X-Raying The Ifeajuna-Nzeogwu Coup 58 Years After It Destroyed Nigeria’s Innocence
By Reno Omokri
Today, January 15, 2024, is the fifty-eighth anniversary of the coup, now colloquially referred to as the Nzeogwu Coup. And because of the damage inflicted on the armed forces by that coup, Armed Forces Remembrance Day in Nigeria is always observed on January 15th. Why? Because if the military forgets what happened that day, it shall repeat itself. Not may. SHALL!
Already, the daughter of one of the deadliest of the majors who took part in that coup emailed me last week, threatening that there will soon be a repeat of that coup to finish what her father started. We shall see.
One of the reasons why the January 15, 1966 coup opened the Pandora’s Box in Nigeria and destroyed the almost idyllic communal coexistence between the North and South pre-1966 is the fact that Majors Ifeajuna, Nzeogwu, Anuforo, Onwuategwu, Okafor and Captain Nwobosi, and their subordinates were not sensitive to religious sensibilities enough to have planned their coup after Ramadan.
They killed their victims during the holy month of Ramadan, and that was unforgivable on the part of the core Northern Muslim officers led by Lt. Colonel Murtala Muhammed.
Almost as bad is the fact that either through omission or commission, all those who did the killing during the participation of the coup were of the Igbo ethnic group, but those they killed were from other ethnicities, except for Lt. Colonel Arthur Unegbe.
The only reason he was killed was because he was the QuarterMaster-General, Army Headquarters, Lagos, and therefore was in charge of the armoury.
When Major Chris Anuforo went to his house to demand the keys to the armoury, he refused and was shot. He was NOT on the original list of people to be killed.
If you don’t believe in the spiritual echo of divine justice, then consider that Majors Kaduna Nzeogwu, Emmanuel Ifeajuna, Timothy Onwuatuegwu, Adewale Ademoyega, Chris Anuforo, Humphrey Chukwuka, Donatus Okafor all plotted and executed the January 15, 1966 coup. All of them were involved in some of the most gruesome killings ever in Nigeria, except Majors Adewale Ademoyega and Humphrey Chukwuka, who both refused to shed blood.
Major Adewale Ademoyega, in his book, ‘Why We Struck’, revealed that he had been tricked into participating in the coup by Ifeajuna in the belief that politicians from all regions would be ARRESTED.
Below is an excerpt from that book:
“The next most important cause of our failure was the behaviour of Ifeajuna himself. Having seen that Ironsi had got loose and was already raising troops against us, Ifeajuna took Okafor with him and both of them suddenly disappeared from our midst.
This raises the serious question of whether or not there was a common collusion between the two of them and whether Okafor’s failure to arrest the GOC was not a case of deliberate or willful omission.”
Now, is it a coincidence that in the space of a year, all of them were dead, except the same Major Adewale Ademoyega, who refused to shed blood? Galatians 6:7 says, “Whatever a man sows, that he will also reap.”
Now, let me take them all one by one.
Ifeajuna: Major Emmanuel Ifeajuna was the coup leader. He personally killed the Prime Minister, Sir Abubakar Tafawa-Balewa, probably the cleanest and most upright politician in Nigeria’s history. Ifeajuna also killed his boss, Brigadier Zakariya Maimalari, a Northerner, and the only specially-trained top military officer, Sandhurst, as the others, including Ironsi, rose through the ranks.
If Prime Minister Tafawa Balewa and Sardauna Ahmadu Bello were the tribal bigots that Ifeajuna made them out to be, they would have picked Maimalari as the GOC of the Army. But they chose Aguiyi-Ironsi, a military clerk who ride through the ranks. In hindsight, was that a mistake?
The thing about the death of Brigadier Zakariya Maimalari was that he had escaped from Major Okafor, whom Ifeajuna had sent to kill him. He was barely 100 meters to the safety of the Federal Guards Brigade when he saw Ifeajuna’s Mercedes Benz car. He was so relieved At seeing Ifeajuna, whom he had just hosted some hours ago at his home, that he came out of the bushes.
He was Ifeajuna’s direct boss and was like a father to him, so he never believed that Ifeajuna was one of the plotters. As his car approached, he stopped Ifeajuna, who greeted him with a hail of bullets, killing him on the spot.
Ifeajuna was himself executed by Lt. Colonel Emeka Ojukwu on September 25, 1967, after a kangaroo trial on charges of treason.
Nzeogwu: Major Chukwuma Nzeogwu killed Sir Ahmadu Bello and his first wife, Hafsatu, who stood between him and her husband. He also killed some members of Sir Ahmadu Bello’s household and one of his own men, Sergeant Daramola Oyegoke, who refused to kill innocent civilians.
Major Nzeogwu died in unclear circumstances. Rumours were rife that he was actually killed by Lt. Colonel Ojukwu, who was said to have felt threatened by his wide popularity in the Republic of Biafra. But Ojukwu denied this.
