#Today is Exactly 30 Years!
Continue to rest in peace Major Gideon Orkar
THE MAN, LATE MAJOR GIDEON GWAZA ORKAR
Major Gideon Gwaza Orkar was born to the family of Levi Orkar Chi, a teacher of Tiv heritage at Apir village,Ugondo,Masev of Makurdi Local Government in Benue State, Nigeria,on October 4th, 1952.
He was a Nigerian military officer who staged a coup against the then government of General Ibrahim Babangida on Sunday,April 22, 1990.
Orkar and his conspirators seized the FRCN radio station, various military posts around Lagos and the Dodan Barracks, Lagos, the military headquarters and presidential residence. Babangida was present when the barracks were attacked but managed to escape via a back route.
In his coup address, Orkar called for the excision of five northern states.
However, the coup was crushed by the Babangida regime and Orkar was executed.
#EARLY LIFE,EDUCATION & CAREER.
At an early age, he went to live with one of his brothers and attended primary school at the village of Apir and Wadata.
He also attended Gindiri Boys High School, Plateau State, and, on completing his secondary education and while taking Higher School Certificate classes, he responded to an army ad and proceeded to join the army in 1972 as cadet 682.
He started his officer cadet training at the Nigerian Defence Academy, Kaduna, with the 12th Regular Combatant Course.
He was commissioned in December 1974 in the rank of Second Lieutenant and posted to the Nigerian Army Armoured Corps School in Ibadan.
Orkar was part of the peacemaking contingent in Chad in 1978. He served in various units, including the Reece at Kaduna, 82, Division, Enugu, and Armoured School, Bauchi.
In 1986, he attended the Senior Officers Course 9 at the Command and Staff College, Jaji.
He also served as commander of Saki 22 Armoured Battalion in Oyo State. His last posting prior to the April 1990 coup was as a member of the directing staff of the Command and Staff College, Jaji.
There is also an unconfirmed story that as a subaltern, he was once granted six months seniority over his colleagues based on outstanding performance representing his commanding officer back in the seventies.
#MARRIED-LIFE
Major Orkar was married to Bunmi Orkar, a Chief Nursing Officer of the Nigerian Army Intelligence School, Apapa, Lagos. They were blessed with children.
#COUP
On April 22nd, 1990, Orkar led a millitary coup with 41 others mostly from the Niger-Delta region, in a bid to topple President Ibrahim Babangida and bring greater autonomy to Nigeria’s Christian-dominated states.
In his broadcast, Orkar accused the regime of being ‘dictatorial, corrupt, drug-baronish, inhumane, sadistic, homosexually-centered and unpatriotic.’ Orkar also said he had seized power on behalf of the country’s Christian-dominated southern and central areas, which he claimed had been ‘reduced to slavery’ by the mostly Moslem north.
It was the second attempt to oust Babangida since he seized power in 1985. In December 1985, 14 soldiers were accused of plotting to overthrow the government and subsequently executed. Although the latest attempt was widely held as ill-conceived, Babangida’s reputation for strong leadership has been dented. In the weeks following the attempt, numerous journalists were detained and several newspapers forcibly closed.
#DODAN BARRACKS
The assault on Dodan Barracks was in two phases. First, several Tanks deployed on the grounds were technically demobilized through the removal of firing pins.
Later, the assault on the main living quarters (using infantry and two armored vehicles from the radio station driven by 2/Lts Umukoro and Uchendu) began.
Earlier, when certain movements were noticed, the ADC to the President, Lt. Col Usman K. Bello came out to investigate. Without any supporting crew, he reportedly tried to climb into one of the Tanks which, unknown to him, had already been disabled. Having realized that he was in no position to use the Tank he came out, and tried walking alone, wearing mufti, toward the radio station, only to be summarily shot in circumstances that have never been fully clarified. The details of what really transpired at the State House have since become a source of minor controversy.
During an interview with the Vanguard on Sunday Feb 25, 2001, General Babangida (rtd) was quoted as saying: “I had a routine and I went up, I was just about dozing when my wife said something was happening and from my window I saw it all. I wasn’t frightened. I was a soldier and I took my rightful place on that fateful day. It was, however, my wife and children who found the whole incident horrifying. ..”I have been at the war front and I know what it means. I have escaped a lot of ambushes. In fact, there are a lot of pellets in my body. What I have gone through in life has toughened my heart. So, there is no question of fear, in fact it doesn’t come in..”.
More recently, General Babangida revealed on Galaxy Television, Ibadan that one Captain Kassim Omowa insisted on him leaving or being evacuated from Dodan Barracks. He is quoted as saying: “Omowa insisted that he would fly me out. But on each mention, I told him no because he was too junior to command me……But the young man said: “I am here to do my job. So I must move you out of this place.”
