Asaba Division Massacre: A Murtala Injustice Yet to be Recognized
as a National Tragedy
- Emeka
Esogbue
It is 55 years since the series of massacres perpetuated in
the defunct Asaba Division now the Anioma area. Today, nearly every Nigerian
citizen, and Africans interested in conflict resolution has heard of the Asaba
Massacre but it is not yet declared a national tragedy by the Federal
Government of Nigeria. For this reason, it remains an irony still living with
the Anioma people today. The Anioma people, found in Delta State of Nigeria
today are a group of people that comprise the Aniocha, Oshimili, Ika and
Ndokwa/Ukwuani.
The region is known for its richness in human resources,
producing some of the famous soldiers that fought on the sides of both Nigeria
and Biafra during the Nigerian Civil War but majority of the brightest soldiers
identified with Biafra. They include Major-General Alabi-Isama who fought on
the side of Nigeria and reputed to be one of the brightest Nigerian soldiers of
the war on the part of the Federal Troop, Major Nzeogwu, Col Nwawo, Col Mike
Okwuechime, Col Iweze, Col Igboba, Major Dr. Albert Albert Okonkwo who headed
the invaded Benin Republic and many more. It could be argued that Anioma soldiers
were the heart of Biafra.
These Anioma communities comprise the defunct Asaba
Division and together with the other people of Benin, Ishan, Urhobo, Isoko,
Itsekiri and Ijaw formed the Midwestern Region. The Asaba Massacre, a genocidal
occurrence among the communities of the defunct Asaba Massacre, infamously
lives in the heart of the people till date because the Nigerian Government has
refused to placate them. The massacres offered different today’s communities of
Anioma different ‘gifts,’ according to the deathly whim of the soldiers
involved in the perpetuation. Unfortunately, many of these perpetrators of the
pogroms rose to the highest rant in the nation’s military, up to the nation’s
head but their evils against the Anioma people were never pointed out
nationally.
For the people of Asaba, today’s capital of Delta State, it
was the most severely embittered battle of mass killing. Lying on the mouth of
the majestic River Niger, Asaba has since the days of the exploration been an
important route for the European traders and missionaries that visited what
became part of Nigeria. Wartime Asaba stood as a geographical connection
between the Midwest and Eastern Region; Nigeria and Biafra. By administration,
it was the last of the Nigerian territory but ethnically, the language and
culture of the people defines the indigenous relations with the Biafrans of the
Eastern Region. Moreover, several soldiers that Biafra depended on in the cause
of the war were of Anioma extraction. Several other factors known to trouble
border communities in time of conflict also put the people in such an awkward
situation in which they were not fully trusted by both belligerents. It was not
therefore unexpected that the worst befell them.
It indeed came on October 7 and 8 of October, 1967. It was
Biafra led by Col Banjo that first invaded the Midwest Region and Anioma was
occupied by the soldiers. Distressed Ejoor who was the Administrator of the
Region soon fled and realizing that a part of Nigeria was under occupation, Gen
Yakubu Gowon, the then Head of Head quickly set up a Division that was put
under the little known Murtala Muhammed at the time to liberate.
Rev Father Kunirum Osia who was the Parish Priest of St
Augustine’s Catholic Church, Ibusa at the time has found a way to narrate to
experience of the Anioma people. He wrote:
“Consequent upon the military coup of January 15, 1966,
hundreds if not thousands of Anioma indigenes were killed in a pogrom unleashed
against the Ibo living in the North. Because Anioma people were seen as ‘Igbo’
they got their share of that macabre slaughter of people. Suffice it to
mention, though, that when the Eastern Region succeeded as the ‘Republic of
Biafra’ on May 30, 1967, a police action was launched against Biafra. This
police action soon turned into a full-scale war, following the counter
offensive of the 2 Division, Nigerian Army commanded by Lt. Murtala Muhammed
attempting to push out Biafran ‘expeditionary force’ which had overrun the
Mid-west region.”
