Colonel Paul Ogbebor (retd) was the first Nigerian to be
admitted into the Nigerian Defence Academy in 1964 and the only 16 pioneer
Cadet One graduate still alive. He was also the commander of the 83 Battalion
of the Nigerian Army during the Nigerian Civil War. In this interview with
ALEXANDER OKERE, the former military head of the Signal Brigade in Lagos speaks
about his escape from the post-1976 coup death list, his premature retirement,
national insecurity and other issues
As a pioneer product of the Nigerian Defence Academy, what
is your assessment of the academy now?
I joined the academy in January 1964 and that was the first
time officers were being produced in Nigeria. We must thank (the then Nigerian
Prime Minister, Abubakar) Tafawa Balewa and other leaders at that time for
choosing to put money in such a thing among very competing priorities. The
Nigerian cornerstone foreign policy was world peace. So, they (the Nigerian
government) didn’t prepare for any war at all. It was just symbolic having the
military for the sake of having it. That was why in the first three years, only
61 of us were taken (admitted by the academy); when there was no other intake
because the government couldn’t decide whether they wanted a strong military
that could go to war or to have a military for flag showing. It was in our
fourth year in the academy in 1967 that another set came in. The NDA was
affiliated to the University of Ibadan. So, we sat for what was called the NDA
examination, which was equivalent to the National Certificate Examinations or
Advance Paper, and later sent to the university.
But now, the NDA is a full-fledged military university
awarding first degrees, masters and even PhD. You can see that because of new
technologies, the army officers have to be well educated to be able to read,
interpret and be involved in research and development in the military. The
officers then were not trained for flagship and some rudiments, should there be
a war. But the ones there now are trained to go to war because we know there
will be war and if that is the case, there will be modern devices. There is no
single officer from the NDA today in the Army, Navy or Air Force who does not
have a minimum of a second degree. But in those days, 90 per cent of the
officers in the military were school certificate holders, except those from the
NDA who were NCE holders.
What was your experience in the Nigerian Civil War?
I served in the civil war and had the opportunity of being a
pioneer officer to form two divisions under the late (General) Murtala
Muhammed. I formed and commanded the 81 Battalion, which went all the way from
Lagos to Okene (Kogi State), where we started operations. We captured Auchi,
Benin, Agbor and Asaba. It was after our first crossing that we sustained
severe casualties, which led to the fusion of the 9 Battalion and 81 Battalion
to form the 83 Battalion. I commanded the battalion and was given Warri Area
Command. The command extended from Warri to Yenagoa, Escavos, Asaba and Ore. I
was in charge of that command at early age and I am grateful to this country
for that. It was after then I was moved to Onitsha to capture Nnewi but in that
process, Owerri was recaptured and our soldiers were encircled. However, four
of us were picked to reinforce the Third Division, with Olusegun Obasanjo as
the General Officer Commanding. It was there that I experienced fighting in the
riverine area, which is a different warfare. We recaptured Owerri and ended the
war after capturing Uli-Ihiala.
Why did the Nigerian army suffer such a defeat en route to
Onitsha?
Murtala was a highly intelligent officer who formed a
division from nothing. Before the war, Nigeria had two brigades. I was told to
form a battalion, which is usually made up of a minimum of 760 people, but I
was given only 11 soldiers. I went to Iddo, rounded up some area boys and conscripted
some prisoners from the Ikoyi Prison, who formed the 81 Battalion then. We were
provided with some ammunition when we got to Ondo and were kitted in Okene. I
also trained them in the use of the guns. In three months, they were ready for
battle. Murtala, knowing that he was covering a large expanse of land, had a
mission to secure the oil areas under the capture of the Biafran army to enable
the government to get some revenue. But within a month, we moved from Okene on
foot to capture Benin. Three weeks later, we captured Asaba but we could not
cross to Onitsha because the Biafrans bombed the Niger Bridge the next day.
That seemed to end our journey.
After some consultations with the Army Headquarters, we
decided to cross over through ferries. My battalion successfully crossed and
landed in Onitsha and started advancing. But unfortunately, the Biafran
soldiers intercepted us and opened fire. When we retreated to where we came
from, we discovered that our already established bases in Asaba and Benin had been
blown up. We did not know how it happened but many of our soldiers died. As we
tried to return to the bases, we were either shot or captured. Some of us
jumped into the river to escape and many of them drowned. I was lucky to have
survived by climbing onto a boat with a bullet wound in my ear and that was the
last I knew. It was in a Benin hospital that I found myself later. The casualty
figure was estimated to be at about 5,000 soldiers.
How was your encounter with Colonel Dimka?
