Former Head of State Gen. Yakubu Gowon has said northern military officers believed Lt. Col. Chukwuemeka Ojukwu was complicit in the January 1966 coup and wanted to move against him.
Gowon disclosed this in his memoir _My Life of Duty and Allegiance_ which was presented to the public on Abuja on Tuesday.
The January 1966 coup, carried out mostly by officers of Igbo origin, led to the killing of Prime Minister Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, Northern Region Premier Ahmadu Bello, Western Region Premier Ladoke Akintola, Finance Minister Festus Okotie-Eboh, and several northern military officers including Brigadier Zakariya Maimalari.
The coup failed and Gen. Johnson Aguiyi-Ironsi became head of state. A counter-coup in July 1966 killed Ironsi and brought Gowon, then a lieutenant colonel and army chief, to power.
Ojukwu, then governor of the Eastern Region, rejected Gowon’s leadership. He argued that Brigadier Babafemi Ogundipe, the most senior officer, should have succeeded Ironsi.
Gowon wrote that Ogundipe “could no longer function effectively in the command-and-control structure” after the coup. With UK government concurrence, Ogundipe was appointed Nigeria’s High Commissioner to the UK.
“Ojukwu refused my offer of friendship,” Gowon wrote. “He felt that the ‘normal’ protocol of seniority in service should have been upheld in selecting General Ironsi’s successor under the new administration, regardless of the circumstances by which I assumed power.”
Gowon said he did not believe Ojukwu’s stance was based on defending army hierarchy.
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“Left unsaid at the time was Ojukwu’s strong view that I was junior to him in the hierarchy. He failed to appreciate that he had been under serious threat because the young Northern officers believed he was complicit in the January 15, 1966 coup,” he wrote.
Gowon said he pre-empted any attempt to move against Ojukwu “in part, because of my respect for all the Regional Governors and, more importantly, because I saw him primarily as a colleague and officer with whom I thought I had worked to restore normalcy.”
He added that he believed they could “rebuild the army and allow the country to continue its course in history.”
[Report culled from TheCable]
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