Remembering the horror of 1966 coup (2)

Continued from yesterday
YET the bitter truth is that if the new Head of State, General Johnson Aguiyi-Ironsi, had done the right thing and actually prosecuted the ringleaders of the coup, who were Major Kaduna Nzeogwu, Major Anufuro, Major Ademoyega, Major Timothy Onwuatuegwu, Captain Emmanuel Nwobosi, Captain Okafor, Captain Ben Gbulie and all the other young officers that planned and executed the coup of January 15th after it was crushed, there would have been no northern revenge coup six months later.

I have not added Major Emmanuel Ifejuana (who was actually the leader of the coup) to the list because he ran away to Ghana immediately after the mutiny in Lagos failed and after he and his co-mutineers were routed by Lt. Col. Yakubu Jack Gowon.

For some curious reason after the coup was successfully crushed, General Aguiyi-Ironsi just locked these young mutineers up and he refused to prosecute them. This bred suspicion from the ranks of the northern officers given the fact that Aguiyi-Ironsi himself was an Igbo. The suspicion was that he had some level of sympathy for the mutineers and the fact that they did not execute him during the course of the mutiny only fuelled that suspicion.

The northern officers also felt deeply aggrieved about the wholesale slaughter of their military colleagues and key political figures that night. In my view that, together with Aguiyi-Ironsi’s insistence on promulgating the Unification Decree which abolished the federal system of government and sought to turn Nigeria into a unitary state, made the revenge coup of July 29th 1966 inevitable.

The revenge coup was planned and led by Major Murtala Mohammed (as he then was) and it was supported and executed by other young northern officers like Major T.Y. Danjuma (as he then was), Major Martins Adamu and many others. This is the coup that was to put Lt. Col. Yakubu Jack Gowon (as he then was) in power and when they struck it was a very bloody and brutal affair.

The response of the northern officers to the January 15th 1966 mutiny and to General Aguiyi-Ironsi’s apparent procrastination and reluctance to ensure that justice was served to the mutineers was not only devastating but also frightful. Hundreds of army officers of mainly Igbo extraction who were perceived to be sympathetic to the mutineers were killed that night including the Head of State General Aguiyi-Ironsi and the Military Governor of the old Western Region who was hosting him, the courageous Colonel Adekunle Fajuyi. This was very sad and unfortunate.

Regardless of the pain of the past, I believe that we should do all we can to put these matters behind us. We must not allow ourselves to become prisoners of history. Rather than being propelled by pain and bitterness and becoming victims of history we must learn from it and be guided by it. We must establish and accept the truth about those ugly events and understand what actually transpired. We share a common bond and we are all partakers of an ugly and frightful history. I tell myself: “were it not for divine providence my father would have also died and I would not have been what I am today because he was the one who educated me and did everything for me.” If nothing else I know there was a purpose for that.

We must resolve among ourselves that never again will people be attacked in their homes, dragged out, abducted and shot like dogs in the middle of the night. Never again will women, wives and children be slaughtered and terrorised in this way. Never again shall we witness such barbarity and wickedness in our quest for power. Never again must any Nigerian suffer such indignity, brutality and callousness. May the souls of all those that were murdered on January 16th 1966 continue to rest in peace.
Concluded
Fani-kayode is a former Minister of Aviation.