Ike Ekweremadu in Nuremberg, Germany

(Ike Ekweremadu)

EC Ejiogu

IF YOU are travelling from Enuugwu towards Nsukka on the more recently built roadway that goes northwards of the Nike clan, when you get to Ogbeke Nike, on the right side of the road there begins a sprawling vibrated cement blocks perimeter fence that runs parallel to the road all the way for an extensive distance before it meanders endlessly uphill and deep into the forest indicating what is obviously a mindless land-grab bordering on speculation. There’s nothing about this endless undeveloped land-grab that reveals who it actually belongs to. Not even the road-side signage on it that deceptively announces that the sprawling “PARCEL OF LAND BELONGING TO LEGAL PROTECTION COUNCIL” is truly revealing of the individual to whom it actually belongs.

IT was by coincidental happenstance that this writer got to know that the actual owner of this sprawling endless acreage of land is indeed, Ike Ekweremadu, who is also a member of the Nigerian Senate in Abuja. Mr. Ekweremadu who is from the Ogwu (Agwu) clan, which is located far away from Nike, on the dilapidated Enuugwu-Umuahia-Port Harcourt expressway, has been in the Nigerian Senate since 2003. He was for the four-year duration that ended just this year, the deputy president of Nigeria’s Senate. On the occasion when Ekweremadu’s ownership of the said sprawl was disclosed to this writer, the latter had offered a ride to three middle-age local ladies en route Nsukka. It was during the course of the chit-chat that they held between them during the journey’s course, which this writer eaves-dropped on, that suddenly veered onto the subject matter of land-grab when the car got to and began to speed past the said endless sprawl that those female free riders revealed that indeed, the said stupendous land-grab belongs to Ekweremadu.

EKWEREMADU’s encounter Saturday, August 17 with angry Igbo youth in the city of Nuremberg in faraway Germany brings to context his politics and his avaricious penchant for using same in the main, to exclusively feather his personal nest all the way at the expense of his Igbo race and its destiny in unitary Nigeria. Mouths have wagged and continue to wag in the bid to cast aspersions on the Igbo youth involved without regard for the more pertinent issues that are involved as they tie into the Igbo Question in the Nigeria project vis-a-viz what got Ekweremadu and the youth, together in that infamous dustup.

For full disclosure, the intention here by this writer is neither to condone, nor justify what may have transpired there, indeed happened to Ekweremadu in Nuremberg during that encounter. Instead, the essence here is to contextualize the encounter, and possibly proffer an explainer.

SOME OF THE immediate assertions above tie quite deeply into the raging perception out there amongst many Igbo regarding Ekweremadu and the claims he makes to Igbo identity and his selfish exploitation of same in his politics and avaricious pursuit of his narrow self-interests. The widely held perception out there, which should not be dismissed as invalid is that he parasites off Igbo identity in his politics at a time when the anger over the Igbo condition in unitary Nigeria project is palpable amongst the youth at home and in the diaspora. Anyone who is oblivious of the truism that most, if not all that constitute today’s Igbo Diaspora were

compelled to emigrate abroad in search economic sustainance by the dire situation of affairs with regard to the Igbo in the Nigeria project.

Some of the Igbo who this writer elicited their views on the subject matter of this piece recalled how Ekweremadu cried out loud the other time when he was being throttled by minders of the unitary state in the Nigeria project with the dubious claim that the latter picked on him simply because he’s Igbo! That out-cry of dissemblance from him elicited solidarity response from many Igbo, and it probably compelled his supposed Hausa-Fulani traducers to let up on him at the time.

YET Ekweremadu consistently conducts himself in ways that convey the impression that he’s mindless of the existential threat that the Nigeria project and the configuration of its political economy represent for the Igbo and their destiny as a people since the end of the shooting phase of the Nigeria-Biafra war in January 1970 and the events that precipitated it.

Almost all those surveyed for their opinion by this writer about Ekweremadu voiced the view that his encounter with angry Igbo youth in Nuremberg, Germany is symbolic of expiatory trials of Nazi war criminals that took place in that city right after Nazi hostilities where suppressed in World War II. Some even argued that he encounter could qualify as an attempt by the former to put Ekweremadu and his politics of predation at the expense of the Igbo on popular trial.

Some of those who spoke to this writer went to great length to furnish pointers to buttress their views that Ekweremadu’s primary motivating focus has been the raw acquisition of wealth and aggrandizing fame at the expense of Igbo good. One of them pointed out the placement of giant billboards at strategic locations in the city of Enuugwu earlier this year to mark his birthday celebration. According to eye-witnesses, the said billboards touted banal claims that prefixed him as Professor Dr. Senator Ike Ekweremadu, a professor of law at a university in faraway Louisiana, in the US. One person who claims he knows Ekweremadu quite well swore that he’s aware that Ekweremadu hired and retains a special assistant who ghosted to enable him to acquire two advanced law degrees from a local university in Enuugwu. Another disclosed that he is always quick to deflate requests from his constituents who approach him with the pathetic excuse line that he is merely “in government and not in power in Abuja”. Indeed!

