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| Lt. Col. Murtala Muhammed |
PLANNING TO OVERTHROW GENERAL IRONSI
There is no doubt that fairly soon after January 15, the motive for a northern counter-coup also known as "return match" was established. What remained were the means and the opportunity. In Kaduna, the Platoon Commanders Course at the NMTC provided an opportunity for young northern subalterns to come together to share ideas and vent frustration. These officers included Lts. Shelleng, Hannaniya, Muhammadu Jega, Sani Abacha, Sali, Dambo and others. They held secret meetings and even wrote a letter of protest to the Chief of Staff (Army) - Lt. Col. Gowon - openly stating that if senior northern officers did not take action within a certain time frame, they would, and that senior northern officers would have themselves to blame for the catastrophe. Indeed, the Ironsi government was sufficiently alarmed that on at least two occasions the course was suspended. For a brief period, thereafter, things were relatively quiet, but not for long. Matters began to stir in Lagos.
Although it is said that practically all northern officers serving in Lagos, Abeokuta, Ikeja and Ibadan eventually became involved, three officers formed the innermost circle of the plot to overthrow Major General Aguiyi Ironsi. They were T/Lt. Col. Murtala Muhammed (Inspector of Signals), T/Major TY Danjuma (General Staff Officer II, SHQ) and Captain Martin Adamu (2nd Battalion, Ikeja). The coup leader was T/Lt. Col. Murtala Muhammed.
According to late Major General Garba (rtd), others involved in planning in the South include Captain JN Garba, Lt. William Walbe and Lt. Paul Tarfa (Federal Guards), Lts. Muhammadu Buhari and John Longboem (2nd battalion), Lts. Pam Nwatkon (Abeokuta garrison, Recce), Lts Jerry Useni, Ibrahim Bako and Garba Dada (4th battalion, Ibadan), and Lt. Shehu Musa Yar'Adua (Adjutant, 1st battalion, Enugu). Air force conspirators included Majors Musa Usman and Shittu Alao. However, other officers were clearly involved because Muhammed compartmentalized the planning and also encouraged officers to recruit additional local conspirators and storm troopers. Examples include Lts. Nuhu Nathan and Malami Nassarawa at Ikeja, IS Umar in Abeokuta, Abdullai Shelleng, Haladu, Magoro and Onoja in Ibadan and Captains Jalo and Muhammadu Jega in Enugu, among others.
Active planning for the coup began after the promulgation of the Unification decree. In fact there was a brief scare in Kaduna when false rumors of Lt. Col. Hassan Katsina's arrest in Lagos by Ironsi after the May riots rent the air. Katsina had gone to Lagos for a meeting at which fruitless efforts were made to get the decree repealed. When he eventually returned to Kaduna he found the airport surrounded by irate northern soldiers.
Captain Garba was recruited in Lagos by being told that northerners were planning a coup to "pre-empt" an expected one by Igbo officers. This so called expected Igbo coup was also known as "Plan 15" - part 2 of the so called final solution to the northern problem perhaps (as the propaganda went) made all the more urgent by the killings of Igbos in the North during the May riots. Lagos conspirators, who were being closely watched, met in various locations, including their private cars, Muhammed's house, Garba's house, and during games at Abalti barracks.
At Ibadan, Lt. Col. Muhammed would often drive into town from Lagos, pick up Ibrahim Bako and Abdullai Shelleng at a pre-arranged location and drive around without stopping while they discussed.
The Kaduna group was not as formally organized as the Lagos-Ikeja-Abeokuta-Ibadan axis at this stage although it later consolidated and was in the habit of having meetings at Lugard Hall with northern civilians. However, Capt. Ahmadu Yakubu was the liaison who would drive from Lagos to Kaduna with messages from Lt. Col. Muhammed for Lts ADS Wya, Ibrahim Babangida, Garba Duba, BS Dimka, Dambo, Sani Abacha, Hannaniya, Salihi and others. Messages were also passed to the 5th battalion in Kano under Lt. Col Shuwa primarily for reasons of coordination. But Lagos was to be the fulcrum.
