60 Years After The Nzeogwu Coup: The Debate About An Igbo Agenda (1)

Last Thursday marked 60 years since the first military coup d’etat occurred in Nigeria. The bloody incident happened in the early hours of Saturday, January 15, 1966, bringing to an abrupt end the first republic. It was a putsch, to use the words of one of its perpetrators, Captain Ben Gbulie, “that was to alter in time the political climate of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.”

Ordinarily, choosing to write about this coup, I wouldn’t have preferred to take it from the ethnic perspective of whether it was an Igbo coup or not, as – for certain reasons related to intellectual and moral principles – I am not usually disposed to writing on ethnic controversies. Those who read my column regularly know that I engage in such discourse only quite rarely. However, the vigorous manner in which the question of whether that first military coup was an Igbo plot or not has continued to be debated on social media has compelled me to anchor my reflection on that controversial aspect of the coup.

But then we need to first be clear as to what actually constitutes an “Igbo coup”. Does a coup become an Igbo coup just because of the ethnicity of those who plotted it irrespective of what their agenda may be? The pertinence of this question becomes clear in the light of answers given before the Oputa Panel by retired Col. Hameed Ali, then Secretary of the Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF) and later the Comptroller-General of Customs under the Buhari civilian administration, to the effect that many coups in Nigeria had been plotted by people from particular parts of the country, but that this alone would not qualify such coups to be termed ethnic coups. He was specific that the Dimka coup of 1976 was not a “Middle Belt coup” despite having been led by officers from that region, and that the botched April 1990 coup is not to be termed a “Niger Delta coup” irrespective of the fact that save for Major Gideon Okar, all the leaders of the coup were from that part of Nigeria.

In other words, what would more appropriately qualify a coup as an ethnic or regional plot is the agenda (intention) behind it and not just the place of origin of the conspirators. If such an agenda is ethnic or regional, then the coup is ethnic or regional. If it is not, the plot cannot be so described.

Now the January 1966 coup has been labelled an Igbo coup not just for the fact that its leaders were mostly Igbo but also for the perceived Igbo agenda that inspired it. Those who view the coup this way allege that it was a grand plot to impose total Igbo domination in the country where the tribe was already a dominant group in the civil service and the military. Thus, that putsch that brought about the death of four political leaders (two from the north and one each from the west and mid-west) and seven military officers (four from the north, two from the west, and one from the east) was, according to this school of thought, aimed at eliminating the top political and military leaders of other regions of Nigeria to pave way for total Igbo hegemony.

The first thing that strikes one as evidence of the coup being an Igbo agenda is the fact that most of its leaders were of Igbo origin. However, it is difficult to dismiss how much the charge of an Igbo agenda labours in the face of the involvement of Major Adewale Ademoyega, a Yoruba, as one of its leading plotters. If the Igbo were planning to kill and neutralize leaders of other ethnic groups so as to totally dominate, involving a non-Igbo – not as a fringe actor but as one of the key architects of the plot – completely defies logic and indeed smacks of idiocy. As admitted by Ademoyega himself, the innermost circle of the coup comprised three persons – Nzeogwu, Ifeajuna, and himself.

Imagine the Hausa planning a coup to annihilate the Igbo political and military elite in the 1960 Nigeria and the key architects were Col. Kur Mohammed, Col. Yakubu Gowon, and – and quite strangely – Col. Chukwuemeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu. Unless one is deliberately refusing to reason, something certainly is not adding up about the agenda – just because of the third name. The same scenario arises if a purported Yoruba agenda has as its innermost circle Major Obasanjo, Major Fajuyi, and then Major Ifeajuna.

The account by Captain Ben Gbulie, one of the coup leaders, and the report of the Special Branch of the Nigeria Police which interrogated the suspects indicated that the very first meeting held by the conspirators was at Tarkwa Bay, a sequestered sleepy area on the island of Lagos. Ifeajuna, in his unpublished manuscript, mentioned Ademoyega as one of the participants in the meeting, which, according to him, was held in an unlighted room to preserve secrecy. This confirms how integral Ademoyega, a Yoruba, was to that plot. A people poised to implement a bloody ethnic agenda that would cost the lives of some ethnic groups and bring them into subjugation would not invite a member of one of the ethnic groups to their very first conspiratorial meeting. I am struggling to make sense of any argument to the contrary.

Again, there was no overriding strategic reason that would have compelled the conspirators to take the huge risk of involving Ademoyega in their supposed ethnic plot – he was not inevitable to the coup. He held no military command of his own, so had no troops – or even equipment under him – that would benefit the coup. He was serving with the 4th Battalion based in Ibadan commanded by Lt. Col. Abogo Largema.

