(Fwd) Re: The Gains of Murtala's Coup

[A.C.C.ANAWANA]

My idea of a "Nigerian" hero(whatever that may mean), definitely does
not include Murtalaism.
I (and I know all well- meaning Easterners) will never consider him a
role model; he that took part in the maiming of innocent Easterners,
raping of our women, mutilation of our loved ones, the
Asaba/Onitsha/Awka episodes.......TUFIAKWA!!!!!!!!!!!!

His successor in office became a multi-millionaire when he quit
office out of the blue. That gives me a bit of an insight into his
choice of friends and probably his aspirations.
Afterall Abacha was considered by certain sections of the country to
have done a good job in the first few months of his stay in power,
Babangida was thought well of initially and all that.

I am sure if Murtala had stayed up to a year, he would have enough
time to show his devilish personality for all to see.

Clive(on da Chilling side of events)

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Anthony Onyewuchi
07/29/97 05:14 PM

I am sorry, I can't share in this celebration of mediocrity! Murtala showed
the makings of good government but he was around for only 6 months! Every
usurper that has ever ruled Nigeria including Babangida appeared committed
in the first six months.
How about the loses of Murtala's coup:
1. It legitimized the practice of indiscriminate coups under the guise of
"saving us" from bad leadership
2. It created yet another personality cult, were Murtala was the honest man
in an otherwise mediocre bunch (Gowon was considered honest, but his
leuitenants wrecked havoc on the country)
3. He gave us Obasanjo. Shows the man had poor judgement.
4. Perpetuated the practice of concentrating real power among the
Northerners.
5. Was the making of the Hausa "untouchables"

I believe that these military saviours whatever their agenda were,
collectively damned Nigeria to this level of mediocrity.

ki...@RADIKS.NET
07/29/97 01:14 PM

Please respond to ki...@RADIKS.NET

To: NAIJ...@MITVMA.MIT.EDU
cc: (bcc: Anthony Onyewuchi)
Subject: The Gains of Murtala's Coup

Category: Features
Date of Article: 07/26/97
Topic: The Gains of Murtala's Coup
Author: Emeka Duru-Alex
Full Text of Article:

