LAGOS DURING THE COUP D'ETAT
[The following is an eyewitness account of events in Nigeria at the time of General Ironsi's coup d'état. ]
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We were in a Lagos court on the morning of January 15 waiting for the prosecutors and magistrates to show up for continuation of a trial in which we were accused of political crimes. No magistrate was in court. No prosecutor either. We were to wait in vain, for the same thing was happening in all the other many courts in Lagos Island.
The chief justice of the Federation, Chief Sir Ademola had gone into hiding. By midmorning, senior police officers came to announce tearfully to the lawyers that "The soldier bastards drove us out of our Lion Buildings.
Lion Buildings is. the Lagos headquarters of the Nigeria police, sold to the federal government by former Minister of Health Chief Dr. Majekodunmi for half a million pounds...
Also seized was the headquarters of the criminal dinvestigation department where in any ordinary emergency 200 plainclothesmen would receive -a tecture before mingling with the masses at a demonstration. —
The headquarters of the political police, named simply Obalende HQ was ransacked by the "soldier bastards" all Saturday and Sunday. The arms, equipment and vehicles of all these bastions of. ‘the capitalist police wene seized.
It took hours to: realize that a coup d'état had already.taken place in the early morning. Prime Minister Alhaji Sir Abubakar and the millionaire Minister of Finance Chief Okotie-Eboh -had al--ready been arrested, later to be killed and ° ‘dumped on the highway 4 in the forest.
The premier of the North had faced a unit of the First Northern Field Battery; and the Sardauna of Sokoto Sir Alhaji Bello had perished as grenades reduced his palace, the Nasarawa Residence, to debris.
“The permier of the West, Chief Akintola, had - his pulletproof jacket torn up with an army knife. He was -then-riddled with ~Sixteen bullets and exhibited at the “public mortuary to the - amuse— ment and Joy of Ibadan. townsmen.
Mid-West Premier Chief Osadebay + was later. allowed: to escapeto his Country House on the banks of the Niger river which he built within eighteen months of taking office, : at a cost of one-third of a million pounds. : Ce
Eastern Premier Dr. Okpara also retired to his luxurious Country Hospital, built while: in office.
The coup d'état came as a. ‘surprise even to the political vanguard of the Nigerian working class.
It was thought that the: Nigerian government; as a bastion of world | imperialism, was firmly. entrenched; Lo ;
The army officers did not appear to be concerned about politics. They lived in luxury during the day and relaxed in the evening at lavish parties, guarded by troops with fixed bayonets, where the "cream of society" did everything but 6° to bed with each other amongst the champagne bottles.
But the coup took place. After an all-night battle at the Nasarawa fortress and an all-day military consolidation of gains, a Major "Kaduna" Nzegwu, who appeared. to be the leader of "the five," took the microphone of the seized Northern Broadcasting Station and proclaimed the erection of a "Revolutionary Government of the Army." He attacked the rulers of yesterday as corrupt gangsters, ten percenters (always demanding ten per cent interest from the foreign contractor on every development project), rapists who had been. sucking the blood of the Nigerian toilers, etc. He announced that the tribaltorn country was one, from the River Niger to the River Benue. He decreed death penalties for all acts of arson, black marketeering, sabotage, corruption, etc., and he ordered martial music on the —. Northern Radio Kaduna to be interspersed with indoctrination symposiums. He placed his territory under martial law.
Among the beer parlors, the palm wine sheds, the rickety: mammy wagon transports, in the stinking but lively market places there was general rejoicing at the downfall of the government... By Monday , 2,000 "men of substance" -- leaders and hirelings of the old regime -- “had escaped to the neighboring Republic of Dahomey. Many a minister (there.were eighty in-Lagos alone and more than 300. in the entire Federation) was caught in.a car trunk, or disguised as a woman, made up with lipstick, a wig and- other gadgets -- trying to escape in their big American cars.
In Lagos, Major General Ironsi held meetings with . one or two former ministers. and the British ambassador.
All the regions were in the hands of the "rebels. " “Lagos had been captured militarily though not politically. Thus Ironsi announced on Saturday that a mutinous sector of the army had "kidnapped" the prime minister. But en Sunday he changed his tune, announcing that the army had been handed state power. He was undoubtedly influenced by (a) the British ambassador, .(b) the threat of Kaduna to march on Lagos, (c) the expressions of support for Kaduna shown ’y all sectors of. the population but the ruling elite.
‘That was how a Neguib became the head of the new “military government. Ironsi symbolizes a ruling-class reformist coup seeking mass support to entrench its positions.
The general discontent in the country was such that the mere destruction of the old regime met with loud approval. The rigged Western elections had already stirred up such violence that’ Lagos: was seething.
_: The military government is now seeking to popularize itself. The masses are celebrating the downfall of their former oppressors | and hope that the new military government will solve their problems.. . . .
All the old parties are ineffective and silent and their leaders live in fear of what may befall them. They ‘write. > flattering letters of adulation and support for Ironsi.
_ The small revolutionary Marxist forces are now assessing the new Situation that has opened up. They are gearing for persistent struggles that will eventually open up the road for the toilers to. take power and create a workers state.
PIERRE