Memories of the coup day 1975

I have vivid memories of the day General Yakubu Gowon’s military government was overthrown on Tuesday,  July 29, 1975. My generation of Nigerians has witnessed the 1966 two coups, although we may be too young to grasp their ramifications fully. I was rounding up primary school in 1966, when the two coups took place. However, in […]

I have vivid memories of the day General Yakubu Gowon’s military government was overthrown on Tuesday,  July 29, 1975. My generation of Nigerians has witnessed the 1966 two coups, although we may be too young to grasp their ramifications fully. I was rounding up primary school in 1966, when the two coups took place. However, in July 1975, I had just finished my second-to-last year of degree exams in June, in the Department of Business Administration at the Kongo campus, ABU Zaria.

I have not gone on holiday because my head of department, Pita Ejiofor (now Professor Emeritus in Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka), had given me paid employment for the duration of the holiday in his office. It was his way of mentoring students whom he felt might remain with the department after graduation. He was a hard taskmaster, and every day he would give me a list of books and journals to go to the J.F. Kennedy library to look through to find one thing or the other. Nevertheless, he understood that it was a lonesome existence for me as the campus was bare of students. So, he occasionally allowed me some days off to travel.

I was on one of those days off, spending the last weekend of July in Kano, and was due back in Zaria on the fateful coup day. I had a Vespa motorcycle, which I cherished for getting me around on campus and for occasional trips to nearby Kaduna, Funtua, and even as far as Kano. I bought it with the proceeds of a holiday job the previous year with Max Lock Consultants, who were engaged to plan Maiduguri town. It was a very tedious assignment, standing all day in front of the Post Office or near Gwange Bridge, or the upcoming Bullumkuttu settlement, doing a traffic survey. But they paid well, a princely N54 per month.

I left Kano on the morning of the 29th, blissfully unaware that a coup against the government of the day was unfolding in Lagos. That morning, Col Joseph Garba, the Commander of the Brigade of Guards, was all over the airwaves announcing the ouster of General Yakubu Gowon. It was totally unexpected because there had been a measure of stability in the polity since the last coup in July 1966. However, nine years in the saddle was a long time, and the populace was yearning for new faces.

Gowon had created 12 states out of the four regions, won the Civil War and was hard at work to achieve the official policy of RRR – Reconciliation, Reconstruction and Rehabilitation, meant to integrate the defeated rebel Biafra with the rest of the country. He was a popular leader who had at his disposal ample oil wealth, which enabled him to transform the country’s infrastructure within a short period. Additionally, he had lavishly reviewed workers’ salaries and wages and backdated them to allow workers to collect huge arrears. All these notwithstanding, there were open agitations against the continued military rule.

The agitations against the Gowon regime can be traced to a 1970 speech he made immediately after the Civil War. In the speech, he promised, among other things, to gradually civilianise the polity till 1976 when power would be handed over to a civilian set-up. However, in a complete reversal, Gowon, in an Independence Day broadcast on October 1, 1974, told a stunned nation that 1976 was unrealistic. He did not name a new date, leaving it to speculation. Since then, the government has been under a barrage of criticism, particularly from politicians who had looked forward to returning to power. Chief Obafemi Awolowo, who had helped to stabilise the Gowon regime and joined as Minister of Finance and left to prepare for political tasks ahead, was strident in his reproval.

The politicians were supported by the civil society organisations, the labour unions, the student unions and a host of other malcontents. Within the military, too, there were agitations of a different kind. Many officers felt that Gowon had grown soft and could not control his lieutenants, particularly the governors and ministers, who were openly accused of corruption. During all the nine years in power, Gowon had hardly moved any of the governors and ministers. The dissidents, high up in the military hierarchy, in cahoots with middle-level officers, finally had the right moment when General Gowon was out of the country to depose him.

When I left Kano that morning of the 29th, everything looked normal. The Zaria highway, then a single-lane road, was heavy with traffic. It was a warm, rainy day, but my Vespa motorcycle got me along fine. Along the way, I noticed groups of soldiers, here and there, but they were not stopping anyone. Within Zaria, I saw a heavy presence of soldiers, but I didn’t take it to be anything out of the ordinary. I learned of the coup upon arriving at the department. I was shocked. Ejiofor was in the office, and when I got in, he sat me down to review the unfolding events in Lagos.

Out there in Lagos, the coup leaders were still coordinating events and arranging the meeting to set up the new government. Brigadier Murtala Mohammed, the new strongman, had returned to the country that morning, via Kano and was expected in Lagos.