Where we came from a story By Reuben Abati"

January 15 every year is Nigeria’s Armed Forces
Remembrance Day: wreaths are laid, statements
are made, soldiers, government officials and the
Nigerian Legion attend parades, pigeons
symbolizing peace are released, a dinner is
organized for widows of fallen soldiers and there
is so much talk about death and dying for one’s
country all in honour of Nigerian soldiers who
have had to die so that Nigeria may live. In terms
of context however, what is also celebrated is the
surrender of the secessionist Biafran forces to the
Nigerian government on January 15, 1970, a
throw back to the country’s three years of civil
war.
This is downplayed just as government
similarly conveniently ignores the fact that
January 15 is also the date of the first coup
d’etat in our country. It is 50 years today since
that incident. And it is most unlikely that the
Federal Government will devote much attention to
that particular aspect of our history. But even if
they don’t, the families of those who fell to the
bullet on January 15, 1966 will certainly
remember. It is a day that should be specially
remembered by all Nigerians and students of
history because that was when things finally fell
apart and the rains began to beat our roofs. On
this day in 1966, four Igbo military officers and
one Yoruba, five Majors in all, led by 29-year old
Major Kaduna Nzeogwu struck in Kaduna, Lagos,
and Ibadan, as they sought to take over Nigeria
by revolutionary means in a bloody coup d’etat.
Nzeogwu told his compatriots: “Our enemies
are the political profiteers, the swindlers, the men in
high and low places that seek bribes and demand 10
per cent; those that keep the country divided
permanently so that they can remain in office as
ministers or VIPs at least, the tribalists, the
nepotists, those that make the country look big for
nothing before international circles, those that have
corrupted our society and put the Nigerian calendar
back by their words and deeds. Like good soldiers
we are not promising anything miraculous or
spectacular.
“But what we do promise every law abiding
citizen is freedom from fear and all forms of
oppression, freedom from general inefficiency and
freedom to live and strive in every field of human
endeavor, both nationally and internationally. We
promise that you will no more be ashamed to say
that you are a Nigerian...”
Opinion is radically divided, North and
South, as to whether the January 15 putschists
were heroes or villains. What can be said is that
Nzeogwu’s revolutionary statement was a pointed
summary of widespread discontent with post-
independence realities in the First Republic. When
Nigeria became independent on October 1, 1960,
there was so much optimism about the future.
On November 16, 1960, when Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe
assumed office as Governor-General of the
Federation, he proclaimed: “the past is gone, with
all its bitterness and rancor and recriminations.”
But the past did not go anywhere. Instead, it
caught up with the present, and ruined the future,
with all “its bitterness and rancor and
recriminations”.
At no time did the British colonialists make
any effort to run Nigeria as a single nation, if
anything, they sowed the seeds of discord as has
been admitted by a colonial officer, Harold Smith
who confessed that Nigeria was deliberately
rigged to fail as an independent country. This
much was evident during the years and events
leading up to independence, particularly the
Constitutional Conferences, 1950 -1958, and the
elections, 1951-1959. The political parties of the
time – the AG, NPC, NCNC, NNDP, NEPU, UMBC
and even the smaller parties were all ethnic-
based, promoting either sectarian or sectional
interests.
The political elites were all ethnic gladiators,
motivated by prejudices. They fought not for
Nigeria, but for power and their kinsmen’s
interests. In effect, the people of the South did
not feel comfortable with the people of the North
whom they considered “feudalistic and backward.”
The Northerners in return did not trust anybody
from the South. They resented the growing
presence of Easterners in their region and the
attempt by Southerners to dominate the Northern
Public Service. Regional competition was fierce
and when any region felt uncomfortable, there
were threats of secession. In 1953, in fact, the
West threatened to secede from Nigeria. That
same year, a clash between Igbos and the Hausa/
Fulani in the North left over 30 people dead. By
1958, Sir Ahmadu Bello had boasted that the
North will dominate the entire Nigeria. The
minorities also began to express their concerns
about being dominated by the majorities and they
actively set up platforms to give themselves a
voice in the Nigerian Federation.
This was the setting at independence in
1960. The country’s leaders posed for
photographs but the recent past was fully
embedded in their consciousness. It didn’t take
long before the past caught up with the present.
The British who used to mediate and act as a
stabilizing lever had begun to disengage. The
field was left open for all the recriminations of
the past to take centre stage and they did.
Everything in the First Republic became a
problem. The new leaders could not organize
themselves politically without rancor and violence,
or a resort to ethnic prejudices. They fought over
derivation formula, census, elections, positions in
government at the Federal and regional levels. In
1962, the Western region practically slipped into
crisis resulting in the declaration of a state of
emergency by the Balewa Government.
