MAJOR ORKAR