Former Nigeria’s military dictator, in his book which he recently launched in Abuja, gave insight into the 1966 coup, clarifying that it was not Igbo coup. What is your take on his position?

Well, I believe that what is very important for Nigeria at this stage is a national reconciliation and healing. You know, Babangida’s book was a very great book that he wrote, apart from bringing out the facts even against himself in the annulment of the June 12th presidential election, which he  accepted responsibility, but also said that he was wrong in what he did. He was also able to make fundamental statements as a young military officer then about what happened in the civil war, what led to the civil war, particularly the first coup of January 15, 1966. It was able to bring out what myself had known previously because I worked with General Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu when he was National Leader of APGA and I was National Chairman of APGA. I worked very closely with him for five years, and most of these things I already had them in my knowledge. That coup was not an Igbo coup. The way Babangida posited in his own book, the account he gave of the coup is something that is open even for unbiased minds to have come to terms with it a long time ago. But because of maybe the casualties of that coup, people have not averted their minds to the concrete undeniable facts that the same coup was crushed by Igbo people. Ojukwu was in Kano then and he didn’t agree with the coup. And when he spoke with Major Nzeogwu, he was a Lieutenant Colonel then; so he was a  senior officer to Nzeogwu, he disagreed with them, the same Ojukwu that later led Biafra.

From why we struck by Colonel Ben Gbulie, he said it clearly. He put down the names of these other people who were involved in the coup who were not Igbos, who were from Western Nigeria. General Babangida in his book, wrote their names and the commands they led in the coup execution. So, it was not the intention of the coupists as told by the people themselves including Col. Ben Gbulie, their intention was to bring Awolowo out of the Calabar prison because they, the revolutionarists, the officers of that time, were not happy with the government of the day. They felt that Awolowo was a more progressive person than the people in authority. So, they were planning a better society for Nigeria to make Awolowo an ideal President and head of state, but their coup failed and because their failed, what could you now say? So, I’ve seen a lot of people writing in reaction to what Babangida said. Someone who has been head of state of Nigeria for eight years, and he was chief of army staff at some point. So, he went through the army and they had knowledge both classified information about everything that happened during the war. So, he gave that statement as a patriotic Nigerian to speak the truth even though they are being punished because of that coup. We have lost so much because of that coup and it was because of misdirection and misrepresentation. There was never a time the Igbo people met and decided to organize a coup. More than anything, the coup set Eastern region backwards because at the time the coup took place Eastern region was one of the leading economies in the world. Dr. Michael Okpara was doing great work. In Western Nigeria, the Western Nigerian government was doing marvelously well. Things were going well even in the North. Agricultural produce was helping the economy of Northern Nigeria. Groundnut pyramids, cotton, all these things have all gone because of that coup that led to the the second coup that brought Gowon, and Gowon divided Nigeria into 12 states, destroyed the four regions we had. His his own coup came because even with the January 15, 1966 coup, Nigeria was still four regions. There were military administrators appointed when General Ironsi became the head of state. So, he had military people as heads of governments of the four regions until Gowon dissolved the four regions and created 12 states in 1967. So, that is what happened and that is our history. So from that Gowon dividing Nigeria into 12 states, the orgy of creating more states and local governments by the military continued that today we have 36 states and 774 local governments, with the few divisions we had under the first Republic so people should be able to know how things happened and Babangida did a great job by bringing out some of the silent truths. He fought in the army and he spoke about his own experience, a close show with death. So I commend him again for that, for putting the record straight. Those who are controverting him now cannot say that Igbo officers that took part and killed Igbo officers were killed in the coup of Nzeogwu. Igbo people were killed, Igbo officers killed Igbo officers, showing that it was a national revolution not targeted at any tribe; otherwise Chris Anuforo that I later met in my life couldn’t have killed Lieutenant Colonel Unebe. You know he’s an Igbo man. So this was young officers who want to execute their conviction and it turned out the way it did. So I pray that those who lost their lives in all this thing that God rest their souls and give Nigeria a healing spirit so that we can put our past behind. You know they don’t teach history in the colleges now, in the secondary schools in the curriculum. But Babangida brought out his book that has become almost an encyclopedia of history, that nobody can throw away. It was written by a man who was involved and who was the head of state of Nigeria who has played so great roles in shaping the future of Nigeria the way it is whether good or bad. So my soul is uplifted reading from Babangida, that the 1966 was not a coup by the Igbo people for selfish interests of the Igbo nation of Nigeria. These were people who were in the army, who had their own ideas of how things would be. They weren’t carrying out the coup to go and make an Igbo man the head of state. So if the coup had gone through and Awolowo was brought out and put as head of state of Nigeria, maybe the Igbos would have been spared the onslaught and the ethnic cleansing would have been subjected both in public and military life in this country. So, what I am asking for now is that with this account and the truth revealed conscience is an open wound and only the truth can heal it. If they know all those things they denied the Igbo people because of that coup, they should begin to make adjustments and know that the Igbos did not organise any coup to make the Igbo people in Nigeria dominate over others. What the Igbos have had as part of them is their hard work; their adventurous spirit of commerce and business. Since the war ended despite all the discriminations put on our way and the marginalization that followed the structural imbalance in Nigeria, occasioned by the military creation of states and local governments, the Igbos have continued to move on despite the privileges they are denied as citizens of Nigeria.

So, there is need for reunion and reintegration of the Igbos into Nigeria particularly in the area of Science. The Biafran engineers and scientists developed weapons of mass destruction. But because that these were done by the Igbo people, that ingenuity and  inventions were allowed to relax and waste when the war ended. So the scientists that built these weapons of mass destruction were rather put under watch. They have all died and I know that Nigeria lost because necessity is the mother of all inventions. As soon as the war ended and Gowon made a historic speech of no victor no vanquished, he would have gone for those Biafran scientists. He would have sent them abroad, if he was thinking properly, though most of them trained abroad in good universities and became Biafran engineers. He would have sent them on advanced courses and now Nigeria would have had nuclear weapons. They died poor because most of the things they would have done because of their education, they were denied all those things. They were placed under watch by the successive regimes in Nigeria until they died. So that is a loss the nation has suffered.