Fifth day Of Orkah - OgboruA^ saga. This is call Saga of the Saga. Some question like where were U when something happen always asked when something happen. In the United States, the question is often asked--where were you when president John F. Kennedy was assassinated? Of course, as expected, there would be millions of answers to this question as all those who were alive then were engaged in miscellaneous activities on that fateful day of Friday, November 22, 1963 when the 35th president of the United States of America was gunned down in Dallas, Texas. That was a very mournful day for the nation and all mourned his death regardless of party affiliations or political persuasion. Similarly, all Nigerians, home and abroad must answer the question---where were you when Major Gideon Orkar, son of Benue state, struck on that fateful day of Sunday, April 22, 1990? Where were you and what were you doing? The coup occasioned by Major Orkar and his men on that day was significant in many respects and many of us are just now beginning to reckon this point. It was not his coup that really mattered, it was the message behind it that was and still is of consequence. His coup was markedly different from the previous ones we had been bequeathed to by ignorant and power-hungry Generals. It was not laden with the usual tired verses at the lips of every army officer. There was something different about this coup---it was actually aimed at addressing the apt inbalance of power in the country. Major Orkar was endowed with foresight and vision, he was not a prophet, yet he had visionary tendencies. By all standards, he was still a junior officer in the army but yet was able to see well beyond his experience and age. Orkar made nonsense of this saying of our elders which goes thus---what an elder can see sitting down, a child cannot see standing up. Orkar saw the mayhem and tribulations awaiting us sitting down while many of his elders [seniors] in the army could not see that same mayhem and tribulations standing up, a reverse case of the saying. He saw clearly the tyranny of the north with the likes of IBB and Abacha holding on to power by all means necessary, including murdering innocent citizens and overturning our economy. He saw the injustices, the intentions of men like Sani Ahmed Yarima, IBB, then his commander-in-chief, Abacha, Major Hamza Mustapha who was then a mere private in the army, etc. He knew that Nigeria was going to be troubled with the intolerant behavior of the north and he knew that Sharia was on the drawing boards. He knew that Nigerians were going to talk about the MISTAKE OF 1914 in more details and insist on renogiating the country. He knew Nigeria like the back of his hand. It was thus not a surprise that he excised the north in his coup just like a father asks his son to go to his room until the son knows how to behave or corrects his behavior. Similarly, Orkar asked the north to take a hike and shed itself of the cloak of contumely before reapplying to join the civil union called Nigeria. The Coup show that, Orkah and his col plotters are brave and have a mind of good leadership. In the case of Orkar, he refused to even offer a word during his trial, saying that the outcome had already been concluded and that the trials were just a formality. When asked even by his counsel to speak in his defense, he smiled and refused to utter a word, he knew the end was just around the corner. In several days of trials, he maintained a muted response to all questions and only offered his last words just before the bullets rained on him in an execution supervised by then Brigadier Ishaya Baimiyi, General Abdulsaalami Abubakars Chief of Army Staff who retired only last year and is currently in prison on assorted criminal charges. U may ask why the coup fail. The coup fail because Orkah did not have the mind to kill people but just to take power by action. the coup, which almost terminated the Babangida regime cited confusion among the coup leaders, Major Gideon Orkar and Lt Col. Tony Nyiam over the killing of the Aide-de-camp (ADC) of the president, Lt Col. U.K. Bello, as one of the flaws, which caused the plotters’ failure. “Orkar was pretty close to ADC’s wife. When she saw him (Orkar) because she told me later that she was in a good hand. He (Orkar) was there before the coup started and I went out and came back and he was taking her along to FRCN and they saw a dead body. So, he (Orkar) asked Col. Nyiam, who is this person you killed. Col. Nyiam said ‘that is the ADC to General Babangida, UK Bello’. “He (Orkar) said why should you kill him because Col. Nyiam did not know Zainab. UK Bello’s wife was standing there and she knelt down and started begging. He (Orkar) said no; nothing will happen to you. So, there was a kind of misunderstanding there because deep down in his (Orkar’s) heart, ADC was not meant to be killed. They were only aiming at destroying the regime. This is problem start from.
Posted on: Thu, 20 Mar 2014 08:34:02 +0000