POGROM – 29TH SEPTEMBER, 1966
On 29th September, as the
Constitutional Conference was still sitting in Lagos, events occurred which
will always rank as of the utmost significance in the social and political
history of Nigeria, events which made fundamental changes in the structure and
pattern of Nigerian society and government. On that day began a series of
organised massacres of Easterners by armed Northern soldiers and civilians. The
pogrom was on a scale never before witnessed in the history of Africa.
The harrowing details of these
massacres have been too well documented to need re-telling here. However, the
following three accounts of what happened should be quoted; not so as to dwell
on the horror of what took place but to establish (a) that the massacres were
organised with care and precision, and (b) that the army played an important
part in the killings.
John Bulloch, Daily Telegraph, 22nd
October, 1966:
“This uninhibited violence has
been put forward as another hysterically spontaneous demonstration of Northern
dislike of the Ibos. That might be accepted if the massacres had spread in a
chain reaction. But they did not not.”
“In Kano, Kaduna, Jos, Zaria and
a dozen other places the killings all began about 7 p.m. on a Saturday. At each
place Hausa soldiers with loaded weapons were on hand, with gangs of young
thugs imported from the surrounding countryside to help the troops. These
groups were armed not only with sticks and machetes, but also with typed lists
of addresses of Ibos. Hardly a spontaneous outbreak.”
Special Correspondent, Financial Times, 30th November, 1966:
“Meanwhile in the North itself
there is a resurgence of the old N.P.C. with its true Muslim-Hausa-Fulani base,
its exercise of control through the emirates and its complex power structure
which is little understood. Who indeed plotted violence against the Ibos so
that it would erupt, on the same day, in towns hundreds of miles apart?
“More and more pressure is being
brought to bear on Lt. Col. Hassan Katsina by the old style politicians such as
Alhaji Inua Wada Zanna Bukar Dipcharima and young army officers such as Lt.
Col. Shwa.”
The scale and intensity of the
massacres prompted Lt. Col. Gowon to make a personal appeal to Northerners to
stop the killings; but it was in that speech that the true attitude of those in
control of Nigeria was impolitically revealed when Lt. Col. Gowon stated:
“You all know that since the end
of July, God, in his power, has entrusted the responsibility of this great
country of ours, Nigeria, into the hands of another Northerner …. Here I would
like to repeat what I have said earlier. The responsibility for the well being
of Nigeria is today in our hands and this is a responsibility which cannot be
treated lightly.” (New Nigerian, 30th September, 1966.)
This speech confirmed the
conclusions already widely held in the East that the Northern idea of unity for
Nigeria was one which entailed Northern domination; that the Ironsi Regime was
overthrown because it was headed by a non-Northerner, and that Easterners were
slaughtered in their thousands because the North saw in them an obstacle to
domination.
At the same times as Lt. Col.
Gowon was addressing the North in these terms in the hope of reducing in
intensity the savage massacres which had then begun, he broadcast to the nation
on the eve of National Day. “We must, first of all”, he said, as thousands of
Ibos were dying at the hands of organised Northern civilians and soldiery,
“thank God that we live to mark this anniversary ….” With increasing irony he
went on to say: “I seize this opportunity therefore to remind the Army, the
Navy, the Air Force and the Police again of their sacred charge. Our duty as
personnel of the Armed Forces is to protect each and every citizen of this
country and to serve any Government of the country. It is therefore absolutely
essential that each soldier, or sailor, or airman, or policeman, does his
utmost himself and together with his company to ensure that every citizen is
enabled to go about his lawful duty and personal business free from fear and
free from molestation. We have a duty to contribute our utmost to the restoration
of normalcy and stability in the country. We must remove any grounds for
apprehension.”
These massacres are further
significance in that it is from this point in time that the death of the old
Federation dates. The very basis of the Federal system of Government was
undermined. The rights of freedom of movement, to seek employment, to set up
home or business anywhere in the Federation were curtailed for the majority of
Easterners. The scars of these days are, and will remain for many years to
come, fresh on the memories of the Eastern people, and it is obvious that any
form of political association for the future between the peoples of Nigeria
will have to accommodate and make allowances for these realities. As was
eventually determined, over 30,000 Easterners lost their lives in the pogrom of
May, July, September, and October of 1966. Hardly an Eastern family did not
suffer. Over 1,800,000 refugees flooded into the East, creating intolerance
economic and social strains on that region – the East was stunned, frightened
and suspicious.
In summary, the pogrom was
precisely planned with typed names and addresses of victims, same time, same
date, 29th May, 29th July, 29th September 1966 in cities throughout the North,
some over 100 miles apart. The atrocities were so effectively carried out with
military precision, political party official vehicles used to transport one
group of citizens to murder unsuspecting fellow citizens and only stopped when there were no more ‘Nyammari’/Easterners
left in the North to kill. The GENOSLAUGHTERING of Biafrans in 1945, 1953,
1966, 1967-1970 and continued till 2018 more than anything else has succeeded
in killing Nigeria as a country. Stop the killing for the more they kill the
deeper the grave for the burial of the coffin that is Nigeria.
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