Martial music from Radio Nigeria that windy Tuesday morning sent the
signals to millions of Nigerians. The message reflected the mood and
reality of the day. There was a coup! the third of it in the 15-year
history of Independent Nigeria. But that did not make the message clearer.
Why the putsch? bloodshed? Who were the brains behind it?
These and many others, were the questions on the lips of fear gripped
Nigerians. But not long, the then Colonel Joe Garba, a major actor in the
drama and commander of the Brigade of Guards, cleared the air. The
government of General Yakubu Gowon, he told the obviously apprehensive
audience, had been toppled. That was on July 29, 1975.
By Garba's announcement, Gowon, who was then rubbing minds with "fellow"
Heads of state at an Organisation of African Unity summit in Kampala,
Uganda, ceased to be Nigeria's number one citizen. In the same stroke of
fate, his nine-year-old regime, the longest by any leader in the nation's
history, was brought to an abrupt end.
>From Kampala, the deposed leader, then in his 30s scurried into London,
first as a fugitive and later, as a student at Warwick University. In his
former hallowed position stood the 37-year-old Murtala Muhammed, before
then a Brigadier and corps commander of signals.
The coup which swept off the Gowon regime and brought in Murtala Muhammed
as the country's fourth Head of state and sadly, the third to die in
office, did not come to many Nigerians as a surprise. Public confidence in
the former administration had been terribly shaken 12 months before the
younger officers struck.
Gowon was perceived in certain quaters to be a captive to his hawkish
officials. Of particular instance was the frivolous manner in which serious
allegations of impropriety leveled against certain governors and federal
commissioners were handled. For example, Police Commissioner Joseph
Gomwalk, the military governor of Benue-Plateau State, was accused of
monumental corruption by Aper Aku, who became governor of Benue State in
the Second Republic. On the strength of this allegation which almost shook
the nation to its foundations, Gown was said to have flown in from China
and without due investigations, declared Gomwalk innocent. His accuser,
Aku, was tossed into indefinite detention. This did not sink in well with
the populace.
Nigerians were yet to get over with the earlier wound of disappointment
inflicted on them when on October 1, 1974, the Head of State reneged on his
promise of handing over the reigns of power to a democratically elected
government in 1976. His reasons were that the political class had not
learned much to be entrusted with the destiny of the nation. But this was
hardly convincing. Rather, the suspicious watchers of the government read
in it a clever design by Gowon to perpetuate himself in office.
Even his procrastination on reshuffling his cabinet, put his command
position in doubts. At given occasions, he raised the people's hopes that
he would create more states but he never kept to his schedules.
In the Armed Forces, restiveness was the order of the day. Mismanagement
reached an all time low as many members of the rank and file were virtually
forced to be buying their uniforms as those supplied by the Headquaters
were of inferior quality. Their anger was not because there was no money
but rather because the allocations for these basic needs were being
diverted to personal purses.
Also, the officers were becoming increasingly embarrassed that there were
no good transport for movement of troops for military exercises even as
mush money was voted for this. Virtually, all the military formations were
littered with vehicles packed as unfit of use.
In all, though Gowon was widely seen as a sincere and well meaning man, the
general conclusion was that his regime had lost all moral rights to govern
the country. The end, it was felt, was just a matter of days. It was on the
basis of the apparent inertia of the Gowon's administration that Muhammed
took over the reigns of power and set out to redress the perceived
short-comings in the nation's polity. "This government will not tolerate
indiscipline. This government will not condone the abuse of office," was
all that Muhammed needed to tell the nation hitherto disappointed by series
of misrule, to assure her of a purposeful and visionary leadership.
Like a surgeon who knew where the cause of the nation's ailment laid, he
set up the first Supreme Military Council, the country's highest law making
body that excluded the govenors. In the same breathe, he began his
cleansing exercise by probing Gowon's 12 state military governors, out of
who only two, Mobolaji Johnson of Lagos and Samuel Ogbemudia of the Midwest
state now Edo and Delta states were exonerated. The rest paid for their
guilt and even forfeited their property..
Apart from this exercise, the head of state gave Nigerians a transition
time-table that was to span three years, 1976-79. Within his short regime,
a Constitution Drafting Committee was set up on October 18, 1975 while
seven states were created in addition to the existing 12 states. It is also
to Mohemmed's credit that Local Government elections were held on non-party
basis where people earned their votes on individual merit without any
alliance or link with any political organisation.
Muhammed was a stranger to indolence. His regime was quick to indentify the
negative influence of red-tape bureaucracy in the country's civil service.
Accordingly he embarked on the 1975 great purge of the civil service. And
with this, the era of super-permanent secretaries came to an end. Civil
