Last weekend, on Saturday, February 13th, to be exact,the nation rolled out the red carpet to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the death of General Murtala Muhammed, Nigeria’s former military head of state whose life was terminated through a brutal assassination by his subordinate military officers, led by Lt Col Bukar Sukar Dimka, as he was heading to work, on that Black Friday morning. The 38-year officer had been in office for only seven months, having come to power, through a bloodless military coup that had ousted General Yakubu Gowon, whilst he was attending a OAU summit in Kampala, Uganda,
the previous year.If many Nigerians have been celebrating him as a hero,it must be on account of the dynamism which he brought into governance in the short seven months of his reign. After so many years in power, Yakubu Gowon, who administered Nigeria when it was awash with money, and at a time when one naira exchanged for two dollars, had become lackadaisical and had allowed civil servants, led by the untouchable super permsecs, to hold the nation to ransom. It was the timewhen Gowon had boasted that, “the problem with Nigeria was not money, but rather what to do with money”, and so had gone into an orgy of confused spending and white elephant projects, with scant thought on the future. To make matters even worse, Gowon and his generals seemed to have forgotten themselves and had ruled out any possibility of returning the country to civil rule.When Murtala Muhammed and his men intervened in July 1975, the nation was ready for them. In the short time he reigned, he packed so much energy into governance and laid many irreversible foundations. Before he left the stage, he had disciplined – and somesay – disorganised the civil service and cut the super permsecs to size; he had cleared the seaports that were clogged by an armada of cement that was imported indiscriminately from all corners of the globe. He had created more states, bringing the 12 state-structureto 19. The states like Imo, Kogi, Ogun, etc that just celebrated their 40th anniversary were created a few days before his assassination. More importantly, he decreed Abuja into a new federal capital and launched a plan for the return of democracy in 1979.At the time Murtala Muhammed came into power, Nigeria’s image was on the ascent and he did not diminish it. If anything, he made Nigeria’s clout on the international arena more prominent, especially with the commitment of his administration to the
liberation struggles in the Southern African region. That commitment saw to Nigeria’s support of the MPLA faction
in the Angolan war of independence from Portugal, and the subsequent ascendancy of that faction in the civil war that ensued between the Augostihno Neto led MPLA against Jonas Savimbi’s UNITA and Roberto Holden’s FNLA.In that internecine civil war, which was, in fact, a proxy one between the revolutionary forces of African people,supported by the Warsaw Pact, on one side, and the stooges that were being propped up by the United States and South Africa. Murtala’s Nigeria backed-up MPLA to the hilt. Sided by the Soviets and Cuban troops which, on the urging of the Soviets, physically fought on the side of MPLA,
and Neto triumphed. Much of the success was owed to Nigeria, under the dynamic reign of Murtala Muhammed and later Olusegun Obasanjo. The success in Angola was to provide the physical and psychological impetus that led to the total liberation of the whole Southern African region from colonialism and white minority rule.For what was achieved within those seven months of dynamic leadership, Murtala has been widely celebrated as a hero in Nigeria, with the most important airport in Nigeria named after him and his face emblazoned on one of the most used denominations of the national currency.However, not all Nigerians share the euphoria with which the man is being celebrated, especially when no lesser man than the nation’s president, joined in the celebration at the weekend. There
are Nigerians, especially those from the South East and the
South South, who believe that a man whose hands were stained with so much blood of fellow innocent and defenceless countrymen and women, dispatched in cold blood, does not deserve to be described as a hero of any classification.Unfortunately, and as is natural with the selective amnesia of those that govern Nigeria, it has become convenient to forget the deplorable roles of the man in the recent history of Nigeria, especially as a military commander during the civil war.Nigeria might have outlawed the teaching of history in its schools, but the story of the civil war is still very fresh as many people who played active roles in it are still alive and well. So, how could the chroniclers of modern history of Nigeria have forgotten to
add in their adulation of Murtala Muhammed that he also
qualifies to be described at the ‘Butcher of Asaba”, in memory ofthe atrocious massacre of unarmed and defenceless men and boys that happened there in 1968, on his orders? A lot of recorded information on the Asaba imbroglio abounds, but it might be necessary for one has to summarize what happened here.According to the account by the Ohaneze Ndigbo at the Oputa Panel in 1990, when the federal troops led by Lt. Col Murtala Muhammed entered Asaba, he summoned the citizens to assemble to be addressed by the occupying troops who had ‘liberated’ them fromthe rebel Biafran troops. At the assembly point, where the people declared their support for ‘One Nigeria’, Murtala and his officers, culled the women and children
from the crowd and dismissed them. The menand the boys were massacred in the most gruesome fashion in Nigerian history. He later on reportedly moved from house to house, up to the surrounding communities of Ogwashi Uku and other Igbo communities, sorting out men and boys and assassinating them.The Asaba-born journalist-researcher, Emma Okocha,whose blood relatives were also massacred, has done a well-researchedbook, Blood on the Niger, in which he detailed those events, chronicling how over 2,500 innocent men and boys were massacred. He provided names and eye-witness accounts of people that survived the holocaust. It is difficult to imagine that theaccounts ever happened in this part of the world or that the chief actor was the man who some Nigerians are presenting as their hero. Most other Nigerian leaders have maintained a criminal silence over the Asaba Masscre, even after the Ohaneze Ndigbo so dramatically raised it at the Oputa Panel post 1999.It was only Dr Yakubu Gowon who later acknowledgedthose horrendous events when, on a visit to the palace of Asagba of Asaba in October 1999, apologized to ObiProf Chike Edozien, for the atrocity of his administration against Igbo people, especially for Murtala’s massacre in Asaba. Before and after that, noother Nigerian leader has ever mentioned it, even in passing.This convenient conspiracy of silence has persisted even with the president who, last Saturday, had nothing but adulation for the late head of state. Even as he read his hagiography of Murtala Muhammed, theonly reference he could make to those unsavoury events was when he stated, inter alia, that, “by the timeMurtala was given command during the civil war, the federal side was on the defensive. The rebels had over-run the then Mid-West, and reached as far as Ore, just 100 miles from Lagos. By dint of sheer bravery, improvisation and resourcefulness, he mustered a rag-tag group of soldiers, integrated them into an entirely new division, knocked them into fighting shape, recovered Mid-West and ventured across the Niger. Alas, there were terrible casualties on both sides.”What a dirty cover-up by a man generally reputed as a “Mai Gaskiya”! No doubt, the massacred Asaba men and boys were also “casualties” of warNigerian leaders should celebrate Murtala Muhammedas much as they want as their hero, but for us and our people, he will remain a murderous villain. And even if we, as Christians have forgiven, we will never forget, because, as Georges Santayana observed, “those who forget the lessons of history are condemned to repeat it.”
The Authority
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