Operation Aure (3)
By
Nowa Omoigui
...Continued from:
Operation Aure (2) [see http://www.gamji.com/nowa/nowa26.htm ] and
Operation Aure (1) [see http://www.gamji.com/nowa/nowa25.htm ]
KADUNA, JULY 29 WEEKEND, 1966
The weekend of July 29, 1966 was not the first time
northern soldiers had contemplated action in the
North. As previously noted, quite aside from
tensions during the Platoon Commanders Course, when
there were false rumors of Lt. Col. Hassan Katsina's
arrest by General Ironsi in Lagos after the
promulgation of Decree #34, northern soldiers
surrounded the Kaduna airport waiting to see who would
alight from his returning plane. Things were so tense
that Hassan ordered his ADC, then Lt. Ugokwe (Recce),
not to step out of the plane before he did, lest he be
shot because he was Igbo.
On June 15, there was a false alarm in Kaduna when the
sound of planks being offloaded from a Goods Train at
the Train Station was misinterpreted as rifle shots.
During Ironsi's trip to Kano in July, Lt. Garba Duba
of the 1st Recce Squadron had been tasked to take a
troop of Ferrets from Kaduna to Kano to provide
security for Ironsi, only to find himself stopped and
nearly arrested in Zaria, accused by furious northern
infantrymen and civilians of betraying the North by
providing security for Ironsi in Kano. After much
ado, he was allowed to proceed. Later on when Ironsi
was scheduled to arrive at the Zaria Civil aerodrome,
enroute to Kaduna, there was an accidental discharge
from an armored car in his receiving security detail.
Anyhow, on July 29, Major General Ironsi telephoned
the 1st Brigade HQ in Kaduna at about 0730 hrs to
alert the Brigade about events in Ibadan and seek
help. He revealed that as of that time he had not
been able to get a helicopter sent from Lagos. This
was most likely because there were no night flying
helicopter capabilities in Nigeria then and certainly
no night landing facilities at the government house,
not to mention the fact that any such Police
helicopter would likely have been shot down by
disloyal troops that had already ringed the premises.
The substantive Brigade Commander, Lt. Col. W. Bassey,
was on leave. The acting Brigade Commander, Lt. Col. Phillip Effiong was away, engaged in community
outreach. The Governor, Lt. Col. Hassan Katsina was
also away on tour. Ironsi spoke to Major Samuel
Ogbemudia, the Brigade Major, who in turn informed him
of prevailing tensions in Kaduna. Two nights before
he had arrested Lt. Buka Suka Dimka in a drunken state
trying to break into the armoury after he had earlier
been spotted going from house to house of northern
officers passing messages. After checking with Lt. Col. Hassan Katsina, he locked Dimka up until he could
be sober enough to be interrogated. During
interrogation Dimka denied any wrong doing and accused
Ogbemudia of mistreating him because he was a
northerner. He was later released. Other northern
officers and NCOs had also been spotted milling around
army facilities apparently aimlessly, essentially
"casing the joints" and quite a few were briefly
detained. Although it was not yet apparent, a few
southern officers had already been kidnapped on the
28th and were later killed "attempting to escape."
Lt. Col Alexander Madiebo, Commander of Artillery
Regiment, whose aircraft had departed Lagos 10 minutes
before Sergeant Dickson's boys seized the airport,
acting on Lt. Col. Murtala Muhammed's orders, was in
Kaduna on July 29th. For some reason, Anwunah had
failed to alert him of the mutiny when he found out
about it in Lagos at about midnight. Having been met
at the Kaduna airport by one of the Brigade Staff
Officers (Captain Dilibe) he was apprised of
developments in other parts of the country. Madiebo
took charge as the senior officer on the spot and
contacted Lagos. The person on seat at military
intelligence was none other than Captain Martin Adamu
who denied that anything unusual was occurring. But
Madiebo wasn't fooled. He ordered Ogbemudia to order
all units to surrender their weapons and have them
locked up in unit armouries which were then to be
guarded by mixed combinations of northern and southern
troops. Some units refused, citing fear of being
attacked. One notable example was the 3rd battalion
under Lt. Col. I. C. Okoro (an easterner) whose
Regimental Sergeant Major, one Ahmadu Bello, a
northerner, advised against the move. Okoro told
Madiebo that he had extracted a pedge of loyalty from
his troops at a muster parade. He went further to say
that Bello advised that the entire battalion be
disarmed except a platoon specially selected by Bello
himself.
