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On
the night of January 15th 1966 a coup d’etat took place in Nigeria which
resulted in the murder of a number of leading political figures and senior army
officers. This was the first coup in the history of our country and 98 per cent
of the officers that planned and led it were Igbo. From the political class
those that were killed included the following:
Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, the Prime Minister, who was abducted from
his home and whose body was dumped somewhere along the Lagos-Abeokuta road.
Sir
Ahmadu Bello, the Premier of the old Northern Region, who was killed in the
sanctity of his own home together with his wife, his driver and his security
assistant. Chief S.L. Akintola, the Premier of the old Western Region, who was
gunned down in the presence of his family and Chief Festus Okotie-Eboh, the
Minister of Finance, who was brutalized, abducted from his home and whose body
was later dumped in a bush.
From
the ranks of the military those that were murdered included Brigadier Zakari
Maimalari, who had held a cocktail party in his home a few hours earlier that
evening which was attended by most of the young officers that participated in
the coup. Brigadier Samuel Ademulegun who was shot to death in his matrimonial
bed along with his eight-month pregnant wife.
Others included Col. Ralph Shodeinde, Col. Kur Muhammed, Lt. Col. James
Pam, PC Yohanna Garkawa, PC Haga Lai, Lance Corporal Musa Nimzo, Sgt. Daramola
Oyegoke, PC Akpan Anduka and Ahmed Ben Musa.
Sadly
the mutineers came to our home that night as well and they brutalized and
abducted my father, Chief Remilekun
Fani-Kayode, the Deputy Premier of the old Western Region. What I
witnessed that night was traumatic and devastating for me and my family and, of
course, what the nation witnessed that night was horrific. It was a night of
carnage, barbarity and terror. The events of that night set in motion a series
of events which changed our history. The consequences of the events of that
night are still with us till this day. It was a sad and terrible night: one of
blood and slaughter.
What
I witnessed was as follows. In the
middle of the night, my mother came into the room which I shared with my older
brother, Rotimi and my younger sister Toyin. I was six years old at the time.
The lights had been cut so we were in darkness and all we could see were lights
from three large vehicles. The official residence had a very long drive so it
took the vehicles a while to reach us.
We
saw three sets of headlights and heard the engines of three lorries drive up
the drive-way. The occupants of the lorries, who were uniformed men and who
carried torches, positioned themselves and prepared to storm our home whilst calling
my fathers name and ordering him to come out. My father went out to meet them
after he had called us, prayed for us and explained to us that since it was him
they wanted he must go out there. He explained that he would rather go out to
meet them than let them come into the house to shoot or harm us.
The
minute he stepped out, they brutalised him. I witnessed this. They tied him up
and threw him into one of the the lorry. Interestingly, the first thing they
said to him was “where are your thugs now?” My father’s response was “I don’t
have thugs, only gentlemen.” I think this made them brutalise him even more.
They tied him up, threw him in the back of the lorry and then stormed the
house.
When
they got into the house, they ransacked every nook and cranny, shooting into
the ceiling and wardrobes. They were very brutal and frightful and we were
terrified. My mother, Chief Mrs. Adia Adunni Fani-Kayode, was screaming and
crying from the balcony because all she could do was focus on her husband, who
was downstairs.
“Don’t
kill him, don’t kill him!!” she kept screaming at them. I can still visualise
this and hear her voice pleading, screaming and crying. I didn’t know where my
brother or sister was at this point because the house was in total chaos. I was
just six years old and I was standing there in the middle of the house,
surrounded by uniformed men who were ransacking the whole place and terrorising
my family.
Then
out of the blue something extraordinary happened. All of a sudden one of the
soldiers came up to me, put his hand on my head and said: “don’t worry, we
won’t kill your father, stop crying.” He said this thrice. After he said it the
third time I looked in his eyes and I stopped crying. This was because he gave
me hope and he spoke with compassion. With new-found confidence I went rushing
to my mother who was still screaming on the balcony and told her to stop crying
because the soldier had promised that they would not kill my father and that
everything would be okay.
I
held on to the words of that soldier and that night, despite all that was going
on around me, I never cried again. They took my father away and as the lorry
drove off my mother kept on wailing and crying and so was everyone else in the
house except for me.
From
there they went to the home of Chief S.L. Akintola, the Premier of the Western
Region, a great statesman and nationalist and a very dear uncle of mine. My
mother had phoned Akintola to inform him of what had happened in our home. She
was sceaming down the phone asking where her husband had been taken and by this
time she was quite hysterical. Chief Akintola tried to calm her down assuring
her that all would be well.
When
they got to Akintola’s house he already knew that they were coming and he was
prepared for them. Instead of coming out to meet them, he had stationed some of
his policemen and they started shooting. A gun battle ensued and consequently
the mutineers were delayed by at least one hour. According to the Special
Branch reports and the official statements of the mutineers that survived that
night and that were involved in the operation their plan had been to pick up my
father and Chief Akintola from their homes, take them to Lagos, gather them
together with the other political leaders that had been abducted and then
execute them all together.
