Background
He was born on January 10, 1934, at Ovu, a small village in a minority area in the Mid-west.
He was born on January 10, 1934, at Ovu, a small village in a minority area in the Mid-west.
Educated at Isiokolo and Orerokpe and the Government College at LJghelli, where he passed his school certificate. After three months as a clerk in the Customs and Excise Department, he joined the army in July 1953, later doing his officer’s training in Accra, Ghana. In 1954 he went to Sandhurst in Britain.
Returning to Nigeria he was commissioned as a second lieutenant in 1956 and did his first overseas service with the Nigerian peace keeping mission to the Congo (Zaire). He was promoted a general staff officer from 1964 to 1965 and was Commander of the 1st Battalion at Enugu prior to his appointment as Military Governor in the Mid-west.
In May 1967 as Biafra was about to declare secession, he said that he would not allow the Mid-west to be used as a base for one region to fight another. He accepted the federal principle but hoped that the Mid-west could remain a demilitarised zone. Then came the Ibo invasion on August 9, 1967, when he found himself betrayed by his two most senior officers (both Mid-western lbos), who seized the armoury and handed out arms to pro-Biafran troops. He escaped and found his way to Lagos riding the last 70 miles on a bicycle.
On February 16, 1972, he was appointed the new Chief of Staff of the Nigerian army succeeding the northerner Major-General Hassan Katsina, who had held the post since 1968. In June 1972 he said that a foreign backed attempt to create dissension in the army and trigger off a fresh crisis had been foiled.
A gentle, upright and efficient professional soldier who has frequently been described as the best staff officer in the Nigerian army. From humble beginnings he had a brilliant army career and was rapidly promoted, becoming Governor General of his home area in the Mid-west after the first military coup on January 15, 1966. His hour of crisis came when Biafran troops invaded and he found himself betrayed by his most senior subordinates. “My crime,” he said later, “was to trust my fellow countrymen.” Promoted a major-general on April 30, 1971, he now ranks no. 3 in the Nigerian army.
