MEET BRIGADIER MUSA USMAN, THE YOUNG OFFICER WHO GOVERNED A TERRITORY THAT LATER BECAME SIX NIGERIAN STATES

There was a time when one military officer governed a territory so large that, decades later, it would become parts of six different Nigerian states.

His name was Musa Usman.

Born in Enugu in 1940, Musa Usman rose through the Nigerian military at an extraordinary speed and, at just 27 years old, became the military governor of the newly created North-Eastern State in May 1967. He remained in office until July 1975.

But who was this young officer?

And why should Nigerians today remember him?

FROM A MILITARY FAMILY

Musa Usman's story was connected to the history of both the military and Nigeria's complex ethnic heritage.

His father, Usman Kakagida, was a Kanuri man of Chadian ancestry who had served in the colonial West African Frontier Force. He was stationed at Ankpa, where he married Musa's mother, an Igala woman.

Musa was therefore born into a family whose story itself reflected the interwoven histories of Northern and Southern Nigeria.

In 1954, as a teenager, he entered the Boys' Company in Zaria, later known as the Nigeria Military School.

He eventually became the school's Senior Prefect.

His military education later took him to Teshie in Ghana, Mons Officers Cadet School at Aldershot in Britain, and the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst. He also received infantry training in the United States and served with Nigerian personnel involved in the United Nations operation during the Congo crisis.

This was not an ordinary military career.

THE 1960s CHANGED EVERYTHING

Nigeria entered one of the most turbulent periods in its history.

The coups of 1966, the counter-coup, the creation of states and eventually the Nigerian Civil War transformed the country.

Musa Usman became one of the officers caught in the middle of this turbulent period.

He was among the officers associated with the formation of the early Nigerian Air Force structure in 1966 and became associated with the Air Force station in Kaduna.

Then came one of the biggest responsibilities of his life.

On 27 May 1967, General Yakubu Gowon's government created twelve states from Nigeria's four regions.

One of the new states was North-Eastern State.

The territory covered what was then a vast part of northeastern Nigeria, including areas that would later become Borno, Bauchi and Gongola.

Musa Usman was appointed its military governor.

The official government gazette of 31 May 1967 records his appointment as Major Musa Usman, acting as Military Governor of North-Eastern State. Contemporary Nigerian records from the early 1970s subsequently identify him as Brigadier Musa Usman.

He was only about 27 years old.

Imagine being given responsibility for such an enormous territory at that age.

THE NORTH-EAST HE INHERITED

Musa Usman governed during one of the most difficult periods Nigeria had ever experienced.

The Civil War was raging.

The North-East was strategically important because of its proximity to Nigeria's international borders, particularly Cameroon and the Lake Chad region.

Yet his administration was not only about military affairs.

His government pursued infrastructure, education, agriculture and industrial development.

Among the projects associated with his administration were road networks, irrigation initiatives, housing schemes, educational institutions and the development of infrastructure around Maiduguri and other parts of the region.

His administration also played a role in the development of the Ashaka Cement project, which eventually became an important industrial landmark in present-day Gombe State.

And here is where the scale of his old territory becomes difficult to imagine today.

The North-Eastern State was later divided.

In 1976, it was broken up into Bauchi, Borno and Gongola.

Gongola was later divided into Adamawa and Taraba.

Bauchi later produced Gombe.

Borno later produced Yobe.

So the territory once administered from one Government House eventually contributed to several states in today's Nigeria.

A GOVERNOR WITH A COMPLEX NIGERIAN IDENTITY

There is another part of Musa Usman's story that deserves attention.

In 1965, he married Chioma Jummai, whose family background also reflected Nigeria's extraordinary mixture of identities.

Their marriage brought together different parts of the country at a time when Nigeria was still struggling to define itself as one nation.

His story therefore wasn't simply the story of a military officer.

It was also a story about the Nigeria that existed before the political and ethnic wounds of the late 1960s became so deep.

HIS CONNECTION WITH GOWON

General Yakubu Gowon later described Musa Usman as a young, bright and capable officer with a strong record.

Gowon knew him from his military career and selected him for important responsibilities before eventually appointing him governor of North-Eastern State.

Musa Usman also carried out assignments connected with Nigeria's relations with neighbouring countries during the Civil War period.

His career therefore placed him close to some of the most important events of Nigeria's early military era.

WHAT HAPPENED AFTER 1975?

Musa Usman's time as governor ended after the military coup that removed Gowon from power in July 1975.

He was replaced as governor of North-Eastern State by Colonel Muhammadu Buhari, who remained in that position until the state itself was broken up in 1976.

Musa Usman later lived in Kaduna and became involved in other activities, including serving as a director of the Bank of the North.

He died in 1991, aged about 51.

Think about that.

A man who had governed an enormous part of Nigeria, participated in some of the country's most turbulent years and risen through the military establishment had lived only about five decades.

WHY SHOULD WE REMEMBER MUSA USMAN?

Because Nigerian history is not only the story of presidents and heads of state.

It is also the story of the people who administered the country when its institutions were still being built.

Musa Usman governed a territory that no longer exists on today's map.

The Government House from which he administered the North-Eastern State belonged to a Nigeria that has since been completely reorganised.

The roads, institutions and projects associated with that period became part of the foundations upon which later states were built.

And his life tells another important Nigerian story:

A Kanuri father of Chadian ancestry.

An Igala mother.

A boy educated in Zaria.

A soldier trained in Ghana, Britain and America.

A Nigerian military officer who served during the Congo crisis.

A man who became governor of one of Nigeria's largest states at just 27.

And a husband whose family itself reflected Nigeria's diversity.

This is the Nigeria we often forget.

Not the Nigeria of today's arguments alone.

But the Nigeria of people whose lives crossed ethnic, regional, military and political boundaries long before many of today's young Nigerians were born.

Meet Brigadier Musa Usman.

A man who once governed a territory that would eventually become several states on the Nigerian map.

His name may not be familiar to many young Nigerians today.

But that does not mean his place in our history should disappear.

History should not only be remembered when it is trending.

It should be preserved because one day, someone will ask:

“Who built the Nigeria we inherited?”

And we should have an answer.

DAILY LIGHT 

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