In order to keep tabs on what was going on inside the government, Lt. Col Murtala Muhammed maintained contact with northern civil servants in Lagos (like Muktar Tahir), while Captain Baba Usman of military intelligence provided insights into what the Army knew and did not know. Nevertheless, the Ironsi government had other mechanisms of information gathering outside official channels. For example, at least one officer, Lt. Jasper, then the intelligence officer at the 4th battalion in Ibadan, was suspected of passing information directly to Supreme HQ and perhaps even to Ironsi himself, bypassing the Army. All sorts of self appointed civilian informants were also known to mill in and out of Army formations passing rumors to Igbo commanders who would then find ways to get it to Ironsi. Major Danjuma, at that time a staff officer, was attached to General Ironsi as a military scribe, dutifully taking notes at his public hearings.
At the outset of planning for the coup, late General Garba says in his book '"Revolution in Nigeria", Another View', that "We intended explicitly to kill no one. The aims were, firstly, to get Decree No. 34 abrogated; secondly, to bring the coup makers of January 15 to trial; thirdly, to accord due honour to the military and political leaders - especially the Prime Minister - who had been killed."
However, as we now know, the rebellion was anything but bloodless as other agendas took center stage when all hell broke loose. Garba insists that there was no specific plan to annihilate all Igbo officers and soldiers - although it appeared so to neutral observers from the way many northern NCOs (aided by some officers and civilians) were carrying on with reckless abandon and total disregard for life and property. Garba himself admits that they went "berserk". The late General says, though, that had there been such a formal plan, specific Igbo officers would have been targeted and "no one would have escaped".
In my view, it is hard to know what to make of this comment, seeing as it means little considering the scale of killings. Nevertheless, thankfully to God, although many died, most Eastern officers, the vast majority being completely innocent of any connection either to the January 15 coup or to the Ironsi government, survived the July 29 rebellion. Unfortunately, thousands of innocent civilians were murdered in orgies of deliberate and mindless bloodshed that began in May and continued until September. There can be no justification for what transpired, although the circumstances have been explained and the sensitivity of the issues involved better understood with the passage of time. Interestingly, the vast majority of those soldiers detained for the January coup escaped primarily because they had been kept in jails located in the eastern region.
As planning developed, loose as it was, it was influenced (as are all coups) by issues of timing and opportunity. It is said that at least four plans were discussed. The first was to seize State House and place the Head of State under arrest. However, this would have entailed much bloodshed because of the security set up inside the State House grounds, bristling with weapons. In any case the General was also fond of leaving without warning to sleep on a Boat along the Marina which, on occasion, would set for sea. A decision was, therefore, made to stage the coup when he was outside Lagos to minimize bloodshed. The second was when initial plans were being considered for the transfer of the 1st battalion at Enugu to Ibadan in exchange with the 4th battalion. Lt. Shehu Yar'Adua was to be the coordinator of that plan. He would create some kind of confusion as a signal for the coup. This too was put off, likely because the decision to exchange both battalions also kept being put off and was not formally announced until late July. In any case, rumors (again, without foundation) soon had it that the regime may have been aware of a "battalion switch plot" and that the 4th battalion would be derailed by Igbo sappers.
On July 14, however, the government announced plans for General Ironsi to undertake a Nationwide tour. The tour would take him first through Abeokuta, Ibadan, Kano, Kaduna, Zaria, Jos, and Benin. He would return to Ibadan from Benin for a meeting of traditional rulers on July 28, spend the night, return to Lagos on July 29 and then resume his tour in early August to the East. The third plan, therefore, was to abduct General Ironsi during a visit to the North on July 19th. It too was put off, some say in deference to northern traditional leaders, while others say it was for reasons of military coordination. For one, Ironsi hardly slept outside Lagos thus reducing the window of opportunity to get him, and secondly, then Captain Garba, who was practically in command of the Federal Guards company in Lagos was scheduled to be in Fernando Po for a basketball game and would not be on the ground to help seize the capital.