Ogbemudia recalls that although the day started out
well, things became increasingly tense as it
progressed and news began filtering in from the south.
At this point, though, Madiebo contacted Lt. Col.
Later that night, at a pre-midnight party at the
Brigade Officers Mess, a young officer who had just
completed a course at the NMTC, T/Capt. I.U. Idika was
summarily executed, having refused all entreaties by
Madiebo to leave. Following this 'signal', Lt. Col. Okoro was shot dead at midnight of July 29/30 in front
of the 3rd Battalion guardroom, allegedly by Lts. Dimka and Dambo, after being lured there by his RSM
(Bello). After despatching a landrover to take his
corpse to the military hospital, the group - joined
by others, including Lt. Saninegeria Abacha - disarmed
the quarter guard, rallied the battalion for a muster
parade on the hockey pitch where easterners were
separated, and then locked them up in the guard room
(if they were lucky). Then they went hunting for
others at the Brigade HQ and in their homes. Initial
arrests were guided by lists of so called "jubilators"
who had allegedly taunted them or celebrated in the
days after the assassination of the Sardauna. Those
northerners who had attended "January Victory" parties
had used the opportunity to take names of their
southern hosts. Many were shot immediately, but six
were taken to the undamaged Guest House at the late
Northern Premier's Lodge, wined and dined, given a
visual tour of the damage wrought by Major Nzeogwu's
84 mm Carl Gustav anti-tank guns, then interrogated
about the alleged "Plan 15 Igbo coup", before being
made to kneel in front of a portrait of the Sardauna
and bow in awe ("yi gaisuwa"). Then they were led out
and executed before their corpses were then
transported to locations along the Jos, Lagos and
Kachia roads and either left for hyenas to devour or
shoddily buried.
After being hunted down, those who were spared the
Premier's Lodge 'pre-operative' treatment were simply
trucked out to mile 18 on the Kaduna-Jos road where
they were shot (allegedly under Captain Ahmadu
Yakubu's supervision) and then reportedly robbed of
personal belongings. The process was not totally
successful, however, because thankfully, some who
feigned death were able to crawl away to safety.
Madiebo, Kalu, Okon, Ogbemudia and many others
eventually escaped back to their home regions from
Kaduna, while some, like Major Olusegun Obasanjo were
later smuggled to Maiduguri for safe-keeping. But
others were not so lucky. As the days progressed,
however, it was clear that there was inconsistency in
the degree of discrimination being made between
southerners or "jubilators". T/Capt. L.C. Dilibe
(Staff Officer, 1st Bde), T/Major Emelifonwu (DAQMG,
1st Bde) and T/Major Ogunro (Chief Instructor, NMTC)
were murdered. Major A. Drummond, half cast
Igbo-Scot, was killed on Sunday July 31st. Major OU
Isong (Commander, 1st Recce Squadron) who had
actually expressed scepticism about the January 15
coup, risking death at the hands of Major Nzeogwu, was
also killed during the July rebellion in Kaduna, among
others. The details of his death have never been
fully clarified but the young northern officers in his
squadron at that time include Lts. Ibrahim Babangida,
Garba Duba, Sunday Ifere and others.
After hitchhiking with Igbo contacts across the North,
Madiebo escaped across the Benue bridge at Makurdi by
hiding in a water tank dressed in a firesuit, avoiding
capture by a detachment of the 5th battalion commanded
by Captain Daramola during the penultimate leg of his
relay race back home. Ogbemudia's escape from death at
the hands of Lt. BS Dimka was partly made possible by
Major Abba Kyari and Lt. Col. Hassan Katsina. Hassan
himself had allegedly been briefly detained by
mutinous troops and then released, only to be falsely
accused of being behind the whole plot (along with Ali
Akilu). It was already known that Dimka was not
happy that Ogbemudia had arrested him earlier,
although Dimka did not know that it had been
sanctioned by Hassan who had his ears to the ground.
Dimka's group pursued him to Kontagora where he
refueled, barely eluding them at the fuel station.