In 1971, I was removed from the infantry and sent to America
to study telecommunication engineering. And I placed in the signals when I came
back. In 1975 when Murtala became the Head of State, I was posted from Jos to
take over the Signal Brigade in Lagos. But on February 13, some people rushed
to my office in Apapa to say there was a problem. They said there had been a
coup. So, I mobilised the officers to defend the brigade. It was at that point
that David Mark came to say that the Chief of Staff had moved the headquarters from
Marina to Bonny Camp. He also instructed us to secure Apapa and establish
communication. I got in touch with Kaduna, Ibadan and Port Harcourt. It was
then that I was told Colonel Dimka ran away, while others involved in the coup
had been arrested. We could not find Dimka and the body of Murtala who was
killed, but we saw his official car shattered with bullets. We could also not
find Obasanjo. We had a meeting to decide on what to do because the Head of
State had been killed. It was during the search for the body of Murtala that
Obasanjo got in touch with us. He said he had crossed over to Takwa Bay and
asked us to arrange to bring him back. We also found the body of Murtala later
on at Obalende before he was buried in Kano the next day. However, on March 19,
1976, a month after Murtala’s death, I was told that the Chief of Army Staff,
Theophilus Danjuma, wanted me to appear before a panel set up to try people
involved in the coup. When I got there, they asked me what I knew about the
coup and General Samuel Ogbemudia. I told them that I knew nothing. They said I
should follow them in my car and before I knew it, I was in Ikoyi Prison,
stripped almost naked and detained. I was later transferred to Kirikiri Prison
for another three months. But one afternoon, they brought me out to say, “Sorry
about what happened. We had the wrong information and we have taken the
decision that with what you went through, you will not be happy with the
military and, as such, you are retired.
You must have felt bad about that and have you forgiven the
Nigerian Army?
I felt very disappointed because the military was my life.
But my six months in prison helped to orientate me that when there is life,
there is hope. In prison, I saw people being taken out and shot to death. They
were adjudged to know about the coup after a trial. I cannot say if they were
culpable because I did not partake in the coup. Murtala was my idol. The effect
of his death has not left me till today. It was later that I found out through
a junior colleague that I was number 41 on the list of those to be executed at
the Bar Beach in Lagos. I saw that my name had been struck out by General Bali,
who was the convening officer, because I had no case file.
So, God saved me because he wanted to change my life and I
have forgiven everybody involved in my detention; even one late Adoloju, who
(allegedly) forged documents that I was involved in a coup. However, nobody
believed him because I had not been interrogated on that. I was only asked what
I knew about the people who were brought from Edo State, since a coup would not
have been planned without my knowledge. When I realised that God had spared my
life for a reason, I knelt down and thanked him.
What is your relationship with Gen. Ogbemudia now?
I take him as a father and I even visited him in Abuja two
days ago, where I spent some time with him in the night.
What is your assessment of the Nigerian Army in the fight
against insurgency?
The Nigerian Army remains the best trained, educated and
exposed officers in the world. Anywhere they have served, they have got
accolades. But as I stated in a write-up, it is only the Commander-in-Chief who
can declare a war today and the type of war that we should fight is a political
decision. The country has agreed that there is an insurgency and the army is
doing everything to fight it. Insurgency, itself, means that citizens of a
country have conspired and resorted to arms to change the government. It is
called a coup when carried out by the military. Boko Haram started being active
in 2009 and that was when the late President Umaru Yar’adua was in power. He
was a northerner – an Hausa-Fulani – and a Muslim. They could not have wanted
to change his government because they didn’t like him.
If you look at it, these people (sect members) are just
criminals. The people operating Boko Haram today are just criminals. Otherwise,
they would not have shot at the Emir of Kano or killed the Emir of Gusau. Also,
whenever they launch their explosives, they don’t kill only southerners, they
kill indiscriminately. And they do so to intimidate the government and
Nigerians and create fear, so that they can move freely, steal money and get
logistics to maintain themselves. Today, the military has been using all the
tactics at its disposal but they are not working. Why? They are not working
because we are fighting the wrong war.
We are told that people come from outside Nigeria to join
some Nigerians for terrorism. By definition, once foreigners come into a
country, it becomes an invasion. So, we are fighting a war of invasion. The
strategy adopted by the military is also not effective; the terrorists come in,
create mayhem and escape across the border. They have a hideout outside Nigeria
and they bring foreigners along with them when they come in. We must change our
tactics.
The military should adopt a police action, where they can
use strategies to uproot the terrorists and then hold the ground. The military
has not been doing that; they only deal with the terrorists, leave the ground
and return to their barracks, allowing the enemies to come again. They
(terrorists) hit the military bases, institutions, banks and cart away money.
Again, before the (Biafran) war, the whole of the military was less than 5,000.
