of friendship to those nations who respect our sovereignty, and shall repel any interference in our internal affairs;

1. we shall faithfully adhere to the charter of the Organization of African Unity and of the United Nations Organization;
2. It is our intention to remain a member of the British Commonwealth of Nations in our right as a sovereign, independent nation.

Long live the Republic of Biafra! And may God protect all who live in her!

Future of Nigeria: Gowon warns of looming danger

Written by Caleb Ayansina

General Yakubu Gowon (Rtd)

Former Head of State, Gen. Yakubu Gowon (rtd), at the weekend, said the consequences of not putting Nigerian youths on the path of rectitude would be too hard to bear for the country, stressing that he foresees danger ahead.

Consequently, he called on leaders, parents and guardians to rise up to various issues of moral decadence in the country.

Gowon, who was speaking at the 25th Anniversary of the Scripture Union (NIG), Abuja Area, and the presentation of a Book; ‘Acts Of The Pilgrims’, noted that the future of the country appears gloomy if “we do not rise up” to the issues.

His words: “May I challenge every participant and invited guest here that today’s celebration calls us into deep reflection of our lost Godly values and virtues, particularly, as christian men and women, and seek to recover them.

“This occasion must therefore compel us to reflect deeply on the state of the nation, particularly the issues relating to moral decadence, sexual perversion, restiveness, precarious security challenges and corruption.

“We must rise up to deal with various issues of moral burdens in our educational institutions and labour to arrest the tide through massive prayer campaign and action.

“If we do not arise to bring our youths into the path of rectitude, then their future will appear gloomy, and, therefore, we cannot build a virile nation of trust, integrity and good governance.”

While extolling the contributions of the SU to the course of humanity, Gowon said: “I can testify that SU as is popularly called has stood the test of time for several decades, and in particular Nigeria, in the pursuit of rugged evangelism and christian perfection.

“I am indeed proud to identify with the work of the Scripture Union as it has proved to be a strong evangelistic force on our University campuses, across various institutions and has actively provided the spiritual foundation and needs of our Nigerian Christian youths with significant proofs.

“Many of you seated here today can testify to the immense impact and influence of the SU upon your lives in your respective campuses and institutions as young christian students.

“I have no doubt that the purposeful and strategic influence of Scripture Union will continue to impact the church and our nation.”

With Biafra it is finished, says Gowon

~Vanguard, Nigeria. 

General Yakubu Gowon (Rtd)

Former Head of State, General Yakubu Gowon, has dismissed threat of Nigeria's unity as he also said that with Biafra it is finished and

General Yakubu Gowon made this statement recently in reaction to the resent protests by some youths.

He said that Nigerians have put behind them the bad memories of the 1967 civil war, and that those behind these protests on Biafra don’t have an inkling what the Biafra war cost Nigerians.

The elder statesman speaking in Lafia, the Nasarwa State capital shortly after a malaria eradication campaign questioned that ‘do they want us to go to another war? but hoped and I prayed to God that such should not happen.’

He went further to say that those involved in this campaign were being driven by just a few people and that majority of the Igbo people do not share the same view.

‘It is only them, the few, that are there but the majority of the Igbo people that I know are not with them’

Acceding to the fact that the protesters have the right to express their feelings he stated "with Biafra it is finished".

He said these people ‘let them say their views, yes it democracy but let s make sure they can express their wishes and desires but let them remember with Biafra it is finished. it is not a threat’

He further said that keeping Nigeria one was behind all that he did and not for hatred for the Igbo as that was what Odumegwu Ojukwu also stood for.

All I did is not a result of hatred against the Igbos but on the principle of keeping Nigeria one and this is all we are trying to do and that was why at the end of the war in other to see that there is no heard feeling we used the term no victor no vanquished

I have said if there is anything of this sort anywhere in any part of the country just like the problem of Boko Haram we should deal with it, Nigeria should deal with it in matured way .