Lagos and first military coup…Flashback to 50 years

Dateline, Lagos, January 16, 1966… Armed Forces Took Over After Alhaji Abubakar Tafawa Balewa Found Dead. 

  Alhaji Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, the first and last Prime Minister of the First Republic of the Federation of Nigeria, is dead, it was officially announced in Lagos at 12 noon yesterday by the Federal Military Government.

 The announcement did not say when, where and how he died.

  But the announcement came exactly one week after it had been officially stated that “in the early hours of this morning, Saturday, January 15, 1966, a dissident section of the Nigerian Army kidnapped the Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance and took them to an unknown destination.”

  At his first news conference after he had been handed the Government of the Federation, Major General J.T.U. Aguiyi Ironsi, in answer to a question on the whereabouts of Alhaji Abubakar replied, “Every attempt is being made to locate his whereabouts. At the moment, I have no information.”

  But by Friday morning, villagers around reported that a body which looked like that of Alhaji Abubakar had been discovered in a nearby bush.

  The body was in a sitting posture with the back rested on a tree. The body was robed in a big white agbada with a cap lying at its feet.

  Alhaji Abubakar’s body was flown on a chartered plane from Lagos to Bauchi his hometown at midnight on Friday, January 21. Apart from the captain and radio officer, only soldiers were on the aircraft.

  Alhaji Abubakar was buried at the Muslim cemetery in the presence of a large number of sympathizers.

  Segun Osoba, Sunday Times staff reporter, reports that Alhaji Abubakar was found on the road side on Mile 27 on the Lagos-Abeokuta road. 

  “About 220 yards from Mile 27 on the Lagos-Abeokuta road, I saw the dead body of the former Prime Minister Alhaji Abubakar Tafawa Balewa and what appeared to me to be the body of Chief Festus Okotie Eboh on Friday evening".

  “I got there with a friend Titus Shokanlu about 7p.m. that Friday and saw the two bodies placed in a ditch by the road side".

 “First I saw Chief Okotie-Eboh ‘s body stripped naked with face placed downwards with maggots crowding round it".

  “There was a little strip of stripped pyjamas left on his right leg.

“About four yards away was Alhaji Balewa’s body. He was placed by the side of a kola nut tree in a sitting posture".

  “He had a snow white toga a part of which was wrapped over his head.

  No marks of bullets on both bodies. I saw the head of Chief Okotie-Eboh badly battered. “While the body of Alhaji Balewa was still fresh, that of Chief Okotie Eboh was swollen and in a decomposed state".

  “Not far from the scene is Owode village. Some of the inhabitants of the village ran down to the scene to see the two bodies".

  “Many motorists plying Abeokuta-Lagos road also stopped at the spot".

  “Tears ran down the faces of all the people found there. And there was a general sign of grief in the villages around".

  “Said one of the weeping onlookers: ‘This is pathetic and pitiful that this is the body of Alhaji Balewa is too much for me to bear,”

  Mid-night Flight

By yesterday morning, the corpse had been removed from the spot. Investigations later revealed that a body in a coffin was brought to the Ikeja Airport by soldiers about midnight.

  Most of the tarmac of the airport where the coffin was to be loaded into the plane was condoned off by armed soldiers. Not even the officials of the Nigerian Airways were allowed to come near.

  After the coffin had been taken into the plane, it took off at exactly 30 minutes after midnight. Some of the soldiers at the airport accompanied the plane on its journey.

  A British captain and an Indian first officer, both employees of Airways, were the only civilian crew on the plane.

 

Alhaji Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, killed in 1966.

January 15, 2016, Lagos State: The Executive Governor of Lagos State, Akinwunmi Ambode, During the yearly Arme dForces Rememberance Day stated:  
"It is important that beyond remembering them, we should also rededicate our lives in a manner that we will always remember that the cohesion of Nigeria is so significant and it is important to hold Nigeria together. That is the significance of this particular event."