servants with bad records were sent packing. "Out of his great moral
outrage", writes Kole Omotosho in his Just Before Dawn, thousands were
sacked in the civil service, in the armed forces, in the universities, in
parastatals. Everywhere in the country, thousands lost their means of
livelihood for reasons of poor health, doubtful integrity, redundancy,
inefficiency, ineffectiveness, irresponsibility, poor attitude to work,
misapplication, old age and long absence from duty without proper
authority" As a corollary to this, the war against indiscipline was waged.
Nigerians started embracing the queueing culture. The government
inaugurated the Akinola Aguda Panel which drew the blue-print that
recommended the relocation of the federal capital from Lagos to Abuja. At
the international arena, the country's foreign policy was strengthened as
it threw its weights behind the freedom fighters all over the continent.
Muhammed, according to his admirers, was great and his regime, although
very short, was the best that had happened to this country. General Ibrahim
Babangida, Nigerian's eight head of state, in 1992 during the 15th memorial
anniversary lecture for the former leader alluded to this; "Here was a man
who looked beyond narrow confines of ethnicity, statism, religion,
professional group and personal interest to articulate a clear and
convincing vision of our nation. General Muhammed set out to reform the
society and build a great nation. He tackled social problems, mapped out
clear programmes for the return to democratic civilian rule in order to
guarantee civil liberties and security of the individual as well as pursued
a dynamic foreign policy that endowed this nation with a justifiably
enviable leadership of the African continent.
On her own , Mrs Ajoke Muhammed, the widow of the slain hero, spoke of him
thus: "I had premonitions about my husband's challenge on assuming the
position of Head of state and Commander-in-Chief of Armed Forces. I was
very uncomfortable about it all. I felt strongly that he could have done
his best for the country without necessarily being head of state. But then,
the soldier in him was as strong as the patriotic zeal that influenced his
ways. And he had his way. Before he was eventually killed, he had prepared
my mind and toughened me for the possible dangers of being a General's
wife". But while the late head of state clearly stated his ideals and while
his wife remains proud of living up to them at the home front, same can
hardly be said of the successive regimes since his assassination on
February 13, 1976. Since his death successive military regimes had laid
claims to being off-shoots of his revolution even when their actions and
inactions have indicated the contrary.
Shortly after his death, the transparent honesty which he strove hard to
instil in the national psyche came tumbling as N2.8 billion fraud was
allegedly uncovered at the nation's oil industry. Till date, the truth of
the matter is yet to be established.
Even the Abuja federal capital project as it today, is not how the late
General desired it. While inaugurating the Mr Justice Akinola Aguda panel,
Muhammed asked the members to reach out for a central location where no
Nigeria would be subjected to a stranger status. The panel reportedly
recommended a gradual four-phase development in order not to jeopardize the
economy. But successive governments rushed the project with doubtful
explanations. "What is happening today", Aguda lamented, "is not what we
planned. The idea has been bastardized for selfish reasons. " The learned
jurist is absolutely right. The project which was scheduled to have spanned
over 20 years, was haphazardly executed under 12 years at a huge cost to
the nation.
On the political front, the General's giant strides have been ridiculously
reversed by successive regimes. While his time lasted, he never allowed
himself to be blindfolded by the attractions of power. Accordingly, he
mapped out a transition time-table that was to usher in a democratically
elected regime in 1979. However, the 1983 general elections that was
organized by the civilian government, proved that the political class was
yet to embrace the spirit of fair play in politics. Thuggery, rigging and
falsification of election results were the essential and noticeable
features of the polls.
While the leadership of Alhaji Shehu Shagari's National Party of Nigeria
displayed a clear lack of cohesion at the homefront, the country's image
abroad started caving in bits. In 1981, Cameroun had renewed its claims to
the mineral rich Bakassi Peninsula, allegedly ceded to it by Gowon during
the Nigerian civil war. In that year, some Nigerian solders were allegedly
killed by the Camerounian gendarmes in the disputed territory. "Murtala
Muhammed wouldn't have taken this national shame", disclosed a source at
the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs, Lagos.
Though Muhammed reigned as a military ruler, structures he Created shortly
after ascending the seat of power, showed that he recognized administration
through the barrel of the gun as an aberration. But the duo of Generals
Muhammadu Buhari and Tunde Idiagbon, upturned this logic when they sacked
the Shagari regime on December 31, 1983. While their government vigorously
ensured that probity and accountability got reinforced into the nation's
citizenry, its style and tactics obviously differed from the Muhammed
regime which it claimed to be its forebear. Fair balancing, which the slain
hero stressed, was conspicuously lacking in the regime as Buhari, Idiagbon
and most of the ministers manning sensitive ministries, were Northerners.