The fourth plan, therefore, was to take place on July 28/29 during Ironsi's visit to Ibadan for the National conference of traditional rulers when he would be arrested by troops from the 4th battalion. His decision to spend the night there, guarded by the 4th battalion, provided a perfect opportunity. The code word for the coup was "Aure", a Hausa word for "marriage". Conspirators in southern Nigeria made coded reference to it by talking about "Paiko's wedding", Paiko being the nickname for (and hometown in Niger Province of) one of the northern subalterns at the 4th battalion who was to be the spearhead. But even this plan was put off by Lt. Col. Muhammed when it became apparent to him and Captain Martin Adamu that it had leaked, likely through Lt. Jasper. This is why Major Danjuma did not go to Ibadan with his combat dress.
A rough plan for early August when Ironsi would be in the East was thus discussed but not finalized. Nevertheless, Captain Baba Usman (GSO II, Int) had left for Enugu to coordinate with Lt. Yar-Adua when news of what happened in Abeokuta on July 28 came through, taking him by surprise. He is not the only one who was taken by surprise. Difficulty in getting the message of cancellation across to all parts of the country and all conspirators without using regular Army signals (then dominated by southerners) led to some complications elsewhere, including Kaduna, where Lt. BS Dimka was arrested on July 27/28 by Major Ogbemudia for attempting to break into the armoury, albeit drunk. As will be apparent later, a combination of panic, unplanned coincidences and accidents eventually triggered off the July 29 rebellion when northern NCOs at Abeokuta took matters into their hands.
ABEOKUTA GARRISON, THURSDAY, JULY 28, 1966
Shortly before 2300 hours on July 28, 1966, Lt. Col. Gabriel Okonweze, Commander of the Abeokuta Garrison was tipped off by Lt. Col. Patrick Anwunah, General Staff Officer (1) for Intelligence at Army HQ in Lagos, that the long anticipated Northern counter-coup was scheduled to begin that night. What Anwunah did not know for sure was that the coup had in fact, once again, been put off by its chief planners on account of a leak.
Earlier that evening Anwunah had confronted Lt. Col. Murtala Muhammed in Yaba, Lagos with information that he was behind a planned counter-coup, leading to a mean-spirited (some say violent) exchange between them. Anwuna initially thought this confrontation would in fact deter the plot from going forward, and planned to do nothing. But having been prompted by Lt. Col. Alexander Madiebo to take some precautionary steps, and perhaps being in receipt of additional information, he took it upon himself to alert some unit commanders, one of whom was Okonweze. (An alternative account says Okonweze was also alerted by Njoku)
Lt. Col. Okonweze, therefore, called a meeting in the mess of all available officers (Igbo and non-Igbo) at the Abeokuta Garrison where he made the following announcement:
"Gentlemen, I have just been informed that there is going to be a coup tonight. Anyone of you who knows anything about the coup should please tell us. You may know the beginning but you never know the end. I am not ambitious. My only ambition is to become a full Colonel. If you know anything, please let me know; I am not going to report anyone. What we are going to do is to avoid what happened in January where officers were taken unawares. We are going to wake up all soldiers, ask them to go to the armoury to get issued with arms and ammunition."
Officers present included Okonweze himself, Major John Obienu (Recce Commander), Lt. Gabriel Idoko, Lt. DS Abubakar ("Datti Abubakar", Recce), Lt. IS Umar, and Lt. AB Mamman (Arty). Lt. E.B. Orok (Recce) later came in his Volkswagen. Captains M. Remawa (Recce 2ic) and Domkat Bali (Artillery Battery Commander) were at the Abeokuta club. Captain Ogbonna (Infantry company commander) was also in town.
Thereafter, an Igbo NCO went around the barracks, waking soldiers excitedly and saying "Come out, come out, there is trouble; go to the armoury and collect your armour."
