GOWON SACKS THE HERO OF ONITCHA

In this report, the pro Nigerian British media describes Gen Mohammed as a hero of Onitcha, this is despite the fact that he carried out 3 failed amphibious attacks against the advice of the military headquarters in Lagos on the market town, costing thousands of lives of the Nigerian soldiers, who were decimated by the courageous Biafran troops led by Col Hannibal Achuzie.

he’d also overseen the Asaba massacre earlier before these futile Niger river crossings, where he and his deputies like Lt col Ibrahim Haruna and Lt col Taiwo, failed to preserve civilian lives Leading to the killing of Asaba indigenes mostly males from the age of 10 and above and by the end of the ghastly orgy of bloodletting, close to a thousand innocent Igbo lives had been snuffed out for no reason and done with total disregard for the Geneva Convention. These innocent Asaba citizens, who were not part of the breakaway Biafran republic and were actually Nigerians at the time of their massacre, had only come out to greet the Nigerian army who were in hot pursuit of the retreating Biafrans after their failed conquest of Lagos adventure, only to be rounded up and machine-gunned to death and have their corpses thrown into the Niger river nearby. Emma Okocha’s book, Blood On The Niger, captures this inhumane act and it remains a stain on the nations’ conscience.

When General Mohammed finally saw the futility of his irrational military tactics, he finally swallowed his pride and marched north from Asaba and crossed the Niger at Idah and entered Division 1 territory, and then headed south towards his military objective of Onitcha, it wasn’t easy for him because the Biafrans fought him in some grueling battles all the way.

According to Gen Alex Madiebo in his book (check it out in our book section), when Gen Mohammed got to Dunukofia, a town in todays Anambra State, he was now 14 miles from Onitcha. Gen Ojukwu rallied all his senior officers to stop Gen Mohammed from making it into the important town of Onitcha, the Biafran forces fought well and managed to push the Nigerians back 2 miles to a town called Abagana, what happened next became stuff of legend for the Biafrans and a huge embarrassment for Nigeria.

With their high morale after pushing Col Murtala Mohammed (wartime rank), the Biafrans played a message to the Nigerians over a loudspeaker asking them to surrender or die, this message irked Col Mohammed to lash out and breakthrough the Biafran defenses and beeline for Onitcha, finally reaching his objective in March 1968 after 6 months of trying, whilst in the town his troops again attacked and killed several Igbo innocent civilians and in one instance according to the British reporter Fredrick Forsyth, his troops killed 300 men, women and children who had taken refuge in a church.

Having burst through to Onitcha, Col Mohammed left his main supplies and armour behind and needed this to join him in the captured market town, for this a convoy of nearly 100 trucks and trailers (the largest in African Military history at the time) were assembled and supported by armored vehicles etc. As they began to move, the terrified Biafrans attacked and Major Uchendu successfully attacked this convoy, setting it alight at the front and causing a jam and panic amongst the Nigerian troops who were routed and abandoned these huge military supplies to the Biafrans, please ignore reports elsewhere that said that it was a lucky last shot of a Biafran rocket that caused it all, this battle according to GOC Madiebo was a planned attack.

Major Uchendu also correctly reasoned that the Nigerians would counter-attack; which they did but not before he ordered for the stores of captured ammo to be destroyed, the Biafrans did capture some ammo which really helped them fight on for some time, but had they managed to keep the entire supply, some say they could have turned the tide of the war.

That in itself shows how strong, powerful and well supplied and equipped the Nigerian really were during the war, because those 96 trucks were just a part of Division 2s entire supply whilst the Biafrans in comparison had to scrape from day to day to be battle ready.

As for General Mohammed, the Abagana disaster became one more failure too many and he quit the battlefield for London in disgrace but our report today claims he was sacked. Was he a hero ? i’ll let the reader decide but he is a hero to many Nigerians and has many roads and an international Airport named after him.