"They were too ethnic and regionalist to run a proper federation. You need
people who see Nigeria as a country, not as a system of dual mandate, one
for the region that produced you and one for the rest of the country.
Buhari and Idiagbon acted on the basis of dual mandate", reasoned Mr. Odia
Ofeimum, president of the Association of Nigerian Authors, while assessing
the Muhammed regime.
Apart from the regionalist tendencies levelled against the Buhari-Idiagbon
regime, the administration appeared blind to the beauty of democracy. In
fact, for the 20 months that the administration drilled the country with
draconian measures for the expressed purpose of enthroning discipline, it
never unfolded any plans of ushering in an elected civilian government.
And when the Babangida group toppled it in a bloodless palace coup of
August 27, 1985, it dangled the triple principles of egalitarianism, quick
return to democracy and claim to Muhammed's legacy as credibility for
legitimacy. However, while the actors of the 1975 coup carried out their
promise of handing over the instruments of government to an elected
government, the Babangida group hung on to power and continuously tampered
with its eight-year transition time table until it got the country enmeshed
in the 1993 political crisis that served as a basis for the current regime
of General Sani Abacha. Banangida shifted the handover date from 1990 to
1992 and 1993. But none was actualised .
As for the current regime, it has set out October 1, 1998 as its final
disengagement from the corridors of power. But largely traumatised by the
series of unfulfilled promises by the outwardly more liberal preceeding
military regimes, the Nisgerian electorate and politicians have not been
too eager to swallow the bait.
The activities of the government towards the march to democracy have not
helped matters in this respect. A gale of disqualification's in the March
15 local government elections only sounded as a reminder to the politicians
that like in the Babangida era, the final signpost to civilian
administration may still lie far away. Even the shift of the council polls
itself marked the first basis for the suspicions. It was to have taken
place late last year.
But for reasons that appeared less convincing, the National Electoral
Commission of Nigeria announced to the bewildered nation that the election
had been rescheduled. Ever since, critics of the Abacha regime are yet to
be convinced about the sincerity of the government in the march to
democratisation.
Not even the registration of the five political parties on September 30,
1996 has done much to erase this doubt. If anything, the parties have been
cynically seen as mere extensions of government parastatals peopled with
government agents, without genuine intentions.
The National Democratic Coalition (NADECO), a sworn opponent of the
military authorities since the annulment of the June 12, 1993 presidential
elections, has been in the fore-front in this cynicism. With the amendment
in the transition time-table which has shifted the governorship elections
earlier on scheduled to hold this year to August 1, 1998, the group has had
more reasons to doubt the Abacha regime.
What is more, the rumoured clandestine moves for the head of state to
succeed himself come 1998, have all tended to create fears in the minds of
Nigerians about the future of democracy in the country. "This was not so
during the Murtala Muhammed-Obasanjo era. Even though there were noticeable
lapses then, there were all the same clear manifestations of the will to
vacate office by the regime", said a source at the NIIA.
Apart from the resplendent sincerity in the march to civil rule, Murtala
Muhammed perhaps still retains the enviable reputation of being the only
Nigerian leader who did not detain a single soul. Even though according to
Babangida, "from the moral degeneration of the society, he (Muhammed)
brough sanity, enforced discipline, dedication to duty, probity and
accountability", these were not accomplished at the expense of anybody's
liberty.
The regime of Buhari made no pretences to openness and dialogue. If
anything, it assured Nigerians that the era of freedom of speech,
particularly in respect to criticism on government projects and activities,
was over. As soon as the regime set in, it got all the political leaders of
the Second Republic locked up. This, though, was the only way of ensuring
that they refunded all the money they allegedly stole from the public
coffers. And for the journalists, they were taught one or two lessons on
the virtues of desisting from writing "subversive" stories. Those that
"tested" and tasted the will of the regime included Messrs Tunde Thompson
and Nduka Irabor of The Guardian newspapers. And they served terms in jail.
On its own, the Babangida regime gave the impression that it was liberal
and ran an open-door policy. But it never spared even some principal
members of the government suspected or found guilty of coup against it. In
this class were Major General Mamman Vatsa and other suspected coupists of
December, 1985, and the Gideon Orka group of April 1990. Media houses who
took the posture of the government at its face value soon discovered that
behind the toothy smile of the then commander-in-chief laid the
Machiavellian tactics of steady decimation of assumed opponents. For prying
much into the Sylvanus Cookey- led Political Bureau's report The Newswatch
Magazine was sent off the stands for months.
Similar measures were carried out by the current regime with more overt
tactics. Perceived opponents of the government have at times been hounded