Indeed, Ogbemudia was not the only example of this
paradox. There were many others. Then Major H. Igboba, who barely escaped death on July 29 (as a Lt.
Col. and CO of the 2nd battalion ), had led one of the
companies from the battalion that helped in crushing
the January mutiny along with Major Anago (a
Camerounian) both under Lt. Col. Yakubu Gowon who was
transitioning in to replace Hilary Njoku. Njoku, for
unclear reasons, was still at his post even though
already posted out. But Igboba fully cooperated with
Gowon, who in turn, was supporting Ironsi. In fact,
according to Ben Odogwu, Chief of Biafran
Intelligence, Col. Igboba later met his death at the
Benin Prison in September 1967 at the hands of
ex-January 15 mutineers he had manhandled in detention
after they were arrested in Lagos.
KANO, JULY 29 WEEKEND, 1966
The 5th battalion in Kano was under the command of
T/Lt. Col. M Shuwa, one of the two battalions in the
country commanded by a northern officer - the other
one being the 4th battalion in Ibadan. On July 28,
29, and 30 the unit was deceptively quiet although
Shuwa was abreast of events elsewhere. However, on
the night of July 31/August 1st, four Igbo officers
were suddenly hunted down and shot. It remained
relatively quiet again until September when all hell
broke loose at the Kano International Airport. As
Lt. Col Hassan Katsina put it at Aburi, "I have seen
an Army mutiny in Kano and if you see me trembling you
will know what a mutiny is. .... for two good days I
saw a real mutiny when a C.O. of Northern origin
commanding soldiers of Northern origin had to run
away." One northern officer was actually reportedly
killed by angry northern soldiers for giving them an
order to protect Igbos. The slaughter of Igbos at Kano
airport by elements of the 5th battalion was one of
the more gruesome events of that era.
ENUGU, JULY 29 WEEKEND, 1966
According to the transcript of tape recordings of the
military leaders meeting from January 4-5, 1967, held
at the Peduase Lodge, Aburi, Ghana, then Lt. Col. C. Ojukwu, Military Governor of the eastern region, said
(among other things):
"When this affair of the 29th July occurred, I
remember for certain, the
first 24 hours nobody thought it necessary to contact
the East from Lagos.
I made the contact later and I know the advice I gave
Brigadier Ogundipe
at that time. I said to him, 'Sir, the situation is so
confused that I
feel that somebody must take control immediately.
Also, I would suggest
that you go on to the air and tell the country what
has happened and that
you were taking control of the situation.' Then I was
told about concern
for the whole country. I knew that if this thing
resolved itself into
factions we would get ourselves into so much trouble
that we would never
or we would find it difficult to get out. I maintained
and still do that
the answer would have been for the responsible
officers of the Army to get
together thereby trying to get the Army together to
solve the problem that
we had on our hands. I said to him 'As soon as you
have made your speech I guarantee you within 30
minutes, I needed time to write my own, in 30
minutes I would come on to the air in the East and say
that I, the entire
Army in the East and the entire people in the East
wholeheartedly support
you."
Indeed, official circles in the eastern region were
"blacked out" initially from information flow,
particularly during the first 24 hours of the revolt. The commander of the 1st battalion in Enugu, Lt.
Col. David "Baba" Ogunewe, a thoroughly professional
and experienced officer who had risen from the ranks,
found out about the Abeokuta mutiny late at night on
July 29 by accident. Captain Ogbonna had tried to
reach the battalion from Abeokuta.
The duty officer at the 1st battalion (who happened to
be a northerner) was not on seat when Ogbonna's
message came through, so it was passed directly to Lt.
Col. Ogunewe, thus giving him an early insight into
events, which proved to be crucial. He went to the
mess in the early hours of July 30 and found a group
of northern officers (including Lts. Shehu Musa
Yar-Adua, A. A. Abubakar, Sale Mamood, Daudu Suleiman,
Captains Muhammadu Jega, Gibson S. Jalo and others)
fully dressed in combat fatigues and apparently talked
them out of taking precipitate action, tapping an
incredible reserve of goodwill he had always had with
the boys. Ogunewe's successful confrontation with the
northern officers is all the more remarkable when it
is realized that he was unarmed and had only been in
command of that battalion for six months. It was
truly a testimony to his man-management skills in
crisis, well worth study for future reference. It
turns out though, that these officers had already been
having meetings behind Hotel Presidential in Enugu to
discuss their own contributions to the "Aure" plot and
the neutralization of Lt. Col. Ojukwu. However, they
had decided after careful appreciation of the
situation, surrounded by a hostile population, to
restrict themselves to self defence to avoid reprisals
against their families.