IN THE CONTEXT of Ekweremadu’s sympathizers who voiced strong views that German authorities in Nuremberg must identify, arrest and prosecute the youth involved in the encounter, there is one succinct explainer: Germany’s Nazi past notwithstanding, civil society and the rule of law are still well and alive in that country for all residents, citizens and non-citizens alike. Unlike in unitary Nigeria, in Germany, public protests by aggrieved citizens, and others are allowed and are used to speak truth to power and its public actor custodians. Leadership responsiveness is still an integral component of social authority patterns and the practice of authority in society in democratic Germany.

The implication of the Ekweremadu-Igbo youth encounter being that the former and his likes have been put on notice by the latter, and rightly so, that the tide has certainly shifted against selfish actors in the Igbo public space.

THE VIDEO clips of Ekweremadu in that encounter found online speak volumes. Clad in an outfit resplendent with the motif of unitary Nigerian state, he cuts a pathetic picture as he scampered away in the apparent attempt to seek refuge in a building with his fellow Igbo, angryand in hot pursuit. One of them can be heard repeatedly calling him a “useless man”. Then came the frames when he was quickly dragged out of the building through some distance towards a white sedan car into which he was pushed and driven away. The evident add up from the drama being the apparent message from his fellow Igbo that they have had enough of those who find cheap currency in their destiny as a people.

****Professor EC Ejiogu, formerly at the Centre for Africa Studies, University of the Free State, South Africa, is the author of The Roots of Political Instability in Nigeria: Political Evolution and Development in the Niger Basin (Farnham: Ashgate Publishing, 2011) and guest editor of the  Journal of Asian and African Studies’s  Special Issue on Chinua Achebe: The Igbo Pogrom, Biafra War and Genocide in Nigeria (Vol 48, 6, December 2013)

Muhammadu Buhari: The portrait of another genocidist***

(Muhammadu Buhari)

By EC Ejiogu

As the Igbo, amongst whom democratic approach to the course of daily existence is the norm often posit, irrespective of the fame and standing in society, whenever a deity becomes way too restless, the proper way to call it out is to reveal to it the choice of wood, which it was carved from.  That exactly, is what I have resolved to do here in this piece about General Muhammdu Buhari.  Any honest observer of the political scene in the “Nigeria project” would not dispute the fact that Buhari’s restlessness has become most irksome, and as a result, needs to be addressed.

Vital rehash

For everyone whose knowledge of Buhari’s antecedents is sparse—that, for the benefit of the doubt includes someone like former Lagos state governor, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, and the rest of his Yoruba compatriots who have elected to bring Buhari back to power through their All Progressive Congress (APC)—rehashing how he cut his teeth on public affairs and sordid antecedents in the “Nigeria project” is absolutely vital.

Muhammadu Buhari was one of the substantial number of secondary school “leavers” from the upper Niger of Nigeria who were spurred by Ahmadu Bello, the sardauna of Sokoto and then premier of the north region, and his fellow chieftains of the Northern People’s Congress (NPC) in a spirited campaign to join the army.  That was towards the end of de facto colonial rule as the Nigeria colonial army officer corps was undergoing the so-called Nigerianization process, which the imminent departure of the predominantly British personnel in the corps elicited.  The quota system regime, which had been put in place by the NPC federal minister for defense, Inuwa Wada, in the period 1958-1966 to guide the recruitment of candidate cadets into the corps, had significantly altered its composition as a result in favor of the nationalities that inhabit the upper Niger.  For full disclosure, Inuwa Wada was the maternal cousin of Murtala Mohammed’s, a beneficiary of that quota system, who subsequently played one of the ignominiously perverse roles in the chequered history of the “Nigeria project” that still festers even today.  

It is not only that Buhari was a beneficiary of that lopsided affirmative action policy that allotted 50% of all cadet recruitments into the corps to the north region by de-emphasizing a uniform merit-based academic accomplishment application process in favor of individuals from the nationalities that inhabit the upper Niger to disadvantage their lower Niger counterparts.  He was also one of the “primary beneficiaries of the promotion exercise in the junior ranks” of the corps by the incipient Aguiyi-Ironsi headed regime in May 1966 “to dilute discontents in the army” (Siollun 2009: 92).  That measure “backfired and exacerbated disillusion amongst southern and northern rank and file” (Siollun 2009: 92) soldiers due to the poisoned atmosphere in the “Nigeria project” about which this piece will not engage on due to space and time constraint.  Going by recent revelations about Buhari’s certificate, it is evidently clearer now that Buhari was flat out unqualified to enlist in the corps.  That makes him a usurper.  

