The Ikeja cantonment became the undeclared headquarters of the mutineers, and the exasperated Brigadier Ogundipe sent the Chief of Staff, Lt. Col. Yakubu Gowon, there to talk to them. When Gowon arrived, it appears that he was not a free agent and was placed under guard. There he found that the leading figures were Northern officers stationed in Lagos, such as Lt. Col. Murtala Muhammed, Majors Martin Adamu, Shittu Alao and Musa Usman, and Captain Joe Garba. The governor of the Eastern Region Lt. Col. Ojukwu, was not initially contacted but when he managed to reach Ogundipe, Ogundipe informed him that Northern troops had given their conditions for a ceasefire; the repatriation of Northerners and Southerners to their respective regions of origin, and the secession of the Northern Region. Ojukwu replied; ‘If that is what they want, I agree Let them go!’ and replaced the receiver.

-N.U. Akpan, The Struggle for Secession, page 33.

At the Ad Hoc Constitutional Conference of 1966, the Northern Region in its memorandum proposed a confederal system of government. It suggested that, since each region had ‘managed to preserve some measure of order and sense of unity within its confines, each region should be constituted into an autonomous state, with subjects of common interest to be delegated to a common services commission. Each region or state was to have the right to secede completely and unilaterally from the union (See Isawa Elaigwu, Gowon, Ibadan 1986). Like the North, the eastern Nigerian delegation pressed for a confederation. “It suggested that the right of a region to secede from the union be accepted. Thus far, the position of the eastern region with regard to the form of association was very similar to that of the northern region.

On its part, the western delegation agreed that a federal system would be ideal for Nigeria, given its linguistic and ethnic heterogeneity. However, as Asiwaju Awolowo pointed out, the delegation believed that knowing the attitude of the North, the attitude of the East, federalism would be inappropriate at that point in time. It, therefore, proposed a confederation or a Commonwealth of Nigeria, until such a time as peace returned to Nigeria. Whatever is happening now especially with the various Nigerian groups agitating for the restructuring of the Nigerian Federation throws us back to the revanchist coup of July 1966, of which consequences led to that initial military sponsored conference. More than 50 years after, the Nigerian state continues to wallow in the doldrums and the system seems to have entered into a miasma. 

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Before now, one of the principal victims of the coup was the former Governor of western Nigeria, Col. Francis Adekunle Fajuyi. “A heroic legend has grown around Fajuyi for decades, claiming that Fajuyi would have been spared but insisted on sharing Aguiyi Ironsi’s fate. The soldiers that were present suggest that Fajuyi was a target of northern soldiers all along. Many northern soldiers suspected Fajuyi of being sympathetic to the Majors and at worst to have assisted them in planning their coup. Major Ademoyega confirmed in his book, Why We Struck, page 59, that, Fajuyi offered them advice on the coup’s execution. Lt. Walbe, Aguiyi Ironsi’s trusted ADC and who later led him to his death commented on Fajuyi. “It is a lie. We arrested him as we arrested Ironsi. We suspected him of being party to the January coup. You remember the battlegroup course, which he held at Abeokuta. He ran the course. All those who took part in the January coup were those who had taken part in that course. It gave us the impression that the battle course was arranged for the January coup, so he had to suffer it too.” (See Max Siollun, Oil, Politics and Violence, Nigeria’s Military Coup Culture, New York, 1976). Danjuma, the arrowhead of the July 29 coup corroborated this view and maintained that Fajuyi was killed because the mutineers in Ibadan were convinced “he was an accomplice of the January coup. They were dead sure that Fajuyi was part of the January coup because Nzeogwu then and others rehearsed the coup on Sarduana’s place several times in Kachia during a training camp that was recommended by Fajuyi. The chaps could not stomach Fajuyi such that if there was anybody who should die first, as far as they were concerned, it was Fajuyi, not even Ironsi. I was not surprised that in the end he too was killed.”

In our own new work just released last month: Kaduna Nzeogwu, Awo and the Death of the Prime Minister, we are fulfilled to reveal that after the Western regional elections 1965 was conducted under the most unsophisticated organisation, where political opponents were imprisoned, violated, killed and burnt, the elections manifested the highest degree of terrorism and banditry. Nigeria saw the emergence of patriotic revolutionaries, who toppled the arrant order. In our findings, we located the operational brief, code named Operation Charming Girl located at Lenlete, Abeokuta, not Kachia, as reported by Danjuma. In that pre coup preparatory operation, Col. Francis Fajuyi was identified as the Commander of the Lenlete mock operation. “During this time we concluded a military exercise in Lenlete military range, west of Abeokuta, where scraps of vehicles and cars were brought and strategically positioned. Taken as enemy troops, we engaged those scarps as our enemies in a fierce battle. After pouring out volumes of fire from all arms at our disposal, armored cars inclusive, the firing ceased. We had won the mock battle, causing the mock enemy troops withdrawal. I remember that Colonel Francis Fajuyi addressed us and called for our opinions in the face of such volumes of fire poured against our mock enemy. He also concluded his address to us by saying: ‘Gentlemen, the Exercise is over for now but we prepare ourselves to welcome such firing from opposing and more determined forces.” (See Emma Okocha, Chris Okigbo, Kaduna Nzeogwu et all).

The reconstruction of Col. Fajuyi’s correct involvement in the January 15 Revolution cancels forever the albatross hanging on the heads of the Igbo nation, who were massacred in millions for the five of their young Majors who belonged to that revolution. The July 29 revanchists turned on the Igbo, accompanied by the most vicious tribal vendetta taking down the race to one man. The primary thrust of the first coup had been to rehabilitate the Yoruba, release Awolowo and make him the Prime Minister of Nigeria; but ultimately the Igbo were left to bear the brunt of the Hausa-Fulani vendetta. The Yoruba, for themselves, as soon as they could, cut a deal, turned against the Igbo, too. To all the Christian northerners, who participated in that revanchist fiesta of blood, General Gowon, Theophilus Danjuma, Jerryboy Useni, Walbe, Joe Garba, John Shagaya, Obeya, Paul Tarfa, Captain Dickson, etc., the moral obloquy of their present position, arising from the combined Fulani and Islamic Jihadist attempted extermination of their Christian kith and kin in southern Kaduna and Middle belt tempts the historian to proclaim a poetic justice to their sad odyssey.