In an October 1979 interview with the FRCN,
Major-General Shehu Musa Yar'Adua (rtd), now deceased,
recalled his role as the Adjutant of the 1st Battalion
in those dark days. According to him, there was no
plan initially to kill anyone although he clearly
intended to arrest Lt. Col C. Ojukwu, then Military
Governor. He corroborates other sources who have
since said that the coup date had in fact been put off
when informal word came late on Friday night, more
likely early Saturday July 30, from Captain Remawa in
Abeokuta, that violence had broken out. At first
Yar'Adua did not know what to make of it since Remawa
was not part of the original "Aure" plot. But then he
got dressed and alerted other northern officers. By
the time he returned to the office at about 4 am, as
he put it: "........my CO and all the
Igbo
officers had been there at three, because somebody had
also rang them from Abeokuta and told them what was
happening." This "somebody" was none other than
Captain Ogbonna.
A joint guard, consisting of northern and southern
soldiers was then posted to guard the armoury, choking
off weapon flow. Ogunewe then notified Lt. Col Ojukwu
and later ordered that all officers irrespective of
regional origin should live together in the mess while
all Other Ranks were to live on the parade ground.
At 11am on July 30, Ojukwu called a meeting of the
regional executive council at which they were briefed
on events in other parts of the country. Before then
Ojukwu had been on the telephone all morning
contacting units and eastern officers all over the
country to get a picture of events. He is quoted by
NU Akpan, former Secretary to the Government of the
Eastern region after one of his calls, as saying:
"One thing is clear, however; these people are quite
bent on annihilating the Ibos." Later that day, for
reasons that have never been clarified, he slipped out
of Enugu (leaving Ogunewe behind) and went to Onitsha
from where he was making his calls to Ogundipe in
Lagos encouraging him to stand firm. Much later that
night, urged by Mr. P. Okeke who was then Commissioner
of Police, he returned to Enugu, moving his office,
home and relatives to the Police HQ, surrounded by a
special guard of Mobile Policemen of Igbo origin.
By Sunday July 31st, when Ojukwu called the executive
council again, he announced that Brigadier Ogundipe
had since told him that the situation was out of
control. Shortly thereafter, Ogundipe himself could
not be contacted. It was not until Lt. Col. Gowon's
broadcast on August 1st that a transient semblance of
order became discernible. Ojukwu made a broadcast in
response in which he said, inter-alia,
"In the course of this rebellion, I have had
discussions with the Chief of Staff, Supreme
Headquarters, Brigadier Ogundipe, who as the next most
senior officer in the absence of the Supreme
Commander, should have assumed command of the Army..."
"During those discussions, it was understood that the
only condition on which the rebels would agree to
cease fire were: that the Republic of Nigeria be split
into its component parts; and that all southerners in
the North be repatriated to the South and that
Northerners resident in the South be repatriated to
the North.."
"...the brutal, planned annihilation of officers of
Eastern Nigerian origin in the last two days has again
cast serious doubts as to whether the people of
Nigeria, after these cruel and bloody atrocities, can
ever sincerely live together as members of the same
nation..."
"..I have further conveyed to the Chief of Staff,
Supreme Headquarters, my fellow military governors and
the Chief of Staff, Army Headquarters, my
understanding that the only intention of the
announcement made by the Chief of Staff, Army
Headquarters today is the restoration of peace in the
country whilst immediate negotiations are begun to
allow the people of Nigeria to determine the form of
their future association. Good night and thank you."
Ojukwu then spent the next one week insisting that
northern soldiers in Enugu (who comprised no less than
two thirds of the battalion) be removed from the city
before he would consider leaving the safety of the
Police HQ back to the State House.