The victims were the Nigerian people. They
watched as the new political elite became rich,
how they gave positions to their kith and kin, how
government became a centre of corruption,
nepotism, inefficiency and mediocrity. Whatever
traces of integration and trust that may have
existed began to disappear. This was the Nigeria
of Chinua Achebe’s No Longer at Ease and A Man
of the People. The people expected independence
to bring quality change but it left them worse off
than they were under the British.
This of course inspired youth radicalism with
groups like the Dynamic Party led by Dr Chike
Obi, the NCNC Youth Association led by Mokwugo
Okoye, the Nigerian Youth Congress led by Dr
Tunji Otegbeye, and the National Union of
Nigerian Students (NUNS) beginning to query the
country’s democratic prospects. Concerns were
expressed about the usefulness of Westminster
parliamentary democracy and whether it would
not have been better for the country to adopt
socialism, a masses-oriented system. It was also
the age of Pan-Africanism. It was also around
this period that African intellectuals began to
ponder the possibility of having benevolent
dictatorships to give post-colonial Africa, the
stability it needed.
But the idea of dictatorship did not quite
gain grounds in Nigeria. When there was a coup
in Sudan in 1958, and Togo in 1963, the reaction
in Nigeria on both occasions was that it would
never happen here. But it did happen, 50 years
ago today. By the time the coup failed and ended,
what was left, fairly or unfairly, was its ethnic
colouration and bias. The key plotters except one
were all Igbos. The people who were targeted in
the main theatres of operation: Kaduna, Lagos
and Ibadan were all non-Igbos. Only one Igbo life
was reportedly lost: Col Arthur Unegbe, and that
was because he could not be trusted. The
received impression is that the coup failed on the
platforms of irredentism, its selectiveness and
one-sidedness, even if some of the other ranks
under Nzeogwu’s command in Kaduna were
actually Northerners and other Nigerians.
Senior officers, like Brigadier Zakari
Maimalari and Brig. Samuel Ademulegun, were
killed by younger officers who were well-known to
them. Prime Minister Tafawa Balewa’s body was
dumped somewhere along the Lagos-Abeokuta
road. The Premier of the Northern Region, Sir
Ahmadu Bello was killed along with his wife,
driver, and security assistant. Chief SLA Akintola,
Premier of the Western Region was gunned down
in his bedroom. Minister of Finance, Chief Festus
Okotie-Eboh also lost his life.
Others included Col. Ralph Shodeinde, Col
Kur Muhammed, Lt Col. Abogo Lagerma, Lt Col.
James Pam, PC Yohanna Garkawa, PC Haga Lai,
Lance Corporal Musa Nimzo, Sgt. Daramola
Oyegoke, PC Akpan Anduka and Ahmed Ben
Musa. And when it was all over, Dr Nnamdi
Azikiwe was conveniently, and most suspiciously,
away on a cruise in the Caribbean. An Igbo man,
Nwafor Orizu, the acting President handed over
power to another Igbo man, General Thomas
Aguiyi-Ironsi.
Although a highly qualified officer, Ironsi
didn’t stand a chance. He had been instrumental
to making the coup fail, and had tried to promote
Northern officers after the January coup, but he
was, all the same, accused of treating the coup
plotters with kid gloves, and of trying to impose
Igbo hegemony on Nigeria. The January 15 coup
brought all extant suspicions to the fore; by May,
there were reports of Igbos being killed by
Northerners and cries of likely secession by the
North.
On July 29, 1966, young Northern military
officers, responding to widespread anti-Igbo
sentiments in their region over the January coup
and objections to Ironsi’s Unification Decree,
staged a counter-coup. Led by Lt. Col. Murtala
Muhammad, they had among them a few South
Westerners and minorities. They removed the
Ironsi government from office, killed him and Brig.
Adekunle Fajuyi, his host, and thereafter took over
power. This rise of the North will last for decades
in one form or the other. Many of those young
officers have remained at the centre of Nigerian
politics ever since.
But the significant point is that the inherited
“bitterness and rancor and recriminations” have
not gone away. They caused the civil war of
1967-70. They are also the reason why 50 years
later, Igbos still feel alienated and the minorities
are claiming that they are under assault from
majority-domination. All the cleavages of old have
remained active made worse by religious conflict,
greed and heightened elite incompetence.
“There was once a country,” Achebe said. But
unfortunately, there is still no nation, no freedom
from fear, oppression, erosion of democratic
norms of fair play, distrust of the political elite,
rising expectations, corruption, inefficiency,
incompetence, vengeance and blood-letting. May
be economic prosperity and justice for all is the
answer. But when will that happen? Nigeria’s
story being a story of ifs and wherefores: after
more than ten coups since January 15, 1966, and
so many endless recriminations, we can only
perhaps hope that sustained democratic rule will
in the long run, provide us the necessary
opportunities to make amends.