This alert woke up Sergeant Sabo Kole, an NCO from the Bachama area of Adamawa State. In the charged atmosphere of prevailing rumors at that time, Kole wrongly interpreted the Igbo NCO's actions as an attempt by Okonweze to selectively wake up Igbo soldiers who would thus have an advantage in what was alleged to be an effort to finish what they did not finish in January. He, therefore, woke up another neighbor, Corporal Maisamari Maje, also Bachama, who happened to be the armourer of the unit. He told Maje to go to the armoury and ensure that only northerners would be issued weapons. Meanwhile, assisted by Corporal Inua Sara, he mobilized a small guard of northern soldiers to protect the armoury against any attempt to dislodge them while he made arrangements to disarm the quarter-guard. Having secured the armoury, Sgt. Kole issued weapons and ammo to a section of assault troops. Assisted by Maje, and including one Corporal Shagaya, the group advanced to the Officers Mess under the direction of the duty officer, Lt. Pam Mwadkon, younger brother of the late Lt. Col James Pam who was shot in Ikoyi by Major Christian Anuforo in January.
Once in the mess they ordered all officers present to raise their hands. When Okonweze challenged them, he was summarily executed right there and then. Major John Obienu, Commander of the Recce Squadron, sitting next to Okonweze, was also shot dead. Lt. E Orok, driving in to join them, saw what was happening, shouted at the soldiers, and was himself shot dead right under the tree where he parked his car. In the chaos, some northerners were shot too, notably Lt. Gabriel Idoko, mistaken for Igbo because he was wearing an "English dress". He was lucky to survive. Some Igbo soldiers (other ranks) in the garrison were subsequently rounded up and shot.
INITIAL CONTACTS WITH IBADAN, LAGOS, ENUGU, AND KADUNA
Not all Igbo officers in the Abeokuta garrison were killed. Ogbonna escaped and was the one who initially made urgent informal phone calls to Lagos (2nd Battalion), Ibadan (4th battalion) and much later to Enugu (to Lt. Cols Ogunewe - 1st Bn - and Ojukwu at the State House).
Almost simultaneously, Lt. Pam phoned Lt. Garba Dada (Paiko), the Adjutant of the 4th Battalion in Ibadan at Mokola Barracks saying "Look, we have done our own oh! If you people just siddon there, we have finished our own.......We have finished the Igbo officers here. We liberated our unit." He was wrong, though, because Ogbonna was alive. Lt. John Okoli also survived.
When Captains Remawa and Bali returned to the Barracks from town, they met the dead bodies of Okonweze, Obienu and Orok in or around the mess. They changed quickly into combat dress and got themselves armed.
Captain Remawa then contacted Army HQ in Lagos to notify Lt. Col. Gowon of events. Gowon ordered Remawa to collect the corpses, secure the garrison, and await further instructions. This order from Gowon to Remawa sent shivers down the spines of the junior northern officers at Abeokuta like Lt. DS Abubakar who feared that they would all be arrested for the killings in the Mess. Therefore, they decided that come what may, they would fight to finish ensuring the end of the Ironsi regime. The impulse was primarily self-preservatory.
Gowon then contacted Brigadier Ogundipe, then Chief of Staff, SHQ and got orders to mobilize Army units in Lagos. Both Ogundipe and Gowon initially tried to reach Ironsi directly in Ibadan and failed. (It was when Gowon was trying to get Col. Njoku at the guest house that he spoke to Major Danjuma). Ogundipe then notified the Police hierarchy, including the Commissioner in Ibadan, whose first attempt to investigate events at the 4th battalion was strongly rebuffed by the Battalion adjutant who told him to steer clear. "Flying Policeman" Mr. Joseph Adeola eventually got through to Government House Ibadan, sometime around 1 am (some say 0030), to notify General Ironsi of events. (Adeola replaced Timothy Omo-Bare as the Commissioner of Police in the Midwest and was one of those kidnapped by Biafran forces to Enugu in August 1967)
By this time Major Danjuma, Lt. James Onoja and elements of the 4th battalion were in process of arriving to cordon off the building.
