Yesterday, on Sunday, October 20, 2024, Peter Obi, the Presidential candidate of the Labour Party, faced with a mass revolt by his IPOB base of supporters, was forced to give an explanation for his congratulations to the former Head of State, General Yakubu Gowon, who his base view as public enemy number one.
However, in his explanations, Peter Obi made some claims that are not historically accurate. He said that General Gowon is an enemy that needs to be forgiven. And that betrays the fact that even Peter Obi himself has bought into the propaganda about the cause and origins of the Nigerian Civil War and its aftermath.
So that Mr. Obi’s lies are not taken as fact and history, public intellectuals like myself must set the record straight.
First of all, the fact that someone of Peter Obi’s calibre can twist history so brazenly exposes us as people who are not aware of our history. Because we are not aware of our own history, we have distorted it, such that propaganda and pseudo-history have been orally passed down from one generation to the other, feeding unfounded bitterness that is destroying those who harbour it and having no effect on those against whom they are embittered.
That is why some people believe they were just sitting down minding their business, and Hausa people came to fight them (all Northerners are Hausa to some people) because they hate them. There was absolutely no provocation or igniting events that preceded the Nigerian Civil War. Hausa people just woke up on the wrong side of the bed and, for some strange reason, decided to pounce on the people of Eastern Nigeria.
But, of course, that is not what happened. However, because we do not write our history, and even worse, we have refused to teach it in our schools, millions of people believe this version of events. In fact, they swear by it.
We cannot keep holding grudges as if other people do not have their own grudges that they have let go for the peace and unity of this country called Nigeria.
My great uncle, Chief Festus Okotie-Eboh, was shot and killed in the street by Major Chris Anuforo on January 15, 1966. Ironically, I went to school with Anuforo’s son. Should the Itsekiris carry a grudge forever?
Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa was shot on the street like a common criminal by Major Emmanuel Ifeajuna. Ifeajuna tried to deny it, and claimed that Alhaji Balewa died from an asthma attack, until his body was taken to the Lagos University Teaching Hospital and examined by the then minister for health, Dr. Moses Majekodunmi. It was established that the body was riddled with bullets in a front page story in Daily Times, written by Segun Osoba, who later became the Governor of Ogun. He is still alive.
This was an incorruptible gentleman. He lived a very ascetic life. Materialism was FAR from him. He was an author. His book, Shaihu Umar, was the first novel written in Hausa. He surrounded himself with Southerners (in hindsight, was that a mistake?). His best friend was Matthew Mbu. Should the Tafawa-Balewa family and the people of Bauchi, where he was from, hold a grudge forever?
I could go on and on and list the people killed on January 15, 1966, and the identities of their killers, but that would just be reopening old wounds. These are historical facts, which some people deny and pretend as if the Civil War happened in a vacuum.
So, please let us stop pretending as if General Gowon is an ‘evil’ man that needs to be ‘forgiven’ for igniting a war.
The Nigerian Civil War was ignited by a series of unfortunate events that began with the cold blooded murder of 22 people from the Northern, Western, and Mid Western regions by people of Eastern region origin, which led to a counter coup by Northern Nigerian military officers on July 29, 1966, and the unfortunate pogrom of 66-67.
All of the people who committed murders on January 15, 1966 were Igbos of either Eastern Nigerian origin, or of Midwest extraction in the case of Chukwuma Nzeogwu.
Many people now spewing vitriol against General Gowon for his role in the Nigerian Civil War conveniently forget that between August 9, 1967 and September 20, 1967, Biafran forces invaded and occupied the Midwest region, and named Albert Nwazu Okonkwo, as military Governor of the Midwest. A number of non Igbo speaking Mid-Westerners lost their lives during that Biafran occupation of the Midwest, including my relatives.
After the Midwest was liberated by forces led by colonels Murtala Muhammed and Benjamin Adekunle, more Mid-Westerners, this time those linguistically linked to the Igbo (especially in the Asaba axis), were killed.
Yet, in that same Midwest, we accepted Nigerians of Southeast origin back after the war. We did not seize their properties in the abandoned property saga that occurred in the Port Harcourt area and its environs. We let bygones be bygones.
The truth of the matter is that If the January 15, 1966 coup had never happened, it is most unlikely that the Nigerian Civil War would have occurred. The perpetrators of that coup opened a Pandora’s Box that the rest of Nigeria are still suffering from today! And now, a man who was indicted for fraud by the Pandora Papers is now trying to reopen that terrifying box.
