BIAFRA: WHY WE STRUCK BY MAJOR ADEWALE ADEMOYEGA

Dear Biafran-War-Reports readers, I am really pleased to bring you this great and epic book. This book is more of a historical document and I know, that I always say every book on the Biafran war is a ‘Must-Read’, well they all are ! but this one is a Must-Read of the Must-Reads (LOL), the reason being that this book was written by one of the principal actors of the first coup in Nigeria – Major Wale Ademoyega.

Of the 7 army Majors who were the planners, only 3 wrote a book giving their account of those fateful events, of the 3 only 2 books got to the public, because Major Ifeajuna’s book, never saw light of the day, as Prof Chinua Achebe for some reason, refused to publish it, plus maj Nzeogwu dismissed the book, calling it “Ifeajuna’s lies” and the Nigerian army allegedly bombed the publishing house in Enugu, during the war – basically some people didn’t want some secrets or stories to come out.

So in the end, only Major Ademoyega and Capt Ben Gbulie, are the only two participants whose book account of the January 15 1966 coup, are in print and these books are widely available, especially in Nigerian airport book shops, in fact though in possession of these books for years, I have just bought new copies for research sake. But lest I  forget to mention that Lt Fola Oyewole did write a titled Reluctant Rebel, but he wasn’t a principal plotter, but rather was brought into the plot.

So what does Major Adewale Ademoyega say then ?? what are we going to learn from this very important historical book ?

Well contrary to the lies and falsehoods maliciously spread over decades now, that the coup was an Igbo grand design to take over Nigeria, Major ademoyega counters and dispels this false notion by emphatically stressing that the coup was not ethnically based, but rather politically and ideologically based and planned, and the pattern of the arrest and killings supports his notion, in that with the exception of Chief Festus Okotie-Eboh of NCNC, the rest were NPC and the Akintola AG group, also the military officers killed were the supporters of these politicians and party, again with the exception of Col Arthur Unegbe, who was killed because though an Igbo officer, he was really very close to Brig Zak Maimalari, they knew he’d come after them, so they got him first.

The question of who planned the coup or who was the spearhead is quite not fully resolved in Nigeria, because many believe that it was Major Patrick Chukwuma Nzeogwu’s coup, and that notion comes from the fact he unlike his collaborators achieved 95% success, and made an annoucement to the nation and hence became very popular in the public domain. On the other hand some people believe that it was Major Emmanuel Ifeajuna that was the mastermind – Gen Ojukwu even belongs to this group.

The truth however is that as Maj Ademoyega states in page 33 of his book, he, Ifeajuna and Uche Chukwumereije all agreed in 1961, that the situation in Nigeria needed a military solution, this was after him and Uche joined the army as cadets, but with Uche not turning up for further training, the planning stage of the coup now fell to Wale and Emma. Fortuitously, when Maj Ademoyega then went up to Kaduna for more training, he was met by Maj Nzeogwu, who already was of a revolutionary mindset. And so the 3 of them formed the nucleus of the coup plotters, with Wale as the pivot, because he said he plotted with Ifeajuna on one hand and Nzeogwu on the other.

Reading this book helps destroy the notion of an Igbo coup as paraded in Nigeria media and Social media till date. With regards to the preponderance of Igbo officers in the Plot, Ademoyega puts that down to ideology, rather that ethnic bias, he stated that a lot of the officers in the Nigerian army were not revolutionary but rather reactionary or simply non-chalant. In fact Maj Sokie, Okafor, Chukuka, Anuforo and Capts Gbulie and Nwobosi, were brought into the plot and mostly took orders fro the trio of Ademoyega, Ifeajuna and Nzeogwu.

Other things to take away from this mighty mighty epic book, are that:

1. The plan to topple the government started in 1961 and took off proper in 1965.
2. Maj Ademoyega complained about Major Okafor severally to Maj Ifeajuna, he didn’t think him competent enough to carry out his parts in the plot, to which Ifeajuna always maintained that Okafor would be able, but in the end, Wale was proven right, as Maj Don Okafor failed to arrest Brig Maimalari and failed to arrest Gen Ironsi, and he lost the Federal guards his own battalion and this led to the failure of the coup in Lagos, the South and subsequently Nigeria.
3. He admitted that he should have made for Kaduna quickly to support Nzeogwu and carry the fight to Ironsi, but got there rather late, after Nzeogwu had been compromised and had reached a 5-point agreement with Ironsi.
4. Uche Chukwumereije did warn Maj Ademoyega back in 1961, that Maj Ifeajuna had tendacies to disappear in the heat of battle, because he did so when they were in university of Ibadan during a protest, and so he did during the coup abandoning his Brigade in Apapa and his co-plotters and ran to Enugu and then to Nkrumah in Ghana.
5. Major Obienu failure to show up with his armoured Recce squad was a major blow and one of the main reasons the coup failed.
6. Another big question resolved by the writer, was how Ironsi managed to get to Ikeja and take over the 2nd Battalion and then crush the coup. You see, the Northern officers who killed Gen Ironsi 6 months later, felt that Ironsi was allowed by his fellow Igbo soldiers to escape the net set for him. Wale says that he personally asked the soldiers at Idumota end of Carter bridge if they’d seen Ironsi and they said yes, that he sped past as they were just setting up their road block, he doesn’t mention their rank or ethnicity, and he said other road blocks reported that they hadn’t seen the general go past them. This means Ironsi had a lucky escape but this narrative didn’t sit well with his killers later. In fact it said that Major Humphrey Chukwuka, did chase Ironsi all the way back to 2nd battalion Ikeja, but by then Ironsi had aroused the barracks and Chukwuka was helpless.
7. He was arrested by British police officers in Kaduna and thrown in jail and was later transferred to Warri prisons and was release by Major Humphrey Chukwuka and joined the Biafran Liberation army of the Midwest as a Battalion commander.
8. He, Banjo, Ifeajuna  had a different ideology about the war and Nigeria.
9. He was very skeptical of Ojukwu as a person and about his conduct of the war.

I would like to wrap up and leave the reader to go buy this very important book, the  rest of the book talks about the Midwest adventure or misadventure during the war and his arrest by Ojukwu and Gowon and the rest of the war. there is so much to learn from this book, especially coming from a main actor. The book is sold on Amazon but they are currently out of stock, so you are better off getting them at bookshops in Nigeria.

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