MURITALA MOHAMED Jan. 1966 coupunleashed a chain of circumstances that threw up characters likeMurtala Muhammed who ordinarily would have remained an isolated and unknown officer for the duration of hiscareer. In the aftermath of the Major Kaduna Nzeogwu led coup, Murtala Muhammed and other Northern officers organised a secessionist coup (Araba) and pogrom that targeted and consumed the lives of over 50,000 innocent Eastern civilians in the first barbarity of such a scaleto be seen in Africa. Artisans, traders, civil servants, children were all hacked to death. Women were violated and killed, pregnant women were first violated, then had their stomach cut open, the unborn children plucked out and stabbed to death. It was an SinParty of bloodbath that rivalled Hitler’s death camps in Nazi Germany. Murtala Muhammed personally participated in this bloodletting preparatory toseceding from Nigeria. The flag of the Northern republic was already flying and Yakubu Gowon had also preparatory toNorthern secession given his now famous “no basis for Nigerian unity”speech. However, before the smouldering flames and dust could settle, the face of crass opportunism by Murtala Muhammed, Yakubu Gowon and other Northern officers emerged. On persuasion by the British, desirous of a willing stooge to aid their exploitation ofNigeria’s resources, the officers who had premised their coup and pogrom on secession did a volte-face and changed from secession to “one Nigeria.” It is ironical that after displaying such barbarity and blood lust targeted at ordinary civilians who had no hand ina coup organised by the military-political class, the same officers that orchestrated and participated in such pogrom of genocidal proportions changed course and proved their lack of principles and opportunism by insisting on Nigeria. But the damage had already been done. The mass killing of civilians had established a fault line and asense of insecurity thatmade co-habitation in the same nation impossible. Yakubu Gowon had failed as head of state to protect the lives and property of citizens in repeated attacks, paving the way for the civil-war, but this was only to give the blood hungry likes of Murtala Muhammed a further opportunity tosatisfy their lust for blood. As the civil-war commenced, Murtala Muhammed entered the war in the Midwest campaign wherehe robbed the Central Bank in Benin,and began his litany of war crimes.Federal forces under his command unleashed a massacre of Igbos in Benin city and environs, however Asaba became the legendary centre were Murtala Muhammed set a record of war crimes. In a rain of blood,tens of thousands of innocent youths, some of them just 6 years old were lined up on the streets of Asaba and executed in cold blood onthe direct orders of Murtala Muhammed.The Asaba massacre was the firstof its kind in Africa and remains one of the bloodiest to date in the history of the African continent. Asa further testimony tothe bloodlust and depravity demonstrated by Murtala Muhammed and his forces, few kilometres away in Onitsha, another barbaric massacre was unleashed in the ApostolicChurch where over 300 civilians,devout Christians including women and children who had stayed back and continued in their prayersafter the fallof Onitsha were brutally murdered in cold blood. But beyond his crude barbarity which he repeatedly manifested in the violation of women and cold blooded massacre of defenceless civilians, he was an ill disciplined, failed soldierwho In spite of the immense amounts of men and ammunition at his disposal suffered crushing defeats in most of his military campaigns against barely armedBiafran soldiers. His military campaign to take Onitsha, where he acted against orders from military headquarters ended in a humiliating defeat, and his 96 vehicle column of heavily armed troops who were ambushed and totally wiped out at Abagana are some of the worst defeats suffered by the Nigerian army in the civil war. His string of tactical failures led to his exit from the wartheatre. No doubt, one of the greatest murderers, war criminals, and opportunists in Nigeria‘s chequered history, his entire war career is littered with war crimes committed in different theatres of war. In July 1975, he seized power in a coup but was shot dead in a military putschin February 1976, at last a victim of the bullets he had used to kill so many. In the end he left behind a legacy of barbarities, war crimes, bank robbery, destruction of the federal civil service and failure as a soldier. An avowed secessionist who became an opportunistapostle of oneNigeria, not because he genuinely believed in Nigeria, but forreasons of opportunism. The emergence of his likes as leaders, remains the greatest reason why Nigeria has failed. Murtala Muhammed’s hands are soiled with so much blood, and even though by his death he escaped justice in the physical, he is sure getting his punishment in the spiritual realm.
Posted on: Thu, 05 Sep 2013 06:23:50 +0000