On sighting the Federal Troop, the Biafran Army fled back
to the East and destroying the River Niger Bridge in a bid to prevent the
Federal troop from chasing them. On arrival, the Asaba people were called on to
welcome and receive the Federal Troop warmly but it was a disaster that awaited
them. It was in response to this call that the males including youths among
them that sang and danced to welcome the Federal troops that had arrived to
liberate them were marched to Ogbe Osowe-Ilo-Umuaji-Ogbe-Ilo where they were
reportedly consumed in gun fires. “A terrible blot on Nigerian history,” had
occurred as Tony Eluemunor, a writer on Asaba Massacre titled his work on the
subject, which was published in the Vanguard Newspaper, October 7, 2021. Asaba
had lost more than a thousand harmless civilians to the Federal Troop. For a
long time, the community never had youths.
“What happened at Asaba was beyond comprehension that our
people in their traditional Anioma regalia gathered in procession to welcome
the Nigerian troops with chant of ‘ONE
NIGERIA’ were gunned down by soldiers of the 2 Division.”
“The procession of dancing troupes of many colours was
stopped at Ogbe Eke Market square by some soldiers not interested in any
reception, men were separated from their wives and children. As the procession
continued, there was air-renting wailing as men who smelt a rat and refused to
continue in the parade were instantly executed on the spot…”
Rudolf Okonkwo in his article published in Peoples Gazette
and titled, “Asaba Massacre and Ongoing Slow-Motion Genocide in Nigeria,” gave
a broader view of the Asaba Massacre:
“The Second Division of the Nigerian army led by col
Muhammed and Major Ibrahim Taiwo arrived in Asaba, rounded up males, some as
young as 12 years old, and mowed them down with machine guns.”
“The extended version of the story was that the soldiers
came into town and started to ransack houses, killing civilians that they
claimed were Biafran sympathizers. Hoping to end the violence, the town leaders
summoned their people to a square to meet with soldiers. Hundreds of people
came out wearing white attires, signifying surrender, singing “One Nigeria,”
and bearing gifts for the soldiers. That was when the soldiers separated men
and teenage boys from women and kids. Murtala and Taiwo’s troop then opened
fire with machine guns and killed over 700. In the days that followed, soldiers
killed more people. The soldiers buried the victims in mass graves.”
Rev Father Osia, quoting Olusegun Obasanjo in “My Command:
An Account of the Nigerian Civil War 1967-70, added:
The Asaba episode comes with traditional desecration being
that the Anioma people of Asaba were murdered in their Akwa-Ocha cultural
attires. To choose to deprive the people of the sacredness in their cultural
symbol was “aluu,” abomination in their culture but it never mattered to the
mass murderers.
On the 2nd and 3rd of May, 1968, in
Isheagwu, an Anioma coastal community located around Ewulu, Aba-Uno, Adonte,
Ukwu Oba and Nsukwa, Biafrans would travel to from around Oguta to buy food
stuff, by canoe and this angered the Federal Troop that would visit one night
and simply killed more than 400 people who failed to escape and burnt down the
community as also narrated by Tony Eluemunor. The Nigerian Army according to
Peter Oshiagwu had concluded that Isheagu was a safe haven for Biafra, with Pen
Master titled, “Civil War: How Isheagu Community Was Massacred.”
“They
clinically rounded up our traditional ruler, His Royal Highness late Agbogidi
Obi John Onyema I, and all members of his Council-in-Chief and summarily got
them executed. It was a gruesome war carried out against a relatively innocent
and peace-loving people. Other indigenes especially men were also randomly
picked up and murdered even at the full glare of their loved ones. The reckless
killings which continued from the dawn of 3rd of May of the same year, 1968,
being Afor day, a major market day of Isheagu, goes down in history as the most
horrendous day that the blood and tears of Isheagu people uncontrollably
flowed. It was indeed the most agonizing experience of the people both old and
young,” responded Oshiagwu in the interview.
“The rampaging Nigerian troops shot sporadically at every moving
object which claimed the lives of a number of the indigenes including women and
children who were cut down by bullets, bombs and grenades. Over five hundred
Isheagu citizens were gruesomely murdered with men as predominant victims. When
the war eventually ended in the month of January 1970, survivors who managed to
return home from across different hideouts, were meant to bury their dead,
rebuild the community and also survive all on their own,’ he further said.
Indeed, it was more complex; a more number of the
community’s indigenes including the monarch of the community and his chiefs
were victims of the massacres who lost their lives to the unwarranted human
inferno. The offence of the people was that they allowed Biafrans civilians to
trade within their community and the military punishment was mass killing.
