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FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 12, 2016 NEW TELEGRAPH
Opinion Murtala’s memorable Asaba baraza Emissary EMEKA OBASI
emobas2003@yahoo.com 08094457557 (sms only)
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t was supposed to be a peace meeting , a social gathering. Asaba trooped out in their snow white to welcome their guest Col. Murtala Mohammed who came with his troops. They were ready to offer their best dance steps even without guitars and Zeal Onyia’s trumpet. The soldiers presented Guitar Boy, for that was what Biafrans called AK -47. Ratataa tataaaaa. Deadly dark clouds covered the sky, River Niger turned red. Asaba became a grave yard and the diggers were women. The men were all wiped out. It happened ,in 1968. There was war. Murtala was one of the General Officers Commanding [GOC] in the Nigeria Army. It was a war of brothers. The other GOCs were Col. Mohammed Shuwa who attacked Biafra from the North and Benjamin Adekunle who stormed from the sea. However, what happened in Asaba is not what History will forget in a hurry. It was massacre, genocide. Before Rwanda, there was Biafra. How Col. Mohammed got into this is difficult to explain. He knew Lt.Cols Emeka Ojukwu and Yakubu Gowon so well. Ojukwu taught him military tactics at Military School Teshie ,Ghana and he emerged tops. Gowon was his senior at Barewa College, Zaria. It would be hard to dismiss Murtala as a tribalist for he married Ajoke, a Yoruba lady. His mother was from the Inua Wada family in Kano. The politician was a big time politician in the First Republic and became Defence Minister in 1965 after Alhaji Muhammadu Ribadu. Murtala joined the Army on September 18, 1958 with the quartet of Ibrahim
Haruna, Iliya Bisalla , Emmanuel Ikwue and Shuwa. Between 1959 and 1961, all but Ikwue were at the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst England. Mohammed came close to power when he served as Aide De Camp to Administrator of the Western Region, Dr. Moses Majekodunmi. Following the first Military coup of January 15, 1966, the young officer, a substantive Captain wearing the rank of Major, lost his hero, Brigadier Zakari Maimalari. His uncle Wada also lost his position. One of the leaders of that bloody coup was Chukwuma Nzeogwu ,from Okpanam, a stone throw from Asaba. The January coup offered Maj. Gen Johnson Aguiyi Ironsi the leadership of Nigeria. One good from the Head of State was to promote Murtala to Lt.Col. On July 29, 1966, the beneficiary led a coup that killed his Commanderin-Chief. Gowon stepped in over and above his seniors like Brig. Babafemi Ogundipe, Capt. Akinwale Wey of the Navy, Col. Adeyinka Adebayo, Lt.Cols Wellington Bassey, Conrad Nwawo[N10], Philip Effiong and David Ejoor. Gowon joined the Army on July 28, 1954. Nwawo enlisted May 21, 1954. Ejoor was their earlier on April 15, 1953. By 1975, Murtala was a Brigadier in the Gowon administration and Minister[Federal Commissioner] of Communications. He was a good communicator. Younger officers planned with him to push Gowon away while he attended the African Union Summit in Kampala, Uganda. There is really something about that city. It was there in 1968 that Jonathan Banjo,a stenographer on the Nigerian delegation to a peace meeting disappeared. The officers included Shehu Musa Yaradua, Ibrahim Babangida, Abdullahi Mohammed, Ibrahim Taiwo, Alfred Olaseinde Aduloju, Joseph Nanven Garba and Anthony Ochefu. As Murtala emerged, he rewarded the younger officers abundantly. Yaradua and Aduloju’s military course mates like Muhammadu Jega, Abdullahi Shel-
It would be hard to dismiss Murtala as a tribalist
leng, Muhammadu Buhari became governors. Except for William Godang Walbe, Gowon’s ADC, Garba’s mates, George Innih and Abdullahi Mohammed also emerged as governors. Babangida’s buddies, Sanni Bello , Garba Duba and Paul Ufuoma Omu also grabbed governorship posts. Murtala’s Sandhurst mates were not left out. Bisala became Defence Chief while Haruna and Shuwa were made ministers. However, their junior, Yakubu Danjuma, who joined the Army on April 1, 1960 was made Chief of Army Staff. The new Army Chief smartly fixed his mates in strategic positions. Alani Akinrinade, Martins Adamu, Emma Obada and Emmanuel Abisoye became GOCS. Danjuma’s other mates had fought on both sides during the Civil War. Godwin Alabi-Isama, Simeon Uwakwe, Ben Gbulie, Pius Eromobor and Sule Apolo. They knew Murtala’s tactics were wrong and cost so many lives crossing the Niger. Infact Alabi ISama and Akinrinade took a walk. The GOC was also withdrawn . On February 13, 1976,some of those who executed the 1966 coup with Murtala, went after him and assassinated the general in Lagos. His ADC,Lt. Akintunde Akinsehinwa and driver Sgt. Adamu Michika also lost their lives. Orderly, St. Sgt Otuwe survived. So much has been said about Murtala. Many tend to forget his role in Asaba. Even in death, the persecution continued. The popular Oriental Brothers High life musicians were almost killed in the North following a track they did in his memory. Godwin’ Kabaka’ Opara, ‘Dan Satch’ Emeka Opara, Christogonus Ezebuiro Obinna[ Warrior], Nathaniel Ejiogu[ Mangala], Hybrilious Alaribe[ Akwila] and Prince Ichita would have paid dearly for singing ‘he who lives by the gun shall die by the gun’. Forty years after General Murtala Mohammed, all the Widows and girls in Asaba will not forget what happened to their men. Thank God Asaba is no more a city of Landladies.