In any case, second-lieutenant Buhari was promoted to the rank of substantive lieutenant alongside the many soldiers from the upper Niger who predominated the non-commissioned officer (NCO) ranks and also the junior ranks of the officer corps.  Those beneficiaries included Paul Tarfa, Theophilus Yakubu Danjuma, Shehu Musa Yar’Adua, Ibrahim Bako, Abdullahi Shelleng, Garba Dada, who was nicknamed “Paiko”, and Muhammadu Jega (Siollun 2009: 92).  These individuals named would subsequently become fixtures in the roll of infamy with specific regard to the persecution of the Igbo in the “Nigeria project”.  The reason being that all of them cut their teeth in public affairs by participating in the wanton spillage of innocent Igbo blood in 1966 and 1967.  As if those were insufficient, they consolidated that ignominious feat with their ruthless roles in the genocidal war which Nigeria levied on the Igbo in Biafra.  Since the shooting phase of their war ended in January 1970, they have unrelentingly sustained their persecution of the Igbo using the structures and power of the Nigerian supranational state which they usurped and still control.  Buhari’s relentless quest to once again capture the helms of state power as president is in line with their mindset to keep the Igbo “in their place” in the project.  What that means is that the Hausa-Fulani grand project of controlling the Igbo and stalling their recovery from the genocide is still “a task that must be done”.

When the research for this piece began more than three months ago, this writer felt that it would amount to a digression to delve into certain accompanying details in the story of Buhari’s involvement in the Igbo genocide.  But as the research progressed and the drafting of the story progressed, recent developments have made it necessary to bring in those details.

Some of those details relate specifically to the May 1966 promotions in the Nigeria army. According to Max Siollun, “Under normal circumstances those promotions would not have raised eyebrows.  Moreover (sic) they could be justified on the basis of merit and correcting the anomaly of deserving officers that had been passed over for promotion in the past” (Siollun 2009: 92).  The predominance of Igbo in the rank of majors entailed that 18 out of the 21 who were promoted to the rank of lieutenant-colonel were “Igbo speaking”.  The perception especially amongst mischief makers and soldiers from the upper Niger was “that their superior officers were murdered in January with the deliberate intention to create vacancies for Igbo officers to fill” (Siollun 2009: 91).  No one cared to objectively recall that merit underscored every factor that entailed the preponderance of Igbo in the rank of major.  In the main, it was mostly the Igbo who possessed the requisite educational qualification for enlistment in the officer corps when the approach of self-rule opened up the corps for the recruitment of indigenous men given that the all-British face of the corps was about to change.

Furthermore, there were two other factors in play, and both of them were also underscored by merit.  As Siollun puts it: “In fact (sic) two things happened: several majors were promoted acting lt-colonel and others were promoted substantive lt-colonels.  The latter group included several officers who before the coup were already acting lt-colonels, and simply had their temporary/acting ranks confirmed” (Siollun 2009: 91).  Siollun elaborates: “Several of those promoted had been passed over for promotion in the past.  For example (sic) Majors Patrick Anwunah, Mike Okwechime, Tony Eze and Alex Madiebo were [Yakubu] Gowon’s course mates at Sandhurst.  However, while Gowon had been promoted to lt-colonel in 1964, by mid-1966 the three men were still majors and were now junior to their former course mate, Gowon, even though they were no less capable than him” (Siollun 2009: 92).

Noteworthy: As Siollun again rightly puts it, “Conversely, most junior officers and NCOs were Northern and the primary beneficiaries of the promotion exercise in the junior ranks were logically also Northern … Strangely (sic) there were no complaints about the preponderance of Northern promotions in this category.  All eyes remained focused on the Igbo majors promoted to lt-colonel.  A group of Northern air force cadets were also dismissed due to their underwhelming educational achievements.  The exercise seemed to be part of a broader leaning by Aguiyi-Ironsi away from quota towards a merit based system.  Increased emphasis on academic achievement would indirectly discriminate against Northern soldiers” (Siollun 2009: 92).

But in the actual fact, one would not rightly talk about discrimination in this case given that on the merit factor of prerequisite educational qualifications, those individuals from the nationalities that inhabit the upper Niger were flat out unqualified to even show at the enlistment centers.  Knowing what we know today, Aguiyi-Ironsi did not even touch the tip of the matter not to talk of going any meaningful far.  If he did, one like Buhari and many others from the upper Niger should not have been in the corps at all.  The true reason being that unlike their counterparts from the lower Niger, they lacked the requisite educational qualification.  The appeasement of one’s natural enemy hardly helps matters in the one’s overall interests at all.

Elsewhere in the true world, Buhari should not have the effrontery and characteristic arrogance to stride around the way he does in public affairs in the “Nigeria project”.  I will cite a quick example to further underscore my immediate assertion above.  Some years ago in the US, there was a certain naval officer who committed suicide for the simple reason that it was revealed in the media that he wore a medal of achievement and merit that was not awarded to him.  Rather than face a disciplinary panel, that officer walked to the back of his office in the navy yard in southeast Washington, DC, one fine spring morning and blew out his brains with his service revolver.  That’s a gentleman officer right there!

