Balewa’s death: Another side of the story

This is a response to recent controversies pertaining to the death of the late Alhaji Tafawa Abubakar Balewa in January 1966. I will start off by commenting on the report in the Sunday Times of January 23, 1966, titled, “Balewa is dead, found by roadside, buried in Bauchi.” The discovery of Balewa’s corpse was curiously […]

This is a response to recent controversies pertaining to the death of the late Alhaji Tafawa Abubakar Balewa in January 1966.

I will start off by commenting on the report in the Sunday Times of January 23, 1966, titled, “Balewa is dead, found by roadside, buried in Bauchi.”

The discovery of Balewa’s corpse was curiously first reported by Ghana Radio on Thursday, January 20, 1966. This preceded the report allegedly made by nearby villagers on Friday morning January 21, 1966.

Alhaji Abubakar’s body was flown on a chartered plane (arranged by the Commissioner of Police) from Lagos directly to Bauchi, his hometown, not at midnight on Friday, January 21, but in the early hours of Saturday, January 22. The Bauchi aerodrome had no instrument or night landing facilities then, and thus no flight intending to land before daylight would have been cleared for take-off from Lagos. Family members went along with other officials for the flight. It is not true that only soldiers accompanied the pilot and radio officer. The delegation and corpse arrived in Bauchi on Saturday afternoon which should provide a reliable guesstimate for when the aircraft actually took off from Lagos after rounding up relatives.

Tafawa Balewa was not buried at the Muslim cemetery. He was buried in a family home.

He was not initially left in a ditch by the road side. He, along with Lt. Col. Largema, were abandoned in the open bush near a tree. Nor was Okotie-Eboh, who was buried separately, along the other officers in a makeshift grave. By the time Chief Osoba “got there with a friend Titus Shokanlu about 7 p.m. that Friday and saw the two bodies placed in a ditch by the road side”, as he recounts, the bodies had already been moved at least once, most likely by the team from the military hospital. The body with the battered head was that of Largema, not Okotie-Eboh. After being riddled with SMG fire, his corpse was dragged or thrown down one or two flights of stairs at the Ikoyi hotel  and thrown into a car boot. This is easily confirmed by the documentation (by Osoba) of the presence of stripped pyjamas on the corpse, which Largema wore (according to the Special Branch report) when he was called out of his hotel room at the Ikoyi hotel only to be gunned down by Ifeajuna and Ezedigbo. Okotie-Eboh was not wearing pyjamas when he was arrested. All he had on was a loin cloth.

Let me comment on a few more issues.

The notion that any records in the British Diplomatic Archives are useless because the UK government “allowed” the Commonwealth Heads of government meeting take place just before the coup.

I find this curious, knowing how careless we are with records. Short of an outright early leak, intelligence reports about coups are typically vague and unactionable until the last moment, when certain military movements reveal their imminence. Nigeria’s intelligence apparatus was mostly in Nigerian hands at that time although there were some British police officers. One of the leaders of the January Majors coup, Major PCK Nzeogwu, was the first indigenous head of Nigeria’s Intelligence Corps. He used the cover of a routine military training exercise to mask his plans. It is no secret that some of the plotters accused one another of betraying the plot to enable a coup within a coup. The Balewa government, on its own part, was not short for general intelligence about the coup except for operational details.

The final go ahead order was sent between Lagos (Ademoyega) and Kaduna (Nzeogwu) on Friday January 14th, 1966 after the Commonwealth conference was concluded. Right up to that afternoon, Balewa was getting warnings (see Shagari, Beckoned to Serve). Military movements began at 0200 hrs, On January 15, that the coup was able to be launched and eventually staggered to completion, says more about domestic than foreign elements. The possibility for British intervention was undermined by domestic intrigue. Coups of one stripe or another have taken place in other countries during or just before or after other international meetings.

The differential rate of decomposition of the bodies of Balewa and Largema (wrongly identified as Okotie-Eboh) – according to Osoba who claimed Balewa’s body was “fresh.”

A lot of hay has been made regarding Chief Osoba’s discovery of an allegedly “fresh” Balewa corpse. The implication to the untrained is that he has made a reliable ‘Time Since Death’ determination as he suggests that Balewa died within the 24 hours before Friday January 21, 1966 rather than on the night of January 15, 1966.

This non-medical presumption has opened up speculative political implications, most importantly that Balewa was “wasted” by elements inside the Ironsi regime who had already hijacked the failed coup from the Majors and whose legitimacy would crumble if Balewa were to be known to be alive. Let me say from the outset that unproven rumors and speculations about Ironsi’s “knowledge of” or “involvement” in the events of January 1966 have dogged the subject matter over the years. They are not new.