The
difficulty they had was that Akintola resisted them and he and his policemen
ended up wounding two of the soldiers that came to his home. One of the
soldiers, whose name was apparently James, had his fingers blown off and the
other had his ear blown off. After some time Chief Akintola's ammunition ran
out and the shooting stopped. His policemen stood down and they surrendered. He
came out waving a white handkerchief and the minute he stepped out they just
slaughtered him.
My
father witnessed Akintola's cold-blooded murder in utter shock and horror
because he was tied up in the back of the lorry from where he could see
everything that transpired. The soldiers were apparently enraged by the fact
that two of their men had been wounded and that Akintola resisted and delayed
them. After they killed him, they moved on to Lagos with my father. When they
got there, they went to the Officer’s Mess at Dodan Barracks.
When
they took my dad away everyone in our home thought he had been killed. The next
morning a handful of policemen came and took us to the house of my mother’s
first cousin, Justice Atanda Fatai Williams, who was a judge of the Western
Region at the time. He later became the Chief Justice of Nigeria. From there we
were taken to the home of Justice Adenekan Ademola, another High Court judge at
the time, who was a very close friend of my father and who later became a Judge
of the Court of Appeal.
At
this point the whole country had been thrown into confusion and no one knew
what was going on. We heard lots of stories and did not know what to make of
what anymore. There was chaos and confusion and the entire nation was gripped
by fear.
Two
days later my father finally called us on the telephone and he told us that he
was okay. When we heard his voice, I kept telling my mother “I told you, I told
you.” Justice Ademola and his dear wife, Auntie Frances, were weeping, my
mother was weeping, my brother and sister were weeping and I was just rejoicing
because I knew that he would not be killed and I had told them all.
I
never got to know who that soldier was (that promised me that my father would
not be killed), but I believe that God spoke through him that night. I also
believe that he may well have been an officer because he spoke with confidence
and authority.
These
individuals who carried out this coup were not alone: they got some backing
from elements in the political class who identified with them. Some have said
that it was an Igbo coup whilst others have said that it was an UPGA (referring
to the political alliance between the Action Group and the NCNC) coup but that
is a story for another day.
Whatever
anyone calls it or believes two things are clear: the consequences of the
action that those young officers took that night were far-reaching and the way
and manner in which they killed their victims was deplorable and barbaric. Such
savagery had never been witnessed in our shores. There has never been another
night like that and the results of that night have been devastating and
profound.
In
my view not enough Nigerians appreciate this fact. Some in our country cannot
forgive those who participated in the mutiny and, though I do not share that
sentiment or disposition, this is understandable. Others believe that those
young men (they were all in their 20's) did the right thing and they say that
those killings were necessary and heroic. This is a sentiment which I not only
despise but which I also find unacceptable and appalling. There is nothing
heroic about rebellion and the murder and carnage of innocent and defenseless
men and women.
The
coup affected the country in an equally profound manner because the events of
that night led to a counter-coup six months later. It was a devastating and
disproportionate response. Sadly after that came the horrendous pogroms and
slaughter of the Igbo in the North which eventually led to the civil war in
which millions of people died, including innocent children. This was also
horrendous and deplorable.
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 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 could not have been locked up or prosecuted by
General Aguiy-Ironsi simply 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. Jack (Yakubu) 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
or any other Igbo officer on the night of January 15th during the course of the
mutiny only fueled that suspicion.
The
northern officers also felt deeply aggrieved about the wholesale slaughter of
their 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. 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 mutiny and terrible killings that took
place on the night of January 15th 1966 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
January 15th 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.
What
happened on the night of January 15th 1966 was unacceptable and uncalled for. I
completely disagree with those who think that there was anything good about
that coup, the coup of July 29th 1966 or indeed any other coup which took place
in the history of Nigeria. This is because blood calls for blood: when you shed
blood, other people want to shed your blood, as well. The minute that the
shedding of blood in the quest to get power becomes the norm we are all
diminished and dehumanised: and this applies to both the perpetrators and the
victims.
The
January 15th coup set off a cycle of events which had cataclysmic consequences
for our country and which we are still feeling today. Coups may have happened
in other countries in Africa, but it did not mean that it had to happen here.
In any case, the amount of blood that was shed that night, the number of
innocent people that were killed was unacceptable. It arrested our development
as a people and our political evolution as a country. Had it not happened our
history would have been very different. May we never see such a thing again.
Yet
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, be guided by it and move on. We must
learn to forgive, even if we do not forget and, equally importantly, we must
first establish the truth about those ugly events and understand what actually
transpired.
What
happened that night traumatized the nation. None of us has been the same since.
I identify with that, because I was a part of it, I witnessed it and i was a
victim of it. Yet by God’s grace and divine providence, my father's life was
spared: not because he was special but simply by the grace of God. Every day I
think about those that were killed that night and I remember their families. 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 in this way. Never
again shall we witness such barbarity and wickedness in our quest for power.
Never again must any Nigerian suffer such brutality and callousness. May the
souls of all those that were murdered on January 16th 1966 continue to rest in
peace.
Written by Femi Fani Kayode
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