A parade of genocidists—Buhari et al

Even in the light of concrete and irrefutable evidence that the January 15, 1966 majors’-led coup d’état was neither planned, nor executed to singularly target upper Niger politicians and military officers, every commissioned officer, NCO, and rank and file soldier from the upper Niger relied on speculation and sectional prejudice against the Igbo, and circumstantial evidence to convince themselves and believe otherwise.  Thus, their justification of their resolve to systematically plot, target and eliminate their Igbo colleagues.

Across the board, the conspiracy and planning involved all officers and rank and file soldier from the upper Niger: “Although senior Northern officers were involved in the planning, most of the spade work … would be carried out by Northern NCOs and lieutenants…” (Siollun 2009: 98).  “[T]he de facto leader and co-oordinator … was the Inspector of Signals Lt-Colonel Murtala Mohammed, ably assisted by Majors Martin Adamu and Theophilus Danjuma” (Siollun 2009: 92).

Their coverage of their planning was wholesome, and no army formation was left out.  Joseph Garba, then a captain opened up his house on 4 Lugard Avenue in Ikoyi as a regular meeting venue.  The more “prominent plotters” in the south, according to Garba, are as follows: “Lagos: Joe Garba, Murtala Mohammed, Yakubu Danjuma, Martin Adamu, Muhammadu Buhari, Paul Tarfa, William Walbe, John Lougboem, Musa Usman, and Shittu Alao … Ibadan: Jerry Useni, Ibrahim Bako and Garba Dada; Enugu: Lieutenant Shehu Musa Yar’Adua, Abeokuta: Lieutenant Pam Mwadkan” (Siollun 2009: 99). 

There were many more.  Years later, Garba gloated and admitted that “virtually all other northern officers serving in Ibadan, Abeokuta, Ikeja and Lagos became involved … in one way or another” (Siollun 2009: 99-100).  They included Lieutenants Malami Nassarawa and Nuhu Nathan in Lagos, Abdullahi Shelleng and I. S. Umar, and Adjutant Garba Dada in Abeokuta (Siollun 2009: 100).  Ibrahim Babangida admitted to an interviewer in the 1990s that one “Captain Ahmadu Yakubu acted as a messenger by driving all the way from Lagos to Kaduna in order to update Northern soldiers in Kaduna” (Siollun 2009: 99).

After the successful and wholesome massacre of Igbo officers and men began in Abeokuta July 28 night, it spread to Lagos when some of the forerunners of the orgy in Abeokuta arrived Ikeja in the morning of July 29 to ignite the operation, which was swiftly commenced there “by Lieutenants Nathan and Nassarawa, who managed affairs until their superiors Lt-Colonel Murtala Mohammed, Majors Martin Adamu, Shittu Allao, and Musa Usman arrived” (Siollun 2009: 104).  Siollun points out that the “Other active participants in Lagos included Lieutenant Muhammadu Buhari of 2 brigade transport company, Lieutenant John Longboem, Captains Ibrahim Taiwo and Alfred Gom, Lieutenant Tokkida of the LGO [Lagos Garrison Organization], and a notoriously violent sergeant from … Idoma … named Paul Dickson” (Siollun 2009: 104).

A few samplers of some of the heart wrenching acts of massacre committed by this horde and the soldiers they commanded against their Igbo colleagues in just Lagos alone where Buhari operated are necessary at this point to underscore the gravity of this genocide: “Igbo soldiers were shot dead in their quarters, some as they rose in the morning, others as they reported for physical training.  Northern soldiers had pre-selected Igbo soldiers for elimination.  The casualties in Ikeja included Lieutenant Pius Onyeneho [he happened to be from my town, Onicha in Ezinihite in the now Imo State] and the unit education officer Captain John Chukwueke, who was shot in the presence of his wife, children and mother in-law.  Lieutenant John Odigwe attempted to rescue Onyeneho but was unable to do so after he too came under heavy fire.  Ironically Onyeneho was a former classmate of one of the mutineers, Nuhu Nathan.  Lieutenant Godson Mbabie and his wife were both shot, along with Mbabie’s brother in-law (a school boy).  Mbabie’s wife survived her wounds.  Captain Kevin Megwa and his wife hid in their wardrobe while their young nanny went around the barracks weeping, carrying their two-month-old baby girl, pretending they had been killed. Furthermore:

