The Repeat of 1966 Drum's of war 🥁⚔️

The fears expressed on the probable return to the 1966 scenario of doom and uncertainties hanging in the atmosphere, the absence of trust and confidence in the next person with you or near you if he happened not to be from your region or your tribe or religious persuasion. In 1966 the atmosphere was charged and people were looking over their shoulders in order not to miss any happenings. First, I was in Gambe Village on the 15th of January when the sudden and unexpected news of the killing of the Sardauna Sokoto, the Premier of the Northern Region was announced over the Radio Kaduna. The news came with mixed reactions from the population who were just coming out of the just concluded general elections 1964, in the country. Many people who belong to the ruling NPC of Sardauna/Tafawa Balewa party were aggrieved on the killing of the Premier of the Northern Region and his colleague, the Prime Minister, Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa and military officers of mostly northern extraction while members of the opposition parties, especially the NEPU of Malam Aminu Kano party in the North were jubilating, that the oppressors have been eliminated.

I delayed my resuming of school at Federal School of Science Lagos till February for fear of the unknown. In February 1966 I summoned courage and left Gambe village via Ogoja to Onitcha from where I boarded a bus to Lagos. The only disturbing episode was when a roll call of the passengers was conducted and my name, Sa'adu Abubakar was called, the mostly Igbo passengers chorus, 'Abubakar!' making references to the slained Prime Minister, Abubakar Tafawa Balewa. I kept my cool till we arrived Lagos mid afternoon. In Lagos, the scence was normal, people busy going up and down, the traffic jams, the molue buses and their shouting bus conductors. I picked a taxi to the school and as we passed the Prime Minister's house on the our right, opposite the Onikan stadium, then Okotiebo, the Minister of Finance house next to the Prime Minister's, I gazed to the houses we use to frequent with a Bauchi classmate of mine at the FSS Onikan Lagos. I gazed to see if I could see familiar faces round the house but none. When I reached the bursay office and collected my two months Northern Region allowance of twenty eight pounds, I could not get hostel accommodation on the school compound because every bed space was occupied. Most of the Northern students returned on time without my type of hesitation and fears. I had to look for accommodation outside the campus. It was while waiting for a taxi that Mr Collins Mapeo, brother of Mr Dominic Mapeo, a Minister of the Tafawa government. Mr Collins, who was employed at the Nigeria Ports Authority (NPA), was passing on a bicycle, stopped to greet me. I told him my predicament and he offered to lodge me before further searches for a hostel in town.We trecked from Onikan through Obalande to No. 7 Reeves Road Okoyi where his brother, Minister Dominic Mapeo left him in the house and care of Mr George Bello, a Federal civil servant from the Bello family in Jimeta Yola. I stayed with Mr. Collins at the BQ for a term. The other occupant of the BQ was Akpan, the cook of Mr Bello.

 Lagos was full of people and bustling as if nothing monumental has happened.

Meanwhile, the country, that had its political leaders murdered in a bloody coup and the politicians thrown out of job, the Constitution shelved and the soldiers dishing out military orders or decrees, was experiencing an uneasy calm. The idle, displaced politicians who survived the coup were subtly sounding the people's mind and gradually enlightening them on the main reasons behind the coup. That it was an Igbo planned coup. To confirm this the Igbo military Head of State, General Agui Ironsi regeme promulgated the Unitary System of Government on the country, giving credence to the claims by the displaced politicians that it was an Igbo ploy to wrestle political power by other means than democratic. The soldiers who were hitherto well trained and very loyal began to show cracks in their ranks and files. Eight well trained senior officers of the Northern Region we're murdered along with the politicians on the fateful 15th January 1966 coup. No Igbo officer was killed during the controversial coup. Cracks amongst the military reached a level, orders were hardly complied with by Junior officers. The atmosphere was tense between March to July 1966 in the country. On the civilian side , agitation for the country to be divided along regional and ethnic lines were rife and the Igbos started receiving calls to leave from their northern hosts in many of the big city centers such as Kano, Katsina, Kaduna Sokoto, Bauchi etc. Igbos were asked to go back to their home of origin in the East of Nigeria. Then the coinage 'Araba' was used on the Igbos to indicate separation. Thugs capitalized on the rumpage and many innocent Igbo lives were lost. Many Emirs and chiefs struggled and saved the lives of many Igbos in their domains. Many thugs were arrested and some died in cells across the North, years after the crisis. The story between March 1966 to the end of the civil war in 1970, it's a story of its own, which no one who witnessed or lived it would want it repeated. All those so called new breed Igbo, Hausa, Yoruba or hybreed Nigerians, who brandish new found 'knowledge', political and religious wisdoms, and new found information technology media space and blindly compare Nigeria with America, UK, France, Germany and the other first world countries, would do themselves well if they  sheath their swords of hatred and bigotry imbibed from their parents who failed to tell them the bitter truth. That when this country called Nigeria is dismembered, it would not be business as usual. It would not be easy to hide our weaknesses and blame others for our myriads of failures, corruption, greed, incompetences and laziness.

The blight of the Nigerian thirty months civil war is still very much with us. We should be trying to obliterate it's effects rather than accentuate the worst nightmares we went through. When the chips are down, only mischievous nations will support avoidable balkanization of the country. It is well for the young, who believe they will lead their people to freedom, but let it follow the path of honour and civilization so that a smooth transition takes place if we have to succumb to treachery to separate.

Sa'adu Abubakar Gambe in Yola on 31st May, 2021. 2:15pm.

Caption: Adamawa State students at the Federal Science School FSS, Onikan, Lagos State, Nigeria. 1966.

Starting from the right is Sa'adu Abubakar (the writer), Raymond Danpurki Dilli and Samsun Mshelia