Almost 50 years after the first military coup in Nigeria that culminated in the Nigerian Civil War, General Ibrahim Babangida, a former military leader of Nigeria who gave himself the title “president”, opened the discussion on that ugly incident that created a problem that has been hard for Nigerians to resolve. In his recently released book, Journey in Service, Babangida countered the “Igbo Coup” tag that was allegedly strategically foisted on that coup by the Western media. Listing the names of the coup plotters, the casualties of the coup, the military officers who foiled the coup, and the man proposed by the coup plotters to be made the head of state (Chief Obafemi Awolowo), he argued that the coup was not an Igbo coup.
Why does Babangida’s view carry much weight? He is from Northern Nigeria, the part which felt the coup was primarily targeted at them. He was in the Nigerian Army at the time of the coup and fought on the Nigerian side against Biafra. He was a former head of state who participated in many coups in his heyday.
Babangida went ahead to state in the book that contrary to the argument that Emeka Odumegwu Ojukwu as the governor of the Eastern Region caused the war, it was Yakubu Gowon’s failure to secure and protect the lives and property of the Igbos in the North that forced Ojukwu to declare the secession of the Eastern Region from Nigeria in May 1967, after the Aburi Accord in Ghana was breached by Gowon.
The issues that led to the Nigerian Civil War still bedevil Nigeria today. Ethnic-based injustice and lack of respect for human life are top of the list. Gowon and the massacre of Igbos, especially in the North, as well as the open and tacit endorsement of that massacre by other parts of Nigeria, caused the war. Sadly, decades after, the same issue of injustice and disregard for human life is meted out to different groups and individuals across Nigeria. Even Babangida himself was guilty of that in different ways, especially the annulment of the June 12, 1993 election, which was won by Chief MKO Abiola, and eventually led to the deaths of so many people, including Abiola and his wife Kudirat. Injustice in Nigeria is seen as “turn by turn”.
The series of things that led to the civil war supports the view of Babangida. Firstly, between 50,000 and 100,000 Igbos were massacred in cold blood in 1966 without Gowon and his lieutenants doing any serious thing to protect the Igbos or to stop the carnage. Other Nigerians, except for a few lone voices, said it served the Igbos right. Those who perpetrated the massacre were, therefore, emboldened to continue.
Secondly, even though Gowon and his lieutenants, who assassinated the head of state, Maj. Gen. Johnson Aguiyi-Ironsi, and other Igbo officers in the retaliatory coup of July 1966, said it was not a coup but a military change in leadership, yet he perpetrated the military indiscipline of assuming power above Brig. Babafemi Ogundipe, who was next in rank to Aguiyi-Ironsi.
Thirdly and most importantly, after signing an agreement in Aburi as soldiers, whose words were supposed to be their bond, before Ghana’s Head of State, Lt. Gen. Joseph Ankrah, Gowon reneged on the accord, which was an act of bad faith.
Every honest person would fully admit that the North had every reason to be angry that predominantly Igbo soldiers killed their top men in the January 1966 coup, but if the North had retaliated by killing Ironsi and other Igbo men in power, Igbos would have seen it purely as a military affair and moved on with their lives. But going beyond that and moving from house to house, smoking out children, women and defenceless men, who had been their neighbours and friends, and butchering them, with other parts of Nigeria keeping quiet or justifying it, was the unkindest cut of all. Soldiers do not consult civilians when planning coups. When Lt. Col. Buka Suka Dimka or Major Gideon Orkar executed bloody coups against Generals Murtala Mohammed and Ibrahim Babangida in 1976 and 1990 respectively, the North did not go from house to house to kill people of the Middle Belt.
Ojukwu, the son of the richest Nigerian whose investments were almost 100 per cent outside Igboland, was accused by Easterners of delaying the declaration of the Republic of Biafra because it seemed he was not keen on jeopardising his father’s investments. It took almost one year of negotiations and pressure before he finally did so. If you were the son of billionaires Aliko Dangote or Mike Adenuga, you would not be eager to lead a secession in Nigeria. For one to take such an action, something grievous must push one to do so. Any other person who was the governor of the Eastern Region in 1967 would have declared the Republic of Biafra or resigned or ousted. And resignation at a time like that meant betrayal, and betrayal meant death.
It was because those who murdered the defenceless visitors in their midst in 1966 were not brought to book, that is why till today such ugly incidents continue to happen in different parts of Nigeria. Those who murdered Jews in cold blood in Europe 80 years ago are still being tried and jailed. Those who murdered 8,000 Bosnian Muslims in Srebrenica in 1995 during the Bosnian War are still being tried and jailed. But those who repeatedly murder their innocent and defenceless compatriots in Nigeria are treated with kid gloves, making it a matter of time before they execute the next carnage.
Any time injustice is perpetrated, and we keep quiet, we make ourselves accomplices and future victims. It does not matter whether the victim is our enemy. When Mr Ken Saro-Wiwa was protesting the environmental degradation of Ogoni land and was later hanged, some of my Igbo brethren said, “That served him right,” because he supported Nigeria against Biafra. However, I said: “No, the man had a right to fight against the injustice meted out to his people, and his hanging was despicable.” When Chief MKO Abiola was denied his mandate, jailed, and died in prison, some people gloated that the Yorubas were witnessing the injustice the Igbos complained about in 1966, but I said: “No; it is unjust and wicked to steal a man’s mandate, put him in prison, kill his wife and kinsmen and watch him die under mysterious circumstances in custody.” Also, when the O’odua Peoples Congress unleashed terror against the Hausa/Fulanis in Lagos in 1999/2000, some applauded it saying it was a long-overdue retaliation, but I was disgusted by such aggression against defenceless Hausa/Fulani from their hosts. (Thank God for true nationalists like Chief Gani Fawehinmi, who came down hard on the OPC, denouncing them and dissociating himself from them). The same thing goes for the persistent carnage going on in Jos as well as the violent activities of the Boko Haram, Fulani Herdsmen, IPOB, and Yoruba Nation.
Evil is evil, no matter to whom it is meted out. Injustice is an injustice anywhere in the world. If you keep quiet today because your enemy is the victim, when it is your turn, nobody will be available to speak for you. Martin Niemöller said: “First they came for the communists, and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a communist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a Jew. Then they came for me and there was no one left to speak out for me.”
Nigeria will never make any progress if we continue to see each other as enemies that should be easily butchered at the slightest disagreement, or if we continue to condone or justify injustice and discrimination. The more we murder one another because of differences in ethnicity or religion, the more we destroy the people’s belief in Nigeria and make Nigerians view each other with suspicion. The more we wallow in bigotry and hatred, the more we destroy Nigeria and continue to make it a potential giant, but never a real giant. Nigeria has bled for too long and we need to stop its wounds now.