The Ikeja airport in Lagos also turned into an execution ground under the command of … Sergeant Paul Dickson.  Captain Okoye (from Ojukwu’s hometown Nnewi) who was passing through Ikeja airport, was captured, tied to an iron cross, beaten, whipped and left to die an agonizing death in the guardroom in what bore the appearance of a ritual murder.  Some of the Igbo survivors (military and civilian) at the airport were flogged on Dickson’s orders.  Dickson stayed on as head of security at the airport for several years and somehow bagged himself and automatic promotion to captain in the process (and later again to major).  The air force officer that had been briefed to fly to Calabar to release Awolowo from prison (Major Nzegwu) was also killed. Ironically (sic) many of the Igbo officers attacked in Lagos were the same officers who played prominent roles in putting down the January coup.  Two examples illustrate this.  In January (sic) Captain Ugoala had actually interrogated the coup detainees.  His anti-coup role in January was forgotten and he was killed by the Northern mutineers.  The house of the 2^nd battalion’s commander Lt-Colonel Henry Igboba was also targeted even though he was one of the officers that were instrumental in putting down the January coup and had been accused of meting out brutal treatment to January detainees.  Northern soldiers surrounded Igboba’s house but Igboba managed to escape and shelter at the police college Ikeja.  (Siollun 2009: 104).

Igbophobes and islamists: Murtala and Buhari joined at the hips

The relationship, which Buhari and the other genocidists that included Martin Adamu, Shehu Musa Yar’Adua, Baba Usman et al struck with Murtala Muhammed at the expense of innocent Igbo blood that they spilled evolved during the course of the war against Biafra and endured thereafter.  Buhari’s lack of respect for higher authority and his characteristic ruthlessness were no doubt forged at the time.  He witnessed, firsthand, his idol Murtala Mohammed’s characteristic disdain for and “little respect for authority” (Ibrahim Haruna, in Siollun 2009: 165) throughout his time as warfront commander in Benin, Asaba, and during his three-time ill-fated attempts to invade Onitsha from across the River Niger.  He witnessed and probably participated in the war atrocities that Murtala Mohammed ordered in Benin, and Asaba.

The apparent unity of purpose that prevailed amongst all the genocidists from the upper Niger before and during the massacre of their Igbo colleagues, and their prosecution of the war against Biafra, began to fray and give way at the seams a little after the war ended.  Murtala Mohammed’s disdain and rivalry with Gowon grew, and “Muslim soldiers from the far north such as Lt-Colonels Muhammadu Buhari, Shehu Musa Yar’Adua and Ibrahim Babangida” were at the top of the list of those who lined up support for Murtala Mohammed against Gowon.  They—“Colonels Shehu Musa Yar’Adua, Ibrahim Taiwo, Abdullahi Muhammed, Ibrahim Babangida, the director of supply and transport Muhammadu Buhari” (Siollun 2009: 176) spearheaded the plot that removed Gowon and installed Murtala Mohammed head of junta in 1975.  Their coup d’état against Gowon “was a watershed in that it was the first time in Nigeria’s history that executors of a coup apportioned political appointments between themselves” (Siollun 2009: 185).  They have not left the scene ever since.  The “Nigeria project”, indeed the Igbo have been worse off for it.

Reference

Siollun, M., Oil, Politics, and Violence: Nigeria’s Military Coup Culture, New York:  Alegora, 2009).

EC Ejiogu is the author of the paradigm changing The Roots of Political Instability in Nigeria: Political Evolution and Development in the Niger Basin (Farnham: Ashgate Publishers, 2011).

***See also Professor Ejiogu’s  “Benjamin Adekunle — The portrait of a genocidist”,
http://re-thinkingafrica.blogspot.co.uk/2014/09/benjamin-adekunle-portrait-of-genocidist.html (accessed 16 February 2015).

Benjamin Adekunle: The portrait of a genocidist

(Benjamin Adekunle)

By EC Ejiogu***

I do not want to see any Red Cross, and Caritas, any World Council of Churches, any Pope, any Mission, or any United Nations Delegation.  I want to prevent even one I[g]bo having even one piece to eat before their capitulation.                (Major Benjamin Adekunle, The Economist [London] August 14, 1968)

Research by this writer reveals that ever before Benjamin Adekunle, who died this month—September 13, 2014—of natural causes after a protracted illness, uttered the excerpt above to the World Press in 1968 as “one of the most notorious of the genocidist commanders in southern Igboland” (Ekwe-Ekwe, 2014) during Nigeria’s genocidal war against Biafra, he was not just an individual who woke up one morning and suddenly found himself in a situation of duty that compelled him to play a circumstantial role that happened to impact the Igbo adversely.  In the rapidly shifting scheme of events in the Nigeria project during the period that commenced with the termination of de facto British rule on October 1, 1960, the first time in the research for this piece that a young Benjamin Adekunle was encountered was in May 1966.  This was right after the May promotions in the Nigerian Army, which the Major-General J. T. U. Aguiyi-Ironsi-headed military regime that had just been in power for barely five months seemingly embarked upon to consolidate its delicate hold on state power and to of course placate the north and its ruling feudalist establishment over the death of their prominent politicians and personalities in the January 15, 1966 coup d’état.

