HISTORY OF THE OLD........ Part 2 (1)Baba 70 , Fela Kuti enjoying a game of table tennis , Lagos 1970s,(2) On February 18, 1977 numerous soldiers mainly from the Abalti Barracks including the Police stormed the residence of late Fela Anikulapo Kuti. They were on a mission to arrest Fela and members of his Young pioneers found at the residence for an earlier infraction of impeding an officer in his lawful exercise of traffic control.It was reported that Fela refused to be arrested and barricaded himself behind the locked gate. The fence was also electrified to discourage entry. Having gotten NEPA to cut electricity supply to the house, the occupants re-electrified the fence through the generator. The soldiers as a result blew up the generator with explosives and laid seige to the building, its occupants and property.Mrs Olufunmilayo Ransome Kuti, a doyen of womens rights and education was thrown from the one story building and later died from the injuries sustained as a result.Dr. Beko Ransome Kuti, Fela and other occupants were subjected to physical trauma and later arrested. The building itself was set on fire resulting in loss of property including unfinished and unreleased works of Fela.The resultant inquiries and lawsuits which followed spurned the popular culture and notoriety of soldier-civilian relationships in Nigeria from the Song Coffin for a Head of State, the Supreme Courts assertion that the crime was done by an Unknown Soldier. It also made the late Mrs Ransome Kuti one of the martyr of the struggle which is the nation of Nigeria.Years later President Olusegun Obasanjo was compelled by recent circumstances to constitute the Oputa panel when he became civilian President and was summoned to appear to give evidence in a petition brought by Beko through his lawyer, Femi falana. The exchanges are intriguing and compelling for students of history,(3)Umaru Musa YarAdua(16 Aug,1951- 5 May,2010) with his wife Turai and daughter in the late 70s when he was a University lecturer....it is about two years ago that he passed away,(4) The burial of Major Chukwuma Nzeogwu in 1967,(5) Nzeogwus grave at the Military Cemetary, Kaduna, (6) The Wedding of Nnamdi Azikiwe and Flora Ogoegbunam -1936,(7) Chief Awo and his Jewel campaigning for Wole at Apapa constituency, 1978,(8) Action Group Chieftains in 1953. (L-R) Chief Bode Thomas, Chief Obafemi Awolowo and Chief Samuel Ladoke Akintola,(9) Babafemi Ogundipe was the de facto Vice President of Nigeria during Johnson Aguiyi-Ironsis 1966 military government. He was born on September 6, 1924 to Yoruba parents from Ago-Iwoye, in present-day Ogun State in western Nigeria. He joined the Royal West African Frontier Force in 1941, serving in Burma between 1942 and 1945. He re-enlisted after the second World War, and rose to the rank of Brigadier in May 1964.He served as the Chief of Staff, Supreme Headquarters Nigerian Defence Forces between January 1966 and August 1966. After the coup which overthrew Aguiyi-Ironsi, and following an agreement with the new military government led by Yakubu Gowon, he left the country for the United Kingdom, where he attended the 1966 Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting as Nigerias representative in September. Thereafter he took up appointment as Nigerias High Commissioner in the United Kingdom, a post he held until August 1970, when he left public service. He died in London in November 1971.He was criticized in some quarters for his refusal to take the mantle of office of his supreme commander, who had been murdered in the August 1966 coup, and that this aggravated the pogroms that eventually followed. He was the most senior military officer after the death of Ironsi, and the thinking was that he ought to have taken power himself. The fact is that this was not a viable thing for him to have done. He had no troops, and he was unable to rely on the few individuals available to him, many of whom were northern and were unwilling to take orders from a Christian southerner. Furthermore, he was basically a soldier and had no personal political ambitions. He understood that the preservation of Nigeria as one country meant that a southern Christian would be unable to hold the country together, and he took himself out of the power equation by accepting Yakubu Gowon (several years his junior) as the head of the new military government, (10) W.D Bassey :Brigadier Wellington Duke Bassey (rtd), an Efik officer from Cross-River State. He joined the Army in 1936 and is widely commemorated as Nigeria’s first indigenous officer, short-service commissioned from the ranks in April 1949, two months before Ironsi. However, in the course of the history of the Nigeria Regiment, West African Frontier Force, Lt. Ugboma was actually commissioned in 1948 – before Bassey. Ugboma, however, left the military shortly thereafter. A few other Nigerians were given field commissions during the first and second world wars. As a Lt. Colonel, Bassey was the first Commander of the Federal Guards Company in September 1962, a rather curious appointment for a Lt. Colonel.During the period between 1960 and 1965 Ironsi, Ademulegun, Ogundipe, Maimalari, Adebayo, Kur Mohammed and Shodeinde all superseded him in rank for reasons that are not totally clear. It is not clear either why he did not get an opportunity to serve in the Congo, a near universal experience for any Nigerian soldier of that era.As of the time of the January 15, 1966 coup he was commanding the Regimental Depot in Zaria. After Major General Ironsi came to power, Bassey was appointed “Acting Brigadier” and Brigade Commander of the 1st Brigade in Kaduna to take the place of Brigadier Ademulegun who had been murdered. However, Bassey was away on “medical leave” during the northern counter-coup of July 1966.On page 44 of his book “The Nigerian Revolution and the Biafran War”, former Biafran Army Commander, Major General Alexander Madiebo relates a curious (but unconfirmed) story. He tells how the 1st Brigade Commander ran out of his office in June 1966 when he heard the sound of a Goods Train off-loading planks at a nearby Train Station in Kaduna. Allegedly, Brigadier Bassey had, like other officers on his Staff, wrongly interpreted the sounds as gun shots and chose to abscond, saying “they should have told me; they promised to give me sufficient warning.”He retired from active service just before the civil war began and later emerged as Consul and later Nigerian Ambassador to Fernando Po (Equatorial Guinea).
Posted on: Wed, 06 Nov 2013 09:55:54 +0000
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