In fact, the involvement of Ademoyega in the planning and execution of the coup so much challenges the “Igbo coup” idea that even the federal government of Gowon had to play a fast one when, after the civil war in 1970, it issued a publication titled “Nigeria 1966.” (I had the privilege of reading excerpts from the publication as reproduced in a book published in 1983 by Daily Times Newspaper titled “13 Years of Military Rule” which I found in my father’s collection.) In the publication, the federal government, while listing the names of those that participated in the January 1966 coup, began with the names of Igbo officers only for Ademoyega’s name to come in a later paragraph preceded by “others are…” That is to imply that he played a less important role in the plot than even the likes of Major Humphrey Chukwuka and Major Timothy Onwuatuegwu who were not even among the five leading plotters – but had their names listed earlier. Ademoyega, in his book, protested the attempt to deliberately play down his involvement in the plot simply to advance the idea of an Igbo plot. He insisted that his role as one of the trio that initiated and led the planning and execution of the coup cannot be denied.

Another problem with the “Igbo coup” idea is how the said Igbo plot involved just junior officers (of the rank of major and below) and excluded Igbo senior officers – the core of Igbo military elite – who should be the protagonists of such an ethnic agenda. Some persons have even alleged that the plot was initiated by the Igbo political elite who wanted to dominate the political space. But then common sense tells that the Igbo political elite, which included the likes of Azikiwe and Michael Okpara, would rather have worked with senior military personnel rather than junior officers. Not least among the reasons for this is the fact that these senior officers were the ones commanding the infantry units in the army and thus were more strategically positioned to execute a successful coup. Save for Major Donatus Okafor who was commanding the Federal Brigade of Guards, none of the junior officers that led the coup headed a combatant unit – a critical factor in any coup. Nzeogwu was the chief instructor at the Nigerian Military Training College (NMTC), Kaduna, Ifeajuna was the Brigade Major at the 2nd Brigade, Apapa, Lagos, while Ademoyega served under Col. Largema at 4th Battalion, Ibadan. Those that commanded infantry units were left out of the plot – Col. David Ogunewe (1st Battalion Enugu), Col. Hillary Njoku (2nd Battalion Lagos), Col. I. C. Okoro (3rd Battalion Kaduna), and Col. Ojukwu (5th Battalion Kano). The majority of the fighting troops of the then Nigerian Army were under the command of these senior officers.

But as it turned out, the coup took these officers by surprise as has been widely reported by, for instance, Njoku in his book, TRAGEDY WITHOUT HEROES. Similarly, Lt. Col. Patrick Anwunah of the army headquarters clearly stated before the Oputa Panel that the coup jolted them just as it jolted every other person. In fact, he was among those that worked with Ironsi to foil the supposed Igbo coup.

When, as a journalist, I met and briefly chatted with Anwunah in 2009 in Lagos shortly after he published his memoir, he told me that it kept surprising him how a coup most Igbo officers in the army did not know about could possibly be an Igbo coup. (The officers that plotted the coup were in minority vis-a-vis the number of the entire Igbo army officers then.)

Moreover, a truly Igbo coup in the Nigeria of January 1966 could not have failed. Out of the five infantry battalions that made up the Nigerian Army then, Igbo officers were in command of four. An Igbo, Major John Obienu, commanded one out of the two armoured units – the Reconnaissance Squadron 2 in Abeokuta (the other, the Reconnaissance Squadron 1 was being commanded by Major Uthman Hassan Katsina in Kaduna). Infantry and armoured units are the basic critical force required to successfully execute a coup. Also, the only artillery unit was commanded by an Igbo, Major Alexander Madiebo, while an Igbo, Major-General JTU Aguiyi-Ironsi, commanded the entire army.

However, it was Igbo officers that led the operation to frustrate the supposed Igbo agenda. Those included Ironsi, Njoku, and Anwunah. It was Anwunah that provoked Nzeogwu by calling him on the phone from Lagos and ordering him to surrender – to which Nzeogwu retorted, “or what will happen?” and Anwunah snapped, “you will be crushed,” prompting Nzeogwu to snap back, “you too will be crushed.” This telephone conversation has been reported in at least two books.

The idea of a small group of Igbo junior officers initiating and plotting an ethnic agenda on one hand while some Igbo senior officers, on the other hand, worked to frustrate the agenda does not exactly make sense to me.

TO BE CONCLUDED

Henry Chigozie Duru, PhD, teaches journalism and mass communication at Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka, Nigeria.