As it turned out, in the super-charged atmosphere that arose then and has sustained in varied forms in the Nigeria project ever since, that promotion exercise, which “Under normal circumstances…would not have raised eyebrows” became an excuse for the hateful to let mayhem loose on the Igbo.  Although it “could be justified on the basis of merit and correcting the anomaly of deserving officers that had been passed over for promotion in the past …”, still, it “was interpreted as favoring Igbo (sic)” (Siollun, 2009: 91).

Benjamin Adekunle, then a major, and three others—Olusegun Obasanjo, Oluwole Rotimi, and Emmanuel Sotomi—who all happened to be Yoruba were by-passed in that promotion exercise.  But that was not the first time when promotions in the officer corps had not favored some officers.  For instance, in 1964, when Yakubu Gowon, then a major was promoted to the rank of a lieutenant-colonel, his “course mates at Sandhurst—Alexander Madiebo, Patrick Anwunah, Anthony Eze, and Michael Okwechima—all Igbo were passed by and no eyebrows were raised.

Although, a significant number of the 21 officers who benefited in the May 1966 promotion exercise were Igbo, clarity remains that: “several majors were promoted to acting lt.-colonel and some others were promoted substantive lt-colonels” (Siollun, 2009: 91).  Those of them who were in the latter category, were prior to the coup d’état, “already acting lt-colonels, and simply had their temporary/acting ranks confirmed”.  Another reality worthy of mention is that although the Igbo predominated the officer corps especially the middle rank of major at the time, it was an ‘advantage’ that accrued to the Igbo by default: ‘The imminent end of de facto colonial rule forced the British who needed to replace the all-British officer corps with indigenous men, to alter their recruitment policy into the colonial military forces in the Nigeria project beginning from the 1950s to look for qualified indigenous men with the requisite Western educational qualifications.  They found them mostly in the nationalities that inhabit the lower Niger areas, especially amongst the Igbo.  Since the Yoruba had not yet over-come their age-old aversion for enlistment and participation in the colonial military forces over the latter’s excesses during the course of colonial conquest and subjugation, even though the British on their part deemed the Igbo unsuitable colonial subjects due to their exceptional democratic social authority patterns, the prevalent acute military manpower pressure left the British no other viable option than the recruitment of the well qualified Igbo young men who presented themselves for recruitment. As for the Igbo, this writer observed elsewhere paraphrasing William F. Gutteridge (1970) that:

Ahead in Western education, and being a nationality in which the individual is free in society to embark on pursuits for personal advancement without first securing the approval of the ruling elite, the Igbo quickly took advantage of the window of opportunity which opened in the officer corps and enlisted in record numbers.  In 1956 and in 1960 when colonial ended, 68% of the officer corps was composed of the Igbo (Ejiogu, 2011: 164).  

In contrast, only 17% and 14% respectively were from nationalities in the north and the Yoruba. 

Furthermore, due to the preponderance of men from the nationalities that inhabit the upper Niger in the junior ranks of the officer corps, and the non-commissioned officer (NCO) ranks, that promotion exercise benefited the north and its political establishment in the main.  One researcher puts it quite succinctly:

Conversely, most junior officers and NCOs were Northerners and the primary beneficiaries of the promotion exercise in the junior ranks were logically also Northerners.  The promoted Northern soldiers included Theophilus Danjuma, Muhammadu Buhari, Shehu Musa Yar’Adua, Abdullahi Shelleng, Ibrahim Bako, Muhammadu Jega, Garba Dada (“Paiko”) and Paul Tarfa.  Strangely there were no complaints about the preponderance of Northern promotions in this category.  All eyes remained formed on the Igbo majors promoted to lt.-colonel.  A group of Northern air force cadets were also dismissed due to their underwhelming educational achievements.  The exercise seemed to be part of a broader leaning by Aguiy-Ironsi away from quota towards more merit based system (Siollun, 2009: 92).

Of the five northerners who were promoted—Murtala Mohammed, Joe Akahan, Hassan Katsina, and Mohammed Shuwa were the most generously favored: “The promotion to lt.-colonel of Murtala [Muhammed], Shuwa and Haruna was particularly generous because at the time of the promotions, all three were only substantive captains (holding temporary ranks as majors) yet they were promoted to lt.-colonel”.

So then, it turned out that in a time space of just a few months, the next phase was being readied to pounce yet again on the Igbo who Herbert Ekwe-Ekwe describes as “the world’s most brutally targeted and most viciously murdered of peoples” with deadly, wanton orchestrated political violence.