There was wild jubilation all over Nigeria after the January 15, 1966 coup, because Nigerians believed it was a patriotic and nationalistic coup. Then the names of those killed were announced over the radio, and it was discovered that only people from the North, West and Midwest were killed, but no politician from the East was killed.
That is the remote cause of the Nigerian Civil War. We will remember it. We will also teach it to our children, so that it does not reoccur.
So, to just keep nursing grudges and reopening old wounds will do no one any good. You can bully others into submission, but you cannot do it to Reno Omokri. I know history and I am a meticulous record keeper!
The coup itself was led by Majors Chukwuma Kaduna Nzeogwu and Ifeajuna. It was executed by the following persons:
- Kaduna Nzeogwu
- Emmanuel Ifeajuna
- Timothy Onwuatuegwu
- Adewale Ademoyega
- Chris Anuforo
- Humphrey Chukwuka
- Donatus Okafor
Of these seven people, only one, Adewale Ademoyega, was non Igbo. The rest were all Igbo, although Major Nzeogwu was what was referred to at that time as Midwest Igbo (later colloquially referred to as Bendel Igbo and now as Delta Igbo). Major Donatus Okafor’s mother was Tiv. However, his father was Igbo.
Incidentally, some Igbos unwisely try to deny that Nzeogwu was Igbo, and call him ‘your South-South’ brother. Unknown to them, the more they do this, the more they make non Igbos feel that those specific Igbos who say they have learned very little since the civil war.
22 people were killed during the coup, including
- Abubakar Tafawa Balewa
- Ahmadu Bello
- Ahmed Ben Musa
- Hafsatu Bello
- Ahmed Pategi
- Samuel Ladoke Akintola
- Festus Okotie-Eboh
- Brig. Samuel Ademulegun
- Brig. Zakariya Maimalari
- Col. Ralph Shodeinde
- Col. Kur Mohammed
- Lt. Col. Abogo Largema
- Lt. Col. James Pam
- Lt. Col. Arthur Unegbe
- Sergeant Daramola Oyegoke
- Mrs Latifat Ademulegun
- Zarumi Sardauna
- PC Yohana Garkawa
- Lance Corporal Musa Nimzo
- PC Akpan Anduka
- PC Hagai Lai
- Philip Lewande
As is clear from the list above, none of them were from the then Eastern Nigeria except Unegbe, whose death was unplanned.
After the coup, Major General Johnson Aguiyi-Ironsi took over. Rightly, or wrongly, the rest of the nation felt that a coup carried out by overwhelmingly Eastern officers, and of which the victims were entirely non Easterners, and which supplanted a Northern minority leader (Tafawa-Balewa), with an Igbo leader, (Aguiyi-Ironsi) was a set up.
However, Major General Aguiyi-Ironsi’s promise to try the coup plotters placated the rest of the country. Sadly, the plotters were jailed, but were never tried. And the immediate cause of the July 29, 1966 counter coup was when rumours circulated that the coup plotters had been receiving full salaries in jail and were to be promoted.
These are facts that we all should address, rather than playing the victim and acting as if General Gowon committed a crime for which he should be forgiven. Gowon is a hero! And if we do not learn from our history, there is every possibility that another war might erupt in Nigeria.
The Biafrans inflicted a very harsh occupation on present day Rivers, Cross Rivers and Akwa-Ibom, as well as present day Delta and Edo before they were flushed out by federal forces. The Bayelsa area escaped the brunt of Biafran occupation due to the fight back from Isaac Adaka Boro. They invaded Ore and hundreds of Lukumi Yoruba soldiers and thousands of Omoluabi civilians died. There is still a Yoruba proverb about the amount of people that died in Ore. Ask a Yoruba person to tell you the meaning of ‘o le ku ija Ore’.
We have all forgiven and moved on. Yet, you want to reopen these old wounds and make them cancerous by blaming General Gowon 54 years after the war?
Reno Omokri
Gospeller. Deep Thinker. #BuhariTormentor. #TableShaker. Ruffler of the Feathers of Obidents. #1 Bestselling author of Facts Versus Fiction: The True Story of the Jonathan Years. Hodophile. Hollywood Magazine Humanitarian of the Year, 2019. Business Insider Influencer of the Year 2022.