22nd February 2025, NewsOrient, News, Governance And Development. BABANGIDA SAYS 1966 NZEOGWU COUP WAS NOT AN IGBO COUP

Former Military President of Nigeria, General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida (IBB) has, in his recently launched book, “A Journey In Service: An Autobiography Of Ibrahim Babangida,” expressed views that suggest 1966 Nzeogwu-led military coup in Nigeria was not an Igbo coup as many had tried to posit.

He said in the book that one of the original aims of the coup was to release from prison the late Yoruba Leader and Premier of Western Region, Chief Obafemi Awolowo and to make him President of Nigeria.

Another reason Babangida gave, that suggests it is wrong to tag the historic coup an Igbo coup was that most of the top military officers that frustrated the coup in the North and in the West were Igbo army officers, some of who were killed for daring to challenge the coup.

He also added that the coup leaders were not all Igbos and that even the leader of the coup, Major Kaduna Nzeogwu, who saw himself more as an Hausa, hailed from an Igbo speaking community in today’s Delta State which was, as at the time of the coup part of Mid-Western Nigeria.

Babangida wrote: “For instance, the head of the plotters, Major Kaduna Nzeogwu, was only Igbo in name.

Born and raised in Kaduna, his immigrant parents were from Okpanam in today’s Delta State, which, in 1966, was in the old mid-western region.

Nzeogwu spoke fluent Hausa and was as ‘Hausa’ as any!

“He and his original team probably. thought, even if naively, that they could turn things around for the better in the country.

“That said, it was heinously callous for Nzeogwu to have murdered Sir Ahmadu Bello and his wife, Hafsatu, because not only were they eminently adored by many but also because they were said not to have put up a fight. From that moment, the putsch was infiltrated by ‘outsiders’ to its supposed original intention, and it took on an unmistakably ethnic colouration, compounded by the fact that there were no related coup activities in the Eastern region.

“It should, however, be borne in mind that some senior officers of Igbo extraction were also victims of the January coup. For instance, my erstwhile Commander at the Reconnaissance Squadron in Kaduna, Lt-Col. Arthur Chinyelu Unegbe, was brutally gunned down by his own ‘brother, Major Chris Anuforo, in the presence of his pregnant wife, at his 7 Point Road residence in Apapa, for merely being a threat to the revolution.

As a disciplined and strict officer who, as the Quartermaster-General of the Army, was also in charge of ammunition, weapons, equipment, vehicles, and other vital items for the Army, the coup plotters feared that he might not cooperate with them.

“It should also be remembered that some non-Igbo officers, like Major Adewale Ademoyega, Captain Ganiyu Adeleke, Lts Pola Oyewole, and Olafimihan, took part in the failed coup.

“Another officer of Igbo extraction, Major John Obienu, crushed the coup.

“Those who argue that the original intention of the coup plotters was anything but ethnic refer to the fact that the initial purpose of the plotters was to release Chief Obafemi Awolowo from prison. immediately after the coup and make him the executive provisional president of Nigeria.

“The fact that these Igbo officers would do this to a man not known to be a great ‘lover’ of the Igbos may have given the coup a different ethnic colouration.

But, again, I may be wrong here since this view is speculative. I admit that my position here may be the naive insights of an unsuspecting young officer who viewed events from a distance!”

NewsOrient reports that the book has, since it’s launch in Abuja, continued to receive wide spread critical reviews.

~ NewsOrient

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