But how reliable is Osoba’s layman ‘Time Since Death’ determination? I am reminded of a well known case in the Forensic literature in which a 4-month-old corpse was appeared “fresh.” The corpse of civil rights activist Medgar Evers was nearly perfectly preserved for over 30 years without being embalmed.

Human decomposition begins within minutes after death, initiated by autolysis or self-digestion (while the corpse still looks fresh). This process begins and progresses more rapidly in tissues that have a high enzyme content (like the liver) and a high water content like the brain, but eventually affects all the cells of the body. Autolysis usually does not become visible to the eye for a few days and may take from several days up to years depending on multiple factors. Certainly to the naked untrained eye, it is not a precise science.

After enough cells have ruptured, nutrient-rich fluids become available and the process of putrefaction begins. Putrefaction (bloating) is the destruction of the soft tissues of the body by the action of micro-organisms. It results in the conversion of tissue into gases, liquids and simple molecules. Gas production is most apparent in the bowels, but can occur in many parts of the body. Shortly after the purging of gases, active decay starts, exacerbated by insects (especially flies) and carnivorous animals.

Mummification (drying and reversion to dust), which most commonly takes place under conditions of dry heat or very low humidity, then follows.

However, in modern parlance, we prefer to think of it as more simply pre- and post-skeletonization because some of the neatly defined stages above (autolysis, putrefaction, and drying) may or may not occur depending on circumstances.

Decomposition is a complicated process, primarily driven by temperature and moisture, and the presence of the right environment for bacterial growth. Buried individuals and those submerged in water have different rates of decomposition. Injuries can affect the rate as well since damage to the skin increases blood loss, insect and bacterial action. However, the soft tissue decomposition process for persons lying on the ground can be estimated by standard formula. A person with less ground contact decomposes more slowly.

Those factors affecting the rate of human decomposition that would have delayed Balewa’s decomposition relative to Largema’s (misidentified as Okotie Eboh by Osoba), are:

• His seating position and the fact that he was fully clothed (including a head gear), which reduced contact with the ground and with microorganism scavengers. Largema (not Okotie Eboh as is wrongly identified), on the other hand, was practically naked, exposed to the elements.

• 2, His body size and weight – Balewa was lighter and had a smaller lean body mass.

• Type of food inside his digestive tract – Balewa was fasting and, devout as he was, certainly did not partake in pork products. [It was the Ramadan fast]. Largema on the other hand attended a military officers’ party at Maimalari’s house then retired to the hotel just before his arrest. His state of fasting, and degree of devoutness are unclear but he certainly spent his last nutritional hours very differently from the way Balewa spent his.

• Largema had a severe head wound (with exposed Brain which decomposes faster than other organs.). Balewa did not have a head wound.

Factors that had equal effect on them both as far as decomposition was concerned, were temperature, availability of oxygen, lack of prior embalming, cause of death (gunshot wound), non-burial, trauma, including wounds and crushing blows (although Balewa had a chest but not a head wound), humidity, and rainfall.

The alleged absence of bullet wounds in either corpse according to Osoba, although Largema’s head (wrongly identified as Okotie-Eboh’s head) was “battered”.

Balewa and the others were shot using Stirling Submachine Guns firing 9mm parabellum rounds. Entry wounds are typically smaller in diameter than the caliber of the round for any amunition but the parabellum round may manifest an extra suction effect. And the parabellum round has certain ballistic characteristics which make it more destructive internally that might be apparent on a casual look externally.

Further, the early swelling of autolysis will obscure small entry flesh wounds (already shrunken from elasticity of the human body), and this would have been compounded by the fact that Osoba got to the scene of the crime – at 7pm – as he says, after sunset, in the harmattan season in thick forest.

Testimony from members of the Military Hospital Team on the scene (which included a Medical Officer, Police officers and soldiers) reveals the fact that examination of the corpse took place using Kerosene lamps. Osoba does not claim to have removed Balewa’s clothes nor did he describe a detailed assessment of both entry and exit wounds beyond a casual layman’s view. Was he wearing gloves? The team from the Military Hospital and Dodan Barracks identified an entry chest wound and an exit back wound which blew out the Prime Minister’s spine. The extents of other penetrating or perforating wounds are unknown but immaterial to the cause of death. He was medically certified dead from gunshot wounds. The medical officers of the military hospital of that era (Austen-Peters, Adefope, etc) can be reached, although you may have to deal with the question of confidentiality. They can also shed light on the movement of the military corpses to area hospitals. That PM Balewa’s body required the use of disinfectants illustrates the degree of decomposition that was already apparent, perhaps after his body was inspected under the clothes, even while Osoba held the view that the body was “fresh.”

Another line of verification could potentially involve obtaining testimony from his erstwhile Police ADC, family members, and those intimately involved in his funeral.

To be concluded next week