For Isheagwu, it seems a community with little or no voice to
speak on the evil faced by them. To be heard by the world became nearly
impossible until recently. This was unlike the Asaba episode that continues to
receive persuasive dissemination.
Ibusa, a community of only about 6 miles from Asaba was
though spared the massacres of the likes of Asaba and Isheagwu but it was not
totally free from the killings that the wartime Anioma communities had faced. Initially,
the ancient community of Isu and Nri migrants enjoyed peace but it was only a
matter of time before they swallowed the deathly capsules in the similar Asaba
and Isheagu fashion.
In time of peace, many Asaba indigenes, escaping the
gruesome murders in the community took refuge in Ibusa. One of the refugees was
Dr. Ifeanyi Uraih, a lawyer from Asaba who told Pen Master that Ibusa should be
commended for the act of hospitality.
With time, soldiers of Nigeria had penetrated into the
Ibusa community and the people’s houses had been forcefully occupied with wives
of civilians also forcefully abducted and commandeered to cook for soldiers and
to carry out other domestic chores. Among these soldiers who took over the
Ibusa community from the ‘owners’ was Sani Abacha. Abacha would rise to become
the nation’s Head of State from 1985 to 1993. Perhaps, there was no Anioma
community where women were raped as was seen in Ibusa. The rape was so severe
that it translated to foul language shortly after the war in which “soldier
lagbue” became widely and abusively used. The Ibusa woman had become
dehumanized by soldiers while the men were in Ngbotukpe, one of the community’s
largest forests.
The sad experience of the Ibusa woman was not all about the
Nigerian Troop. Biafran soldiers also kidnapped Ibusa women as reported by
Osia:
“Two incidents at Ibusa necessitated the forcible removal
of the people: the kidnapping of many women in St. Thomas’ refugee camp, who
went to fetch water from the Oboshi stream by the Biafran soldiers, and a
massive attack launched by the Biafrans few weeks later, followed by another
kidnapping of nearly all the refugees in the Sacred Heart Elementary School
refugee camp.”
Relying on Osia, in the book, “Anioma in Contemporary
Nigeria: Issues of Identity and Development,” thousands of Ibusa indigenes were
evacuated from the community that had become the theatre of war next to nearby
Asaba.
“After three months of fierce fighting, thousands of Ibusa
indigenes were forcibly moved into St. Patrick’s College refugee camp where
they remained for nine months until they returned on February 9, 1969. It took
two full days to completely evacuate the camp. During the sojourn in St.
Patrick’s refugee camp, 49 people died (men, women, and children) and they were
all buried in unmarked graves on the premises of St. Patrick’s College, Asaba.
The oldest person that died was 94 years and the youngest was 4 months.”
“The 50th person who would have died in this
camp was the Diokpa of Ibusa, Obi Okocha Mordi. The Obi requested that the
writer (Osia) who was in charge of the gigantic camp should take him back to
Ibusa to die…”
Asaba, Isheagu and Ibusa were not alone in this. In
Ogwashi-Uku, a neighbouring Ibusa community, the massacre was experienced. An
eye-witness once told Pen Master how some Idumuje Uno men abducted in the heat
of the war were loaded in trucks and moved down to Asaba where they were
massacred with Asaba indigenes. The fate of the people of the Asaba Division
was a national tragedy.
Needless to mention, the 2 Division of the Nigerian Army,
charged to retake the Midwest Region from Biafran forces was responsible for
the massacres that consumed the lives of the Anioma civilians in cold blood and
Lt. Col Murtala Muhammed was the leader of the Division. Murtala Ramat Muhammed
(1938 to 1976) was born into the ruling class-ruling religious family in the
present–day Kano State, Northern Nigeria. Murtala schooled at Cikin Gida
Primary School and Gidan Makama Primary School, both schools in Kano. He also
had koranic education from where he proceded to Government College, Zaria for
his secondary school education. He served in the Nigerian Army as a cadet in
the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst.
Well-trained professionally but ill-experienced in battles,
the massacres had taken place under the watch of the fiend Murtala who would
later become the nation’s Head of State. The tactical inexperience of Murtala
was exposed in his failed 2 division and Asaba-Niger crossing attempts in which
he consumed human and military wares in the processes. Murtala was in fact, a
military blunder.