The official version is that he was caught in an ambush by troops of the Nigerian Army, who killed him. He died on July 29, 1967. It was the first anniversary of the counter-coup to his own coup. Another coincidence?
Anuforo: Major Chris Anuforo was the most bloodthirsty of the mutineers. He killed the Minister of Finance, Chief Festus Okotie-Eboh, and Lt. Colonels Kur Mohammed and Arthur Unegbe. When Major Humphrey Chukwuka refused to kill Lt. Colonel Pam, who had been responsible for his rapid rise in the army, Anuforo got angry and killed him.
The manner in which Anuforo killed Lt. Colonel Kur Mohammed was particularly evil. Kur Mohammed did not resist or beg for his life. Rather, he started praying without asking for permission, at which point Anuforo rained bullets on his back.
After I wrote about this, an unrepentant daughter of Major Chris Anuforo, named Mrs. Mary Ann Ihejieto, emailed me on Monday, January 8, 2024, and threatened my life. I disregarded her threats but published her email. And then, four days later, a gentleman with an accent that betrayed his ethnicity traced me to my jogging route and physically threatened me. I am undeterred.
Major Chris Anuforo was captured from Benin prison on August 6, 1966 (some reports say it happened the previous day) by Northern troops and tortured before he was killed.
Chukwuka: Major Humphrey Chukwuka was responsible for arresting Lt. Colonel James Pam. But he refused to kill him. He was almost killed by Major Anuforo.
After the coup failed, Lt. Colonel Ojukwu released Humphrey Chukwuka from prison in Eastern Nigeria, and he fought for Biafra. He was arrested after the war and jailed in 1970 until he was released in 1975 by the then Head of State, Lt. General Olusegun Obasanjo.
Okafor: Major Don Okafor was a confidante of Prime Minister Tafawa-Balewa and practically lived at his house. He was the one who betrayed the PM’s movement to Ifeajuna, who killed him. In that sense, he had blood on his hand. He was also the one who went to arrest and kill Brigadier Maimalari, but the Brigadier escaped and was later killed by Ifeajuna.
He was killed during the July 29, 1966 counter-coup because he was unfortunate enough to be jailed at Abeokuta, where the coup began. His death was gruesome because he was buried alive.
Onwuategwu: Major Timothy Onwuatuegwu killed Brigadier Samuel Ademulegun and his eight-month-pregnant wife, Latifah Ademulegun, who stood in front of him, thinking that Onwuatuegwu would not shoot a pregnant woman. He did. His shots awakened their two other children, who rushed into their bedroom to see their blood-soaked bodies.
Onwuategwu was killed on January 15, 1970, the day Biafra surrendered. The circumstances of his death are unclear, but it is believed that he took advantage of Colonel Obasanjo’s kindness and tried to kill him in the process of surrender, and was gunned down by Obasanjo’s bodyguards.
Of the plotters, only Majors Ademoyega and Chukwuka refused to shed innocent blood. And they are the only ones who survived and lived well into old age. Is it a coincidence? You tell me!
But why were no Igbo politicians killed in a coup by mostly Igbo soldiers whose claim was that they were waging a revolution against corruption?
Major Ifeajuna claimed the coup was about corruption. If that was the case, the then Trade Minister, Dr Ozumba Madiwe, had been indicted for blatant corruption. He used his office to divert government land to his private business, a firm known as Afro Properties and Investment Company. Thereafter, he leased the land back to the government through an agency under his ministry at a very inflated amount.
He was investigated and indicted. The scandal was broken by the Daily Times, whose then editor, Babatunde Jose, insisted that Mbadiwe must resign. But he refused, and the Prime Minister could not sack him because it was his party, the NCNC, that enabled him to be Prime Minister by forming a coalition with him. If he had sacked him, the NCNC would have left the alliance, meaning his government would collapse. Chief Awolowo could then seize power if he could form a coalition with a rival Northern party, like the Northern Elements Progressive Union (NEPU).
But Ifeajuna did not touch Mbadiwe, whose house he passed on the way to Prime Minister Balewa’s house.
Also, was Chief Nnamdi Azikiwe aware of the coup? There were suspicions but no conclusive proof.
Major Ifeajuna was from the same village as Chief Nnamdi Azikiwe. He was close to Azikiwe and was a regular visitor to his house as well as a friend to his son.
It was considered strange that Azikiwe went on a Caribbean cruise for his leave and very conveniently refused to return to Nigeria after the leave had expired. His ADC Orho Obada, who later rose to become a Major General, kept asking Chief Azikiwe when they would return to Nigeria as his leave was over. He eventually abandoned Chief Azikiwe in Haiti and returned to Nigeria.
The actions of Chief Azikiwe left some people feeling he was aware of the coup. But that is conjecture. Nobody really knows. But that suspicion became even more heightened when Haiti provided support for Biafra when war broke out.