According to Babangida, Omowa evacuated him via a secret channel to a location (ostensibly a private residence in Surulere) “where I was for some days while the heat remained.” Babangida did not shed light on other accounts that he was physically “knocked down” or “grabbed”, smuggled via the Ribadu back gate and maze of adjoining buildings and compounds, tucked inside a Volkswagen beetle and hidden at the National Arts Theater, Iganmu from where he made contact with Abacha and others. It has also been reported that one of his bodyguards was later captured by the plotters but did not betray his location. None of this has been confirmed by authoritative sources.
Babangida’s former Chief Press Officer, Chief Duro Onabule, however, went public with another version last year. According to him, while commotion was brewing, Babangida “remained calm in the sitting room. All pleas for him to leave the place by the security staff failed, he simply refused. Even when the shots were coming closer from Obalende side, he still would not leave.
As I said, he remained calm under the fire, but the saving grace was his wife, who physically dragged him out, and I mean physically dragged him out. Even then, IBB did not leave the premises, he stayed at the gate of Dodan Barracks; all pleas for him to leave the place, he refused. When the pressure mounted, he then asked the security people, who were asking him to leave, ‘okay I appreciate your concern, but if I am to leave, how about these poor boys defending me,” so he stayed there, until the whole thing was brought under control. Before he then left for the house.”
Regarding the death of Lt. Col Usman K. Bello, Lt. Col. Gabriel Anthony Nyiam, formerly of Nigerian Army Engineers, then a Directing Staff at the Command and Staff College, Jaji, and the most senior officer involved in the uprising, (who is said to have been Col. Bello’s course mate and personal friend) was quoted in an interview with the Sunday Vanguard Newspaper published on April 16, 2000:
“Let me state clearly, may the soul of U.K. Bello rest in peace. It’s sad that U.K Bello had to die because he was in effect used by IBB as a distraction and the poor chap was misled to be pushed out of Dodan Barracks that night, when Babangida already knew that there was danger.
Babangida used U.K. Bello as a bait.” But slightly over a year later, with a slightly different spin, on Friday 17th August, 2001, it was reported in the same Vanguard newspaper interview noted above that Chief Duro Onabule, former Chief Press Secretary to President Ibrahim Babangida, told correspondent Paul Odili that Babangida “was as usual receiving visitors late into the night, but just as the last visitor left, he heard one gun fire.
Maybe that was a signal for the coupist to commence operation, but he was the one who first got to know. And he summoned his ADC (U.K. Bello) and demanded to know what was going on; the ADC said nothing sir.’ He told him ‘don’t be stupid son,’ something is going on, go and find out. And the ADC came back to report that they were under attack. Of course, the duty of ADC was to counter whatever attack against them.”
REFLECTIONS ON THE UPRISING BY LT. COL. GA NYIAM
(For full details, see Guardian and Vanguard newspapers dated April 15 & 16, 2000)
What was the objective of the April 1990 rebellion?
According to Lt. Col. G Anthony Nyiam, who was the most senior officer involved in the uprising (but not the leader), the aim was “to have a caretaker government with a view to do two things at that time. One was to do a proper national census and a proper election and also set up a framework for a national conference.” In an interview with the Sunday Vanguard Newspaper published on April 16, 2000, Nyiam also said “With that in mind, we never had any idea that we were going to govern anybody. It was just to restore power to the people. That is to restore democracy. Our aim was that there was going to be a caretaker committee which was going to be headed by a former minister under President Shagari.”
How did Nyiam get involved?
Nyiam volunteered information that he was recruited into the conspiracy in February 1990 “when some junior officers approached me to express their discontentment with the system…Because, I did not completely trust them, I did not give any word whether I would support the plan or not. Instead, I started to watch them. I watched them for about one month to see if they were serious or the intention was to set me up. These were young officers who really meant business because they were full of zeal. Because of their enthusiasm and anger, they were anxious that the coup be carried out almost with dispatch. But, I continually urged restraint as what they wanted would not have given room for much planning. Eventually, we came in to try to reorganize and look at things, how we could do it better. But, along the line, the action leaked. We had envisaged the possibility of a leakage and had, as a result of that, put in place contingency plan so that we would not be arrested like General Mamman Vatsa and co.”
How did the plot leak?
“The details of the contingency plan was that we would move if the coup plot leaked. And true to what we thought, several days before action was to be carried out, our intelligence reports indicated that the plan had leaked. This obviously forced us to immediately take up arms.” He went on: “In fact, another senior officer, a mate of mine who was the link between the young officers and myself, eventually sold out, that is, he was the source of the leakage. When we realised that our plans had leaked, that led to the pre-emptive action we took. I remember we took our action without any arm, it was in that night that our resources were got by first of all taking over Apapa.”