Avoiding a still birth at Federal University, Wukari Terka Jam
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ithout prejudice to the commitment and efforts of President Muhammadu Buhari and many patriotic Nigerians to stamping out corruption from the country, we will one day discover to our greatest dismay that there is another potent problem whose danger to the nation far outweighs any of the other vices plaguing us. That problem is ethnic jingoism, which oftentimes is a key contributory factor to corruption. It is also at the root of the institutional failures that have bedevilled us as a people. For me, this noxious irritant again came to the fore when I perused a petition, ostensibly written by under a nebulous appellation of “Concerned Indigenes of Taraba” to the effect that they do not like the fact that Professor O. Geoffrey Okogba, “a non-indigene” is the Vice Chancellor of the Federal University, Wukari, Taraba state. At least that was the impression I was left with after struggling to
make sense of the petition. As a background, this petition was written at a time when a Barack Obama, with Kenya ancestry is the president of the United States. Like seriously, a group of people took time to compose such venom at a time when several countries in the world run diversity emigration programmes for the purpose of attracting talents from diverse background to enrich and thereby secure their future as countries. For those who will argue that our circumstance in Nigeria is different, this attitude surfaced at a time when the present administration is mulling the concept of “state of residence” as opposed to the present idea of “state of origin”. Whereas, one can excuse treading this course as the product of individuals with a narrow world view, it is however inexcusable that they tried to mask their attempt at ethnic cleansing as a contribution to the ant-corruption fight. Not only is this disingenuous, it is also a sort of desecration of our collective commitment to rid the nation of fraud. It is like making a joke
of the serious issue that the anticorruption fight is meant to be. Their petition is laced with claims that are largely unsubstantiated and largely betrayed a profound lack of grasp of how federal organisations work. Each Federal University has a Governing Board. Each university also fall, under the supervision of the Ministry of Education. There is also the Senate for each university. So one is constrained to ask how it was possible that Professor Okogba was able to muscle these various tiers of oversight to single headedly award contracts. Where were the relevant Senate and House of Representatives Committees when these so called infractions occurred because they exercise oversight over federal universities? The authors of the mischievous document forgot that in addition to both houses having committees for education, they also have committees for Public Accounts, which would have picked up financial misdeeds on the scale suggested. Professor Okogba might have been the target of the unwarranted attack that was largely driven by ethnic sentiments but it is supervisory
agencies and the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) that came out looking bad. So desperate were those behind this sinister plot that they tried to retroactively apply facts by claiming that the Vice Chancellor is violating the Presidency’s directive on the Treasury Single Account (TSA). They possibly forgot that there were several weeks between when the directive was issued and when federal government agencies were expected to comply. In any way, the Committee of Vice Chancellors of Federal Universities and the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) had expressed fears about the practicality of rapidly meeting the deadline set by government. This cherrypicking of facts to suit a set goal is a waste of time. If those used for fronting the petition would as much as due a little due diligence, they will discover that those bankrolling their operations have their eyes set on replacing Professor Okogba as Vice Chancellor, should their wildcard hit the jackpot – not that this will ever happen. •Jam wrote in from Jalingo