Chief Femi Fani-Kayode has said that Major Kaduna Nzeogwu a junior army officer of mainly of Igbo extraction who led a coup in 1966 is martyr and that his death he will not forget.
Fani-Kayode made this known in a message he wrote Sunday in remembrance of Major Kaduna Nzeogwu saying his death and that of Major Gideon Orkar shall never be in vain.
Major Patrick Chukwuma Kaduna Nzeogwu, was a Nigerian military officer who played in leading role in the January 15, 1966 military coup, an event which was said ‘derailed Nigeria’s nascent democracy and introduced military rule to Nigeria’. Nzeogwu was born in the Northern Region’s capital of Kaduna to Igbo immigrant parents from Okpanam near Asaba in Delta State. In his remembrance Fani-Kayode asked ‘when will the yoke of internal colonialism and subjugation be finally broken in our country?’ He further commended Nzeogwu and, saying that what is happening in Nigeria today (injustice, wickedness and slavery) Nzeogu and Okar fought against. On April 22, 1990 Major Gideon Gwaza Orkar staged a violent coup against the government of General Ibrahim Babangida . 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 by a back route. In his coup address, Orkar called for the cut off of five northern states. However, the coup was crushed by the Babangida regime and Orkar was executed. Fani-Kayode’s statement “In the early hours of Jan 15 1966, 51 years ago today, the man in this picture, Major Kaduna Nzeogwu, led a coup of junior army officers of mainly of Igbo extraction. Many were killed that night. The coup failed but the issues he, and later in 1991 Major Gideon Orkar raised in his own coup, are still pertinent. When will the yoke of internal colonialism and subjugation be finally broken in our country? I have always condemned Nzeogwu and, to a lesser degree Orkar, but given what is happening in Nigeria today I have to say that both of them were not just heroes but men that fought to ensure that we were freed from what is nothing less than injustice, wickedness and slavery. They failed in their quest for power and they were both killed: one was shot at the stake by General Babangida’s governmrnt and the other was shot on the war front by Federal troops whilst fighting for his beloved Biafra. As far as I am concerned they are both martyrs and their deaths shall never be in vain. Continue to rest in peace O Christian soldiers and martyrs of the faith. In the new Nigeria we shall name streets, buildings and airports after you”- FFK.