Before he was finally arrested shortly before 8am, Ironsi had made requests for a Police helicopter from Lagos and made other efforts, as are described elsewhere in this essay, to mobilize loyal units. By the time a helicopter arrived, though, he and Colonel Fajuyi had been taken away. General Ironsi's last formal military contact was with Kaduna to mobilize the 1st Brigade. The commander, Lt. Col. Wellington "Papa" Bassey was not around so he spoke to Major Samuel Ogbemudia, then the Brigade Major, telling him "All is not well." Unfortunately, the Brigade was too far away to be of immediate tactical value, even if it wanted to be.
Ogbonna's call to Lt. Col. Igboba at the 2nd battalion in Ikeja preceded Remawa's call to Army HQ. Unfortunately, it was intercepted by Lts. Nuhu Nathan and Malami Nassarawa. Nathan was the duty officer and had been contacted earlier by Murtala Muhammed about the postponement of the coup. When Ogbonna gave him the message to deliver to Igboba about events at Abeokuta, he immediately contacted Murtala Muhammed instead, who, having just gotten off the phone with the boys at Ibadan, finally realized that events were moving faster than he thought initially. Muhammed gave the go ahead to Nathan and Nassarawa to mobilize northern troops at Ikeja and launch operations to pre-empt predictable efforts by the establishment to regain control. They secured the armoury, distributed weapons selectively, and got busy rounding up Igbo soldiers. Northern NCOs and ordinary soldiers later went wild. If their officers did not explicitly give an order for an Igbo soldier to be shot they would shoot him anyway and shout "accidental discharge, sah!"
Meanwhile, Muhammed began making rounds of Army units all over Lagos to see things for himself and wake up other coupists in the Lagos area asking them to "adjust to the new situation". Two of those he woke up himself were Captain JN Garba and Lt. Paul Tarfa at the Federal Guard. As they were dressing up, the call from Gowon came in. By the time Muhammed got to Ikeja, Captain Martin Adamu, Lts. Nathan, Nassarawa, Muhammadu Buhari, Alfred Gom, Longboem and a bunch of NCOs were already in control of the battalion, having executed several Igbo soldiers and officers (including Major B Nnamani, one of the company commanders) and arrested many others by cordoning off the quartermaster section of the barracks or grabbing soldiers as they came out for morning PT. The battalion commander, Lt. Col. Henry Igboba, narrowly escaped a dragnet deployed around his house by Lt. Longboem and got away.
Muhammed reportedly gave orders to stop the killing, and focus instead on securing the perimeter as well as approach roads and taking measures to ensure the eventual success of their activities. Captain Martin Adamu went to Army HQ and placed himself in the intelligence center to monitor information and disseminate disinformation. Muhammed then contacted Abeokuta garrison directly and asked Lts. DS Abubakar and Pam Nwadkon to fuel up, arm a troop each of armoured vehicles (ferrets) and head out for Lagos and Ibadan respectively, accompanied by a section of assault troops to provide support in case of any shoot out with loyal troops being mobilized by Lt. Col. Gowon, Lt. Col. Anwuna, Major Mobolaji Johnson and Brigadier Ogundipe from SHQ. Sergeant Paul Dickson, a fearsome Idoma NCO who was later to acquire a reputation as a bloodthirsty savage, was dispatched to take Ikeja Airport. A typical example of a coded order (in Hausa) for the murder of an Igbo captive was: "Take him to the house of chiefs."
Later that morning, after Abubakar and Pam had left for Lagos and Ibadan, northern NCOs from the Abeokuta garrison set up check points in town and decided to pay a visit to the Abeokuta Prison where Major DO Okafor, former Federal Guards Commander, January 15 co-conspirator and alleged co-executioner of the late Prime Minister was held. He was tortured and killed in the courtyard, some say buried alive. The soldiers did not stop there. At one of the checkpoints, 2/Lt A.O. Olaniyan, oblivious of events, was stopped. As he tried to identify himself, he was summarily shot dead. The situation was clearly out of control.
Coninued from Here
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