Within six months, we built up to over half a million. That is what happens
everywhere in the world; every military keeps only the nucleus of the soldiers
that they can hold and train. But in war time, these soldiers are enlarged. We
are told that the total strength of the military today is about 150,000; that
figure cannot fight and hold ground extensively because some are fighting oil
thieves and kidnappers, while the rest fight bombers. We don’t have enough
people fighting the war.
What do you think should be done at this point?
Recall all military officers who retired in the last 10
years to join the active ones today to fight successfully and hold the ground
and eliminate the insurgents. War is too serious a matter for novices to dabble
into. Also, what we call Boko Haram today manifests in different forms. The
other day, ex-Biafrans seized a radio station in Enugu. There are oil thieves
and pipeline vandals in the Niger Delta. There are kidnapping and robbery everywhere;
these are all vestiges of Boko Haram. There is only one root cause of the
problems – the young man who left the university is roaming doing nothing. If
somebody can offer him N100,000 to commit that offence, he will do it. To solve
the problem of Boko Haram and other allied offences, Nigeria should start
creating an egalitarian society.
In the short term, finish the Boko Haram problem by
increasing the people on the field fighting and the people should hold the
ground. The government should also use the opportunity to liaise with the
United Nations to started negotiating with Boko Haram because every war ends on
the roundtable. Nigeria must task and finance the state and local governments,
as well as traditional rulers to help because terrorism affects everybody. In
the long term, make it an emergency to create employment for the youths. Create
30 per cent for agriculture from whatever resources we have, so that we can get
the youths involved. Create 25 per cent to improve the quality of education, so
that they youths can be involved in national development. Nigerians are dying
under self-help. They provided their own water, electricity, security and
transportation. The government must invest in all these things. Realistically,
there is no reason we should still be reviving the railway lines the British
left for us in 1914. At this time, every city in Nigeria should be connected by
rail. We have soldiers, prisoners and area boys. Bring them together to build
the railway lines. That was how the Americans and British built theirs. The
Nigerian Army built the railway lines between Ijaw and Baru in 1965. If they
could do that then, is it now that they cannot build railway lines? When the
lines are built and the cities are connected, the cost of transportation will
reduce.
Is that all to be done?
Again, salaries are too low in Nigeria. As of 1987, the
minimum wage was N250 and one naira than was equivalent to 1.7 dollars. If that
is multiplied in addition to the ratio of inflation, you will get an equivalence
of N60, 000. Then, a litre of petrol was 12 kobo and a bag of cement was sold
for N14. Now, the same litre sells for N97, while a bag of cement goes for N2,
000. Can you imagine the rate of inflation? If you do the compilation and take
the average, no person should receive anything less than N100, 000 in this
country today. That should be the minimum wage. How? It is very easy; just add
N50 to pump price of one litre and set that money aside to pay the salaries of
all Nigerians from first charge. Then, the money set aside for security votes
should be stopped because you cannot create insecurity and use money to fight
it. If that is done, there would be a surplus. Nigerians will now have enough
to spend and enough to save and take part in the development of their country.
The government cannot do it alone.
Nowadays, Nigerians are not involved in national
development, they are just living. Also, retirees are treated poorly; that is
why everybody in position steals against the rainy day. I advocate that the
government should pay all retirees and unemployed a minimum of N25, 000. The
excess money should be used to give life to Nigerians. Take the United States
for instance; in 1972, there were cases of people burning house and killing
other people until government managed to create a formula for the distribution
of national wealth. Now, there is no person in America who does not live within
and above subsistence. If somebody takes care of your education,
transportation, security and transportation, do you need to steal? You don’t
need to steal money, so that your children can go to school because all these
things are already provided.
Nigeria must also engage in real research like the developed
countries like Japan, America and Britain are doing. We can do it because
Nigeria has so many brilliant people; so many ideas wasting away because they
are not channelled. There are so many researches done in the universities but
they are purely to get promotion. After getting promotions, such research
materials go nowhere.
What do you think would be the fate of the report from the
just concluded national conference?
The delegates have done very well. Left to me, the
recommendations should be subjected to a plebiscite and whatever comes out from
that should be embedded in the Constitution. The contributions of the over 400
delegates are not enough to speak the minds of Nigerians. If you want to create
something that is sustainable, throw it to the whole of Nigerians as a
plebiscite.
Do you subscribe to the creation of state police?
State policing is a good idea. Until 1966, we had native
police who lived with the natives. They knew people who were strangers in a
community and were effective. It is not like bringing a northerner to Benin,
where he does not understand the language and the culture. The Police should be
constituted by the local governments – not even the state governments – to work
within the local governments, while the federal police should remain for
federal matters.
What about the fear of putting the Police in the hands of
governors?
There is nothing like that. In the military, we call it the
fear of being afraid; you just conjure fear and live by it. It is not real. In
America, you will find state police. Where there is conflict between federal
and state matters, the federal government takes priority.
Punch.