Murders, infamous phone call, murders

As those heady days unfolded further, the next time that Major Adekunle is encountered in the thick of the tragic events that aimed at spilling innocent Igbo blood was late in the wee-hours of July 29 in Enugwu, Igboland, which was also the regional capital of the then Eastern Region where the army’s 1^st Battalion was based.  He was the deputy to the Igbo battalion commander, Lt.-colonel David Ogunewe.  The revolt and targeted massacre of Igbo officers and other ranks in all the army formations, which was systematically planned by Murtala Muhammed, Theophilus Danjuma and a host of other officers from nationalities in the upper Niger, had already commenced in the Abeokuta Garrison late in the night of the previous day.  It had spread to Lagos and Ibadan, the capital of the Western Region where Major-General Aguiyi-Ironsi and his host, the military governor of the Region, Lt.-Colonel Adekunle Fajuyi had been abducted from the State House by northern soldiers under Theophilus Danjuma’s command.  Lt. Colonel Yakubu Gowon’s infamous telephone call from Lagos to the State House, Ibadan had, according to Theophilus Danjuma, been made and coincidentally taken by Danjuma himself and the following conversion had ensued between them:

Gowon: Hello I want to speak to the brigade commander.  I want to speak to Colonel Njoku.

Danjuma: May I know who is speaking?

Gowon:  My name is Gowon.  Yakubu Gowon.

Danjuma:  Ranka dede. This is Yakubu Danjuma.

Gowon:  Yakubu. What are you doing there? Where are you? 

Danjuma: I am in the State House here.

Gowon:  Where is the brigade commander? 

Danjuma: He is not around. 

Gowon:  Have you heard what has happened?

Danjuma:  Yes.  I heard and that is why I am here. We are about to arrest the Supreme Commander.  The alternative is that the Igbo boys who carried out the January coup will be released tit for tat since we killed their own officer[s]. 

Gowon (after a long pause):  Can you do it? 

Danjuma:  Yes. We have got the place surrounded. 

Gowon:  Alright but for goodness sake we have had enough bloodshed.  There must be no bloodshed. 

Danjuma:  No.  We are only going to arrest him.
(Siollun, 2009: 105)

What illogical meaning would any reasonable person read into the chummy-chummy conversation between Yakubu Gowon, a lieutenant-colonel, and Chief of Army Staff at the time and Theophilus Danjuma, a junior officer who was evidently caught red handed in the course committing a grievous offence?  The “Can you do it?” and “Alright…” clearly constitute a “go ahead”, while the “…but for goodness sake we have had enough bloodshed” is a worrisome after thought.  What would a junior officer who surrounded the location of his Supreme Commander with unidentified and armed soldiers and proclaim that they were “only going to arrest him” without explaining to the superior officer—who never bothered to ask—where he would take the former to, do with him after he does?  Take him to a picnic?   The world has since that horrible day known that it was not what happened.  Furthermore, it is incontrovertible that even Yakubu Gowon himself is implicated from that outset in the phases of the Igbo genocide that took place in the period, 1967-1970.  Back to Benjamin Adekunle.

In Enugwu where Adekunle is encountered again in that stream of events, not much is heard about him even though quite a lot can be gleaned from the stream of events to implicate him in the genocide of the Igbo during the time.  In the 1^st Battalion, there is a Captain Baba Usman, a northerner in the army intelligence unit who Murtala Muhammed and his gang designated to spearhead their assault on Igbo officers and men in Enugwu.  But as fate would have it, Usman was in faraway city of Aba that night.  His absence deprived his fellow northern officers in the battalion of the catalytic leadership they needed to swing into action after they dressed up and got themselves ready.  Ogunewe was quick to deploy his able crisis management skills right after he was alerted by the fabled distress telephone calls from a Lt. Ogbonna in the Abeokuta Garrison.  That, coupled with Usman’s God-sent absence from base, put Ogunewe ahead of the genocidists:

Ogunewe found Northern soldiers inn his battalion (including Captain Gibson Jalo and Lieutenants Shehu Musa Yar’Adua, M. D. Jega and A. A. Abubakar) dressed in combat fatigues and readying themselves to commence an assault in Enugu.  Using all his persuasive powers, he managed to convince them to hand over the armory keys and negotiated a tense but effective truce with Northern soldiers” (Siollun, 2009: 16).  That, not withstanding, Murtala Muhammed’s repeated signals to his fellow northerners still galvanized some of them who still “attempted to break into the Enugu armory but were overpowered (Siollun, 2009: 16).

As the spilling of innocent Igbo blood sustained, was it by happenstance that when Yoruba officers felt so ‘concerned for their safety’ and “sent a delegation consisting of Lt.-Colonel Obasanjo, Major Oluleye and Captains Akinfenwa and Timothy B. Ogundeko to the Northern Region’s military governor Lt.-Colonel Katsina, to report their fears” (Siollun, 2009: 132), not Benjamin Adekunle whose father is Yoruba from Ogbomosho and mother is Bachama; a nationality in the upper Niger, not Emmanuel Abisoye, not David Jemibewon and the other Yoruba officers from northern Yorubaland, which was part of the then Northern Region were included?