Major Godwin Alabi-Isama reported the blunders of Murtala
who refused to take tactical correction in his Command:
“The Federal Troop I was leading before I was recalled near
Abudu on Agbor Road drowned and died at Asaba River Niger trying to cross into
Onitsha. The tactics of a frontal attack on the enemy at the opposite end of
the river was one of the blunders of the Nigerian Army during the civil war.
Akinrinade had protested against the plan to cross the river frontally at Asaba
and he fell out with his commander, Col Murtala Mohammed. The rest, today is
history. As if that was not enough, 2 Division under Col. Mohammed’s command
made further attempts to capture Onitsha frontally. Finally, they went through
Agenebode/Idah, via the left flank”
He continued:
“But the Federal Troop then lined up in a convoy as if on a
bush training exercise. The convoy was ambushed at Abagana, where many more
troops were killed and all their vehicles, supplies of food and medicines burnt
and destroyed. It was a disaster for which as at the time of writing this book,
no official lists of the dead and wounded had been released. As a matter of
fact, there was no official enquiry as to what happened till today who cared?
It was not until March 21, 1968 that 7 Brigade under the command of Lt. Col. S.
F. Daramola, came under Capt. Shehu Yar’Adua to take Onitsha,” forcing Biafran
troops under Col Nwawo into the Nnewi enclave…”
Gowon was shocked at the loss that Murtala sustained. When
told that inexperienced Murtala had wasted all his troop, he asked “all the
troops,” and got yes for an answer, according to Alabi-Isama. Disappointed
Gowon then took the decision of withdrawing Murtala from the warfront.
The controversies associated with Murtala Muhammed were
well-known. Writing in Historyville.com, Ayomide Akinbode noted the following
about him:
“After Nzeogwu surrendered to Head of State, Aguyi-Ironsi,
Muhammed was one of the soldiers who arrested him when he eventually arrived
Lagos from Kaduna.”
“In a bid to quell outrage from Northern soldiers, head of
State, Aguyi-Ironsi appointed them to senior sensitive posts. Aguyi-Ironsi
promoted Muhammed to Lieutenant-Colonel and appointed him Nigeria Army’s Inspector
of Signals. A position that would prove strategic in the counter-coup, six
months later.”
“Despite his rank, Muhammed was not happy and did not hide
his disdain of the Igbos nor Aguyi-Ironsi that he once referred to the Head of
State as a ‘fool’ and made it clear he would avenge the deaths of his northern
colleagues.”
As said earlier, Nigerians have heard of the Asaba Division
massacre and the Nigerian Government has also heard about it. The question now
is what action has the Nigerian Government taken? At the Justice Oputa Panel,
Gen I. B. M. Haruna, one of the commanders of the massacre in Asaba Division
claimed that he ordered the massacre and had no apology for doing so.
From Gen I. B. M. Haruna, who took over from GOC, col Jalo,
we heard of the involvement of the International Criminal Court on the issue:
In the interview with Kabiru A. Yusuf of Daily Trust, Gen
Ibrahim Bata Haruna (retd) reported:
“I heard these stories after the war; my name was even
brandished. In fact, there was an occasion not long when some two professors
from the United States came came to conduct enquiry into this matter
extensively, on behalf of the International Criminal Court and I told them that
I was not there. I never heard of it. And when I did, it was a very unfortunate
incident.”
On whether there was a massacre, the former Chairman of
Arewa Consultative Forum said:
“As far as I am concerned, I was not there, so I cannot
vouch for what happened. But there was a battle there and people have expressed
their views about it, saying it was a massacre. All I can say is from reading
reports years after the civil war. I particularly got a little bit irritated
when people were mistaking me for Ibrahim Taiwo. I did not enter the civil war
until was captured.”
Ironically, the perpetrators of the evil rose to prominent
positions in the country. Gen Murtala Muhammed would overthrow Gen Yakubu Gowon
to become the nation’s Head of State but he never had a lasting duration as he
was assassinated in office in 1976. Although Gen Yakubu Gowon (retd) has
apologized to the people of the defunct Asaba Division, the ugly experience of
the people ought to be recognized and declared a national tragedy by the
Nigerian Government in the country.
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