WELCOME TO KTNBIO

Former Military Head of State, Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida, IBB, has disclosed what Kaduna Nzeogwu said after executing the 1966 coup that killed the Northern Premier, Sir Ahmadu Bello, and his wife, Hafsatu.

Babangida said Nzeogwu, who described the coup as Operation Damisa, called it a “necessary ‘service to our country’ to rid it of all its filth and corruption.”

Nzeogwu, a Lieutenant-Colonel in the Nigerian Army, played a leading role in the 1966 Nigerian coup d’état, which overthrew the First Nigerian Republic.

On January 15, 1966, Nzeogwu led a group of soldiers on a supposed military exercise, taking them to attack the official residence of Sir Ahmadu Bello in a bloody coup that saw the murder of the premiers of Northern and Western Nigeria.

The Prime Minister, Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, a federal minister, Festus Okotie-Eboh, and top army officers, mostly from the Northern and Western regions of the nation, were also murdered.

However, Babangida, in his book A Journey in Service, wrote: “Later that morning, acting, presumably, as the leader of ‘the Supreme Council of the Revolution of the Nigerian Armed Forces,’ Major Nzeogwu addressed all officers in Kaduna at the Brigade Headquarters.

“Looking quite ruffled, with his neck and left arm bandaged, Nzeogwu, in a speech in which he referred to us as ‘comrades,’ informed us that the military had taken over the government of Nigeria and that he had secured Northern Nigeria in the name of the Supreme Council of the Revolution. He then appealed for cooperation and understanding from all the officers present.

“At a subsequent press conference, Nzeogwu elaborated on what he described as Operation Damisa (Damisa being the Hausa word for the leopard, which never changes its spots), describing the operation as a necessary ‘service to our country’ to rid it of all its filth and corruption.

“Later in the day, the gory details of what had happened—not just in Kaduna but in other parts of the country—started to emerge. In Kaduna, the Premier, Sir Ahmadu Bello, his senior wife, Hafsatu, his senior assistant security secretary, Malam Ahmed Ben-Musa, Ahmed Pategi, a government driver, and the head of his bodyguards, Zarumi, had all been killed before the break of dawn.

“There were other killings in Kaduna. The Commander of the First Brigade of the Nigerian Army, Brigadier Samuel Ademulegun, and his pregnant wife, Latifah (whom every senior officer jocularly referred to as Sisi Nurse), were gunned down in their bedroom. Not far from their residence, the Deputy Commandant of the Nigerian Defence Academy, Colonel Raphael Sodeinde, was also murdered.

“Outside Kaduna, the story was duplicated in Ibadan and Lagos. In Ibadan, the Deputy Premier, Chief Remi Fani-Kayode, was arrested and detained. The Premier, Chief Samuel Ladoke Akintola, was not so lucky. The coup plotters killed him after he tried to put up a fight. The Lagos scene was just as horrific.

“Apart from Prime Minister Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa and Finance Minister Chief Festus Okotie-Eboh, who were kidnapped from their residences and later murdered, much of the leadership of the Nigerian Army was wiped out.”