The tenor, i.e. his complicity in the wanton wastage of innocent Igbo lives, of the narrative remained the same when next Benjamin Adekunle is encountered:  As

the deputy commander of the 1^st battalion in Enugu… [w]hen a decision was made to repatriate army officers [and rank and file] to their regions of origin, Adekunle and Northern soldiers in his unit (sic) were to leave Enugu and head first to Kaduna, and then to Lagos.  Simultaneously a group of surviving Igbo soldiers that had been detained in Kaduna prison for their safety were to be repatriated to Enugwu via Lagos.  When they were released for transportation by train to Enugu, Adekunle promised them safe passage to Lagos from where they could then proceed to Enugu.  Northern soldiers in Adekunle’s battalion and the Igbo soldiers were placed on the same train.  Some Northern soldiers having long been frustrated at their inability to kill Igbo thus far, finally got their opportunity.  They descended upon the Igbo soldiers, killed them and threw their bodies off the train.  For promising safe passage to the Igbo soldiers, Adekunle too was attacked, but was saved by the intervention of Captain Jalo.  Although his father was a Yoruba from Ogbomosho, Adekunle’s mother was like Jalo, from the Bachama ethnic group of the Northern Region (Siollun, 2009: 132-3).

Think of it:  Major Benjamin Adekunle, the deputy battalion commander was simply “attacked” by the same northern soldiers from his battalion, on the same train, who “descended on Igbo soldiers, killed them and threw their bodies off the train … but was saved” by Gibson Jalo whose mother and Benjamin Adekunle’s mother are from the Bachama nationality in the upper Niger.  For full disclosure, this is the same Captain Gibson Jalo of the Ist Battalion who was encountered on the night of July 29 when he was dressed in combat attire with other northerner officers “and readying themselves to commence an assault in Enugu” to massacre Igbo officers and other ranks in the army.

As battlefield commander, Benjamin Adekunle projected such unparalleled ruthlessness from the very onset of the genocidal war against Biafra that earned him notoriety and the ghoulish moniker, ‘Black Scorpion’.  He had no qualms looking the World Press in the eyes in 1968 in southern Igboland where he gave a press conference and proclaimed the following as the London-based weekly, The Economist reported in its 24 August 1968 issue: “I want to prevent even one I[g]bo having even one piece to eat before their capitulation”.  In the same story in The Economist, he expressed what is best termed his combat conduct mantra being: “We shoot at everything, even at things that don’t move” (The Economist, August 24, 1968 in Ekwe-Ekwe, 2014).

Asaba, relief aircraft, outing memoir

Could such an individual with such checkered antecedence have cultivated such hatred against the Igbo overnight?  He was Yakubu Gowon’s only battlefield commander in that war who was quietly removed from command and sidelined into private life and made to forfeit every opportunity to have the access to enrich himself as an actor in successive military and non-military regimes in the Nigeria project.  Benjamin Adekunle’s mortal sin could probably have been his loud mouth, which enabled him to get account of his atrocities on the Igbo to the World Press in his own words.  Others—including Murtala Muhammed who was implicated in the massacre of Asaba males, and even Olusegun Obasanjo (1981: 79 in Ekwe-Ekwe 2014)) who personally outed himself in his 1981 war memoir, My Command over the downing of one of the clearly marked International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) small civilian aircraft that ferried relief supplies to starving Biafran women and children by Gbadamosi King on his orders on June 5—who kept mute over their own atrocities faired quite better.

Measure for measure

The last encounter with Benjamin Adekunle is this time right after he passed away.  From newspaper reports, in his last days, he experienced what he inflicted on the Igbo as battlefield commander:  He could not even get enough to eat or with which he could seek adequate medical attention anywhere descent in the West.  His children scrapped around from his few benefactors for just enough to ferry him to India for the third-rate type of medical treatment that flourish over there in backyard hospitals and clinics.  Perhaps the Bible is right on the mark when it intones: The measure you give, will be the measure you will reap.

Reference List

Ejiogu, E.C. (2011) The Roots of Political Instability in Nigeria: Political Evolution and Development in the Niger Basin, England and USA:  Ashgate Publishing.

Ekwe-Ekwe, Herbert (2014) On This First Day of April: Genocide Awareness and Prevention Month: Genocidist generals, Genocidist “theorists”. http://re-thinkingafrica.blogspot.co.uk/2014/04/on-this-first-day-of-april-genocide.html, April 1, 2014, accessed 19 September 2014.

Gutteridge, W.F. (1975) Military Regimes in Africa, London:  Methuen.

Obasanjo, O. (1980) My Command: An Account of the Nigerian Civil War, 1967-1970, Ibadan:  Heinemann Educational Books.

Siollun, M. (2009) Oil, Politics, and Violence: Nigeria's Military Coup Culture, New York:  Alegora.

***Professor EC Ejiogu was with the Centre for Africa Studies, University of the Free State, South Africa.  He is the author of the paradigm-changing, The Roots of Political Instability in Nigeria: Political Evolution and Development in the Niger Basin, Farnham: Ashgate Publishing, 2011.

Twitter@HerbertEkweEkwe