Another January 15 has come and gone. As has become the ritual, Nigeria rolls out the drums every January 15 to honour Nigerian soldiers who died in the two World Wars of 1914 to 1918 and 1939 to 1945 as well as those who died during the country’s civil war of 1967 to 1970. Mark the frenzy that characterises the build-up to that date, otherwise known as Armed Forces Remembrance Day. As it concerns the Nigerian civil war, marking the day on January 15 is one issue that never fails to grate.
Mind you! The emphasis here is on members of the Armed Forces, not the millions of non-combatant casualties – men, women and children – who died during the preventable and better-forgotten Nigerian civil war. The civilian victims will have to wait for a farsighted government in the future to carve out a date to remember them. It is okay for Nigeria to mark important dates on its calendar for as long as it does not become another financial sinkhole, as was the case before the advent of the Buhari/Osinbajo administration in 2015.
There is a misnomer in the annual ritual of celebrating Armed Forces Remembrance Day on January 15. Celebrating the day on a date the preventable civil war ended does little to heal the wounds of the better-forgotten war. More vexing is that, on that date in 1966, some over-pampered members of the armed forces, under the cover of darkness, invaded the homes of prominent leaders of the First Republic and murdered some of the finest political leaders to be produced by the country.
In Kaduna, Major Patrick Chukwuma Nzeogwu took advantage of his closeness to Sir Ahmadu Bello, the premier of the old Northern Region by invading the premier’s privacy at an hour when honest men are expected to be in bed and killed the chief tenant of the lodge and his wife in cold blood. Even at that unholy hour, Nzeogwu, who led the band of assassins, did not have problems in gaining entry into the Premier’s lodge because the young army Major, whom the Premier fondly referred to as ‘my son’, was well known there.
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In Lagos, some drunken soldiers invaded the official residence of Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, the nation’s first and only prime minister, disrupted his midnight prayers, took him away at gunpoint and killed him after a failed attempt to get him to drink ‘burukutu’, a locally brewed intoxicants which the soldiers came with. Balewa’s murderers, some of the soldiers the nation ironically salutes every January 15, dumped the corpse of the Prime Minister in a shallow grave in a bush near Otta, on the outskirts of Lagos. Killed in similar Gestapo-like executions were Chief Samuel Ladoke Akintola, premier of the defunct Western Region and Festus Okotie-Eboh, the nation’s finance minister.
Aside from killing these leaders, the soldiers effectively ended the nation’s bourgeoning democracy and set the stage for a long military interregnum. The immediate effect of the actions of the Nzeogwu-led bloody coup was the suspicion it introduced into the armed forces which eventually led to the needless and avoidable 30-month civil war. Today, though Nzeogwu and most of his fellow conspirators are dead, they have, over the years been presented to Nigerians as the best thing to happen to Nigeria each time the country marks the Armed Forces Remembrance Day. After all, they too form part of the ‘fallen heroes’ that Nigerians remember and honour every January 15.
What makes the death of the political leaders of the First Republic painful is that, contrary to the charges levelled against them by their murderers, the men were incorruptible as they were later found to be innocent of the charges of corruption levelled against them. None of the men had stolen public funds nor had foreign bank accounts, not to talk of stashing away millions of local and foreign currencies in them.
All of the men, with the exception of the flamboyant Chief Okotie-Eboh, lived austere lifestyles. Even in the case of Okotie-Eboh, his killers never substantiated claims that he amassed public funds to drive his flamboyant lifestyles. He acquired nothing in office to justify his murder!
On his part, Sir Ahmadu Bello’s worldly possessions were two mud houses, one in Sokoto and the other in Wurno, also in Sokoto State. At the time he was killed, the prime minister, Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, was indebted to his bank for an overdraft he drew for his family’s upkeep.
After 58 years, no new proofs have been unearthed to substantiate the wild allegation that the men pocketed 10 per cent of contracts awarded by the federal or regional governments, the main charge used by the murderers to justify their act. So, what exactly, do we celebrate on January 15?
The act of people constituting themselves into prosecutors, judges and hangmen in their dealings with others is wrong, especially in a highly rated and respected profession such as the military. It does not matter whether the crime was committed last night or last century. Sadly, after 58 years, nobody, not even the Armed Forces of Nigeria, has deemed it fit to make a public apology for a heinous crime committed by a section of the Armed Forces. All we get is a special date set aside to honour and remember some fallen heroes.
Get me right! There is absolutely nothing wrong with an Armed Forces Remembrance Day. By all means, it should continue to be celebrated but let another date be chosen for this purpose. For the sake of decency, January 15 should be celebrated as Heroes Day to honour Nigerian patriots, both military and civilian. But if, for whatever reasons January 15 is too appealing to be retained as Armed Forces Remembrance Day, then it is not out of place to set another date aside to honour and celebrate Nigerian heroes.
Magaji wrote from Abuja and can be reached via [email protected]