Through all this, Ogunewe kept in touch with Gowon in
Lagos and was crucial to arrangements that were
subsequently made to successfully repatriate
non-eastern soldiers and their families out of the
region - a remarkable achievement for which he was
rewarded by being fully reabsorbed into the Nigerian
Army without loss of rank after the civil war. But
even this was not so straightforward. For one,
Ogunewe had to resist all kinds of entreaties to allow
vengeful Igbo mobs gain entry into the barracks to
liquidate the northern troops there. Secondly,
according to then Major (later Brigadier) Benjamin
Adekunle, Lt. Col. Murtala Muhammed had contacted Lt.
Yar'Adua secretly and ordered him to break into the
armoury to secure arms and ammunition for northern
soldiers - to the exclusion of others. This led to a
clash between them which almost cost Adekunle his life
later on.
Just under two weeks after Gowon came to power, Major
Adekunle was tasked to lead the 1st battalion
detachment by train which was granted safe passage to
transport non-eastern soldiers and their families to
Kaduna enroute to Lagos in exchange for surviving
eastern soldiers in other regions. The suspicion was
so high that Adekunle gave orders that every
individual soldier was to guard every other individual
soldier. When Adekunle got to Kaduna, some Igbo
officers released from Kaduna Prison were placed
onboard the train (without his knowledge, he says, but
with his knowledge others say) on their way to Lagos
enroute to the eastern region. Some of the northern
soldiers on the train did not like the arrangement
seeing as they felt they had not yet contributed their
quota to the mayhem going on elsewhere, so they
mutinied, killing the Igbo officers. As Brigadier
Adekunle (rtd) put it:
"Yar'Adua arranged for their heads to be cut and threw
their bodies over the door, chained with other
officers ..."
Other sources say the bodies were thrown into a river
near Minna. It turns out that there were a few
pregnant women onboard the train who went into labor
when they witnessed this spectacle. Therefore,
Adekunle ordered the train stopped at Minna Station to
take the women in labor to hospital. It was there
that he says Lt. SM Yar'Adua attacked him with a
bayonet.
According to Adekunle:
"I got to the railway station. Madness started.
Alright put your hand inside my head and see wound,
that is blade, that is Yar'Adua's work. Immediately I
got down they wanted to kill Adekunle. You see this,
it was for my stomach. Yar'Adua, see my hand, it was
cut but they couldn't cut it, they cut and cut but the
knife no go. You don forget say na Ogbomosho na him I
be. Then they put my head on railway line that when
the train coming to Lagos moves it will cut my head."
Adekunle, however, has never publicly explained how he
survived but others say he was saved by then Captain
GS Jalo, who shared the same Bachama ethnicity as
Adekunle's mother. In an interview, Lt. General GS
Jalo (rtd), now deceased, also credited Alhaji
Suleiman, then District Head in Minna and his former
Principal in Yola, for saving then Major Adekunle's
life. Other sources allege that it was Yar'Adua
himself who drove Adekunle to Hospital in Minna from
where he was aero-evacuated to Kaduna and claim that
Yar'Adua was neither the instigator of the Train
mutiny nor Adekunle's attacker.
In any case, when the 1st battalion detachment
eventually arrived at Ikeja Barracks in Lagos,
northern soldiers who left Enugu unmolested got
themselves involved in molesting departing Igbo
refugees and looting their property. According to
General Jalo:
"The Igbo were going away and looting set in and some
senior officers, I must confess, encouraged this to
happen."
On August 27, in another broadcast from Enugu, Ojukwu
stated, among other things,
"I last spoke to you on August 1, following the
unfortunate and tragic events of July 29. I am sure
that you all have since followed through the Press and
Radio the sad turn of events. One thing has come out
very clearly from this, the preceding and subsequent
events, that is, that there is in fact no genuine
basis for true unity in the country..."
Ojukwu unilaterally declared August 29 a day of
mourning in the East, a move which was, however,
viewed with suspicion as an act of defiance by hawks
in the Gowon government. It proved to be one of many
"Stations of the Cross" along the long windy road to
the Nigerian Civil War, a road some say began in
January 1914.
TO BE CONTINUED. TUNE IN NEXT WEEK FOR THE CONCLUDING
PIECE REGARDING EVENTS IN BENIN AND IBADAN, AS WELL AS
THE CASUALTY LIST OF THE COUNTER-REBELLION, PLUS
REFERENCES...AND MORE
CONTINUE http://www.gamji.com/nowa/nowa29.htm