into detentions or harrassed into exile. General Olusegun Obasanjo and
Shehu Yar' Adua; Colonel Lawan Gwadabe, Mrs Chris Anyanwu, Messr George
Mbah, Ben Charles Obi, Kunle Ajibade and a host of others have been behind
bars since 1995 for alleged involvement in an attempt to overthrow the
government.
Besides these known figures, the campaign for Democracy disclosed that
between January and September, last year, 38 persons were sentenced to
death, while 206 cases of extra-judicial killings were recorded. The group
also revealed that within the same period, 23 cases of attacks on the press
including closures, seizure of publications, were carried out by persons
suspected to be government operatives. CD also stated that 2,668 cases of
arbitrary arrests were made during the period. While 1,512 infringements on
academic freedom were recorded.
But by far, the area in which the country seemed to have received the
hardest knock since Muhammed's assassination is in international relations.
Right from the second Republic, very little efforts have been exerted to
maintain the dynamism which the slain leader brought into the nation's
foreign policy.
While the General lived, he conscientised other leaders of the continent on
the need for them to be truly independent and assertive in the then
East-West ideological world. At an OAU forum in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia,
Muhammed delivered his landmark speech that a researcher at the Nigerian
Institute of International Affairs described as a "catalyst to the speedy
eradication of all forms of racism and colonialism in Africa".
Said Muhammed: "Africa has come of age. It is no longer under the orbit of
any extra-continental power. It should no longer take orders from any
country, however powerful. The fortunes of Africa are in our hands to make
or mar". Twenty-two years after these historic statements, Nigeria is
almost a pariah nation following what the international community
interprets as its poor human rights record and unconvincing moves towards
democracy. For the past two years, the country has been under excruciating
pangs of sanctions from the European Union, the Commonwealth and other
sections of the international community following the execution of Mr.
Saro-Wiwa and eight other Ogoni leaders in November, 1995.
Despite these glaring cases of reversal of ideals and policies, highly
placed officials of the current administration, have not refrained from
maintaining that the Abacha regime is a direct off-shoot of the Muhammed
era. At last year's memorial lecture, Lt. General Muhammadu Haladu, the
Minister of Industries, sought to establish this correlation in the present
government's "uncompromising commitment to national unity, political
transition time-table and commitment to the sovereignty of the Federal
Republic".
>From his own angle, Dr. Walter Ofonagoro, the information minister, took
time " to observe that both the late General Murtala Muhammed and Nigeria's
present head of state are from Kano State. Both fought gallantly in the
tragic civil war to keep Nigeria one. Both share a fervent belief in the
emergence of a truly professional military organisation committed to
defending the territorial integrity of a geuninely democratic Nigeria. Both
share a commitment to a disciplined society free from corruption and abuse
of office. Both men share a passionate commitment to African unity and
inviolability of African sovereignty.
Why then has Nigeria not been itself since Muhammed's death? The Guardian
editorial of February 13, 1995, tended to provide the answer. It described
Muhammed's tenure as "a flash in the pan, lacking any roots in a defined
pursuit of goals. Apart from the short-term solution, the discipline which
he meted out to the nation turned out to be as footloose as fractious and
as unenviable as some of the questionable projects which he initiated".
Doubtlessly, the revered General though widely seen as a success in
political matters, could not be seen on the same platform on economic and
administrative issues. His polices lacked a clear focus on the nation's
economy and this has been the bane of successive regimes. Even his purge of
the civil service has been seen as the first move towards the eradication
of the middle class structure in the nation's socio-economic system. His
state creation policies have been singled out as being responsible for the
current North-South geo-political imbalance.
But his righteousness seemed to have outweighed his iniquities. And in the
words of Mr. Wumi Oluwatoki of the Department of History and International
Relations at the Lagos State University, "he has remained the role model
and hero of the Nigerian nation."

Additional reports by Sukuji Bakoji, Natty Idoko and Leonard Nzenwa Jnr.

[Odum Sunny K]

Clive and Anthony;

You have spoken the truth. Murtala can not be a Nigerian
"hero" with the crime of humanity against th Igbo people
of Nigeria. We, conscientious Nigerians are making solid
efforts to put down the fake image of M. Mohammed in our
beloved nation, Nigeria. We shall go to any length to sue
whatever sham Nigerian government in the world court that
will resist our attempt to rid Nigeria of the image of a
devil.
Nigeria belongs to all of us equally. We have sacrificed
the blood of our beloved fathers, uncles, brothers, mothers,
children in the fight for Nigerian.

Who so ever dare say that we, as true Nigerians, cannot choose
who becomes a Nigerian hero must take their 'thin' hero
elsewhere for display. Tufiakwa. A rapist, a murderer,
and a hero? tufiakwa!

Never shall real men compromise for freedom and for truth.

Ndewo,

Sunny Odum.