Why are we remembering the villains?
In the South, the top ranking politicians who lost their lives on that day were Chief Samuel Ladoke Akintola, the Premier of the Western region and Chief Festus Okotie-Eboh, who was then Nigeria’s finance minister. It seemed an inconsiderate and insensitive thing to create another anniversary that completely eclipsed the great but tragic significance of […]
In the South, the top ranking politicians who lost their lives on that day were Chief Samuel Ladoke Akintola, the Premier of the Western region and Chief Festus Okotie-Eboh, who was then Nigeria’s finance minister. It seemed an inconsiderate and insensitive thing to create another anniversary that completely eclipsed the great but tragic significance of January 15th in the history of Nigeria. With this mind-set I did an internet search to find out why Nigeria celebrates its armed forces remembrance on the same day the military committed their worst crime yet, against their motherland. Whether we like it or not Major Chukwuma Nzeogwu was a member of the Nigerian armed forces and he could never have been able to achieve his dastardly deed on January 15th 1966 if he wasn’t a trained soldier.
My first discovery on the internet got me incensed the more. It said that Nigeria celebrates its armed forces remembrance on January 15th ‘in commemoration of January 1966 when the first shot was fired to start the process that metamorphosed into the Nigerian civil war.’ I couldn’t believe the thoughtlessness of it all. So because an unjust shot was fired and great citizens of our nation were killed in cold blood, we should now celebrate the villains rather than their victims? Totally unsatisfied with this viewpoint I did another search asking when the first armed forces remembrance was held in Nigeria on January 15th , as opposed to November 11thwhich is the date armed forces are remembered among states of the Commonwealth. This time I got a more satisfactory answer. The Wikipedia said that Nigeria celebrates its armed forces remembrance on January 15th because it was on that day in 1970 that the rebels of Biafra surrendered to the might of the federal troops and the civil war was declared officially over. Now this sounds like a better reason to remember the Nigerian military personnel on January 15th, but it does not mean that the date should be totally dedicated to their memory, to the exclusion of everyone else. Whether it was a coincidence or it was deliberately planned that the Nigerian armistice should be on the same date as the armed forces worst atrocity against Nigeria, what the Gowon government should have done was to set another date, to commemorate the armed forces, out of respect for the illustrious and patriotic sons of Nigeria that the mutinous soldiers eliminated on that date. Or it could have stuck to the original armed forces remembrance date celebrated all over the Commonwealth of nations, November 11th .
As it is now, the real significance of that day is lost to most Nigerians and one cannot help noticing a deliberate attempt to paint the murderers of our finest and most patriotic crop of leaders in good light. Some commentators refer to the first dark chapter in our nation’s history as ‘the Young Majors coup’ others as the ‘Coup of the January boys’ and yet others call the group ‘the Youth Turks’ in an attempt to see their murderous venture as the same kind of regime that took place in Turkey early last century. This is a great disservice to the selfless and visionary minds that were cold-bloodedly killed by Major Chukwuma Kaduna Nzeogwu and his band of assassins. In fact so bloodthirsty was Nzeogwu that when journalist asked him what he would have done if Sir Ahmadu Bello had agreed to join Chief Akintola and leave Nigeria, on the eve of the coup, as suggested by Prime Minister Abubakar Tafawa Balewa; that Nzeogwu simply said he would have had the plane bombed. According to him, he had the Sardauna under surveillance 24 hours a day, so the Premier couldn’t have escaped him even if he tried.
In his book ‘Courage and Conviction: New Nigerian; the first 20 years’, late Malam Turi Muhammadu, one-time managing director of the New Nigerian, wrote about how the then British Prime Minister warned Tafawa Balewa that British intelligence had uncovered a plan to kill Sardauna Ahmadu Bello and Chief Akintola. Totally convinced, the Prime Minister was said to have phoned Sir Ahmadu Bello and told him of the plan to kill him as well as the need for him to get away from Nigeria. In pursuit of this objective Tafawa Balewa sent a plane to Ibadan to pick Chief Samuel Akintola and then Sir Ahmadu Bello in Kaduna. But the Sardauna was reported to have stoically turned down the offer of escape and consequently influenced Chief Akintola who was already in Kaduna to pick him, to also abandon the plan. Apparently, late Sir Abubakar Balewa had no idea he was also on the assassin’s hit list. And the rest is history.
The Nigeria armed forces might not have imbued Nzeogwu with the ethnocentrism and hatred that motivated him to strike that day, but it produced him anyway and gave him the chance to do it. For this reason its achievements must not eclipse its ill-deeds to the detriment of its victims. And these were no ordinary victims at all. I mean I wasn’t even born when this fine crop of leaders existed, but like millions of other Nigerians I feel their impact wherever I go. In less than a decade at the helm of their respective parts of Nigeria, they had achieved so much that they still remain the main reference points almost five decades after. A few weeks ago, the Ahmadu Bello foundation organised its first annual lecture which was telecast live on the NTA. I was struck by a comment made by Dr Hakeem Baba Ahmed which was a perfect example of great vision and statesmanship on the part of Sardauna Ahmadu Bello.
According to Dr Hakeem, when Ahmadu Bello was asked how big the proposed Northern university should be, which eventually came to bear his name, Sardauna’s answer was that it should stretch from Zaria all the way to Funtua. Whoever is familiar with the distance between these two places knows that Ahmadu Bello did not mean ‘as far as the eyes can see’ rather he meant ‘beyond what the eyes can see’. This is the hall mark of a visionary. Again, he was reminded that by setting up a university for the North, at the time, he was actually doing it for people from other parts of the country because there were then too few Northern students eligible for university admission. But according to Dr Hakeem, Sardauna’s answer was ‘Let them come from other parts of Nigeria, one day, Northerners will join them.’ Now this is great statesmanship.
An endless list of schools, research institutes, banks, development corporations and hospitals were all attributed to Sir Ahmadu Bello’s great vision for a developed and self-sustaining North. And the same goes for Chief Samuel Ladoke Akintola, whose government was credited with the establishment of similar educational, economic and social development projects in the defunct Western region of Nigeria. However you look at it, there is the need to revisit the commemoration of armed forces on January 15th while our worthy heroes, who met their gruesome end in their hands, remain un-mourned.
President Jonathan can seize the opportunity offered by the nation’s centenary celebrations next year to change this date and make it ‘National Heroes’ remembrance day, in order to remember the victims of Nzeogwu and Co. And he can return our armed forces remembrance day to November 11th, in sync with the rest of the Commonwealth. Alternatively, he can convert it to a joint commemoration, in which case it will become an ‘Armed Forces and Victims Remembrance Week.’ This will give the rest of us ample opportunity to remember, pray for and lay wreathes at the tombs of our ‘Known Heroes’ while others honour their ‘Unknown Soldier’. History beckons Goodluck Jonathan to seize the moment and correct this anomaly. It is never too late to right a wrong.