After the coup failed, the remaining cabinet members asked the British for military assistance, but the then British High Commissioner to Nigeria, Sir Francis Cumming-Bruce, said that such a request would have to come from either the Prime Minister or an acting Prime Minister.
At that, there was a quarrel between the Northern Peoples Congress Ministers who felt that as senior members of the coalition, their candidate, Zanar Dipcharima, the Minister of Transport, should be sworn in as the acting Prime Minister. However, the NCNC Ministers felt Ozumba Mbadiwe, a man who had been indicted for corruption, should be the interim Prime Minister after a coup that was ostensibly meant to rid the nation of corruption. Talk about corruption fighting back!
That the NCNC ministers were lobbying to have an Igbo replace Balewa after a coup where Igbos killed Balewa and other top civilian and military leaders is just stunning!
As a result of this stalemate, they invited the Attorney General of the Federation, Taslim Elias, who said the Constitution was on the side of the NPC.
From there, the rump of the cabinet proceeded to the acting President, Nwafor Orizu, to swear in Dipcharima. But Orizu demurred. And while the ministers waited, Major General Ironsi came to meet with Orizu.
The optics appeared to be lost on the two men. Either that, or they were indifferent to it. Two Igbos meeting to the exclusion of other top government officials from other ethnicities, under the very charged and sensitive circumstances at that time.
After that meeting, Nwafor Orizu made a national broadcast announcing that the cabinet had ‘voluntarily’ agreed to hand over to the military headed by Ironsi, an Igbo general. To the NPC ministers, it was just too neat. But they could not voice out their opinions seeing as they had no cover.
There is controversy on whether the cabinet actually agreed to do that. The NPC ministers have one version, while the NCNC ministers have another version.
What we know for a fact is that the next day, January 17, 1966, Major General Aguiyi-Ironsi announced the formation of the Supreme Military Council and the end of the First Republic.
Aguiyi-Ironsi’s emergence as Military Head of State caused restiveness in the Army, as he was Igbo, and the January 15, 1966 coup plotters were also mostly Igbos. Northern military officers felt it was too tidy to be a coincidence.
The core Northern officers were pacified to an extent after Major General Aguiyi-Ironsi promised them he would try the January 15, 1966 coup plotters. Unfortunately, Aguiyi-Ironsi did not try them. Maybe he planned to do so later on, but up until July, he had not.
Then word got out that those arrested, including the most brutal of them, Major Chris Anuforo, were still receiving salaries in prison and, worse, were scheduled to be promoted. That riled the Northern officers.
Additionally, Igbos in the North were accused of mocking the late Sardauna, Ahmadu Bello. Some people had printed almanacks of his face on a goat’s body. Others had made posters of Major Nzeogwu as Angel Michael, with his sword drawn and his leg on the head of satan, who was depicted as the Sardauna.
To add salt to injury, a highlife musician named Celestine Ukwu released a song in Igbo titled Ewu Ne Ba Akwa, meaning ‘the goat is crying’, which Northerners felt was mocking the Sardauna.
According to insiders, the chief reason for the coup was the Unification of Assets Decree Number 34, promulgated on May 24, 1966, by then Head of State, Major General Johnson Umunnakwe Aguiyi-Ironsi, which seized all the assets and powers of the regions and domiciled them in the Supreme Military Council headed by him, and perceived by Northerners as being dominated by Igbo officers.
When Major Emmanuel Ifeajuna’s office was searched after the coup failed and he fled to Ghana, one of the plans in his written manifesto found in his office was the seizure of assets of the regions and their direct control. So, when Aguiyi-Ironsi promulgated Decree Number 34, it was felt by some of the young Northern officers that he was implementing Ifeajuna’s vision.
Then Ironsi sacked the Federal Attorney General, Taslim Elias, and replaced him with a fellow Igbo, Chike Onyiuke.
Then, he appointed three advisers. Perhaps naively, ALL of them were Igbo, like him. They included Chief Francis Nwokedi, Dr. Pius Okigbo and Colonel Patrick Anwunah. Calls for him to appoint at least one token non-Igbo were disregarded.
Additionally, it was said that some Northern officers were upset that he appointed Pius Okigbo, whose brother, Chris Okigbo, helped Emmanuel Ifeajuna, the coup leader, escape to Ghana. To put this into perspective, after the April 22, 1990 Orkar coup, Major Saliba Mukoro’s brother was detained by the Babangida regime.
Honestly, that was not a wise move from Ironsi.
All of these combined to spell his doom, and it is unknown which one triggered the July 29, 1966 counter-coup. But the coup itself happened by chance.
There was a completely innocent event in the Abeokuta barracks. Some Igbo officers were hanging out, and because of the historical fear generated from the way Igbo officers gathered together and started killing on January 15, 1966, the Northern non-commissioned officers panicked, and shooting ensued.
Once it started, it did not stop until….the rest is too gruesome to recount here. Was this divine justice, known by some as karma, at work?