Why was the so called “Far” North excised from Nigeria?
On the question about the excision of some far northern states, Nyiam said: “If you read our speech (on the coup), you will find out that our position was based on the presumption that the then Sultan was imposed on the people of Sokoto and that the act was the beginning of the destruction of the traditional institution.
The act ostensibly destroyed the Sokoto caliphate by causing division between the two houses. It was on the basis of this that we said that state would not be re-absorbed (if we had succeeded in taking over government) into the country until that traditional stool had been restored to the proper person. If you read the conditionalities, you are likely to discover that what we were saying was that sultanate would not have fitted into the new order that we envisaged. We did not see the action as a coup but as an uprising, to correct some anomalies.”
But in a separate interview with the Sunday Guardian newspaper, Nyiam was also reported as having ‘defended the coup broadcast in which some states in the far North were exercised from the country, saying he is more convinced now that the action was proper. He said: “We saw it coming [excision]. After the Mamman Vatsa’s coup attempt, I travelled with Abacha within the country to meet traditional rulers and Army Commanders to speak to soldiers. Anytime we went to the Hausa areas in the North, we were given Hausa and Islamic regalia and if you didn’t wear it, they would not be happy with you. It got to a stage that if you were in the Army, you have to speak Hausa. What I am saying in effect was that, there was a gradual acculturation of other people who have superior culture.” ‘
What was Nyiam’s relationship with General Babangida?
Nyiam was reported (by the Sunday Guardian) to have admitted being an “IBB boy”. The newspaper said: ‘The former military president, he added, commissioned him to work on a diarchy based on Egypt’s Abdel Nasser model where the military, produced the president while the civilians produced the prime minister. Explaining that it was part of the self-succession agenda of Babangida and the late Abacha, he said that being so close to Babangida, he had access to privileged information which showed that the former military president was not at all in a hurry to quit the political stage except by an uprising.’ Further, Nyiam, explaining his initial attraction to the former President, also stated that: “In a nutshell, we all came in to help Babangida whom we thought was a man who meant well. If one goes back to his earlier contribution, he was doing very well and we all gave him our support.
But then, when we saw the things that were coming up; things like the way people from the South were being maginalised, in NNPC; how Ebitu Ukiwe was thrown out of power to make room for Abacha, and a host of other things that happened. It was also at this period that the OIC thing started. All these put together made one reason that one cannot just be an officer in name and watch his people being marginalised or being made victims or killed. At the time also, Dele Giwa was murdered.”
#COURTS-MARTIAL
Major Gideon Gwaza Orkar was arrested along with about 300 other military personnel and more than 30 civilians. In the usual Nigerian pattern of mass arrests and reactive witch hunting, some journalists considered unsympathetic to the regime were also detained and newspapers even closed.
Following a Board of Inquiry, cases were referred to a Military Tribunal chaired by Major General Ike Omar Sanda Nwachukwu. The Chief Prosecutor was Brigadier General Tunde Olurin while Lt. Col. Akin Kejawa led the defence.
In July 1990, Major GG Orkar and 41 others were convicted for treason and executed by firing squad after confirmation of sentences by the Armed Forces Ruling Council (AFRC). Nine other defendants were jailed while 31 soldiers were acquitted.
Following a serious controversy inspired by allegations made by some of the convicts – as they were about to be shot – that those acquitted by the first tribunal were fellow putschists acquitted on ethnic grounds, the AFRC ordered the retrial of 31 of the surviving accused by a new tribunal headed by Major General Yohanna Yerima Kure. The Chief prosecutor this time around was Lt. Col. Kemi Peters while Lt Col JOJ Okolagwu led the defence.
In September 1990, therefore, a second batch of 27 executions was carried out.
It has been said that the core Bendel (Edo/Delta) and Rivers (Rivers/Bayelsa) plotters were not remorseful about the rebellion.
Captain Empere in particular was very defiant and identified the late Isaac Adaka Boro as his mentor and hero. He and others were driven by deeply held feelings that although their exploited lands produced Nigeria’s oil wealth, their people had little to show for it. It is fair to categorize the rebellion, therefore, as a “resource control uprising”.
They were convicted of treason. On 27 July 1990, they were executed by firing squad.
REST IN PEACE,MAJOR GIDEON GWAZA ORKAR
From different sources put together by Shom Fanen Akor
#IGBERETV
In the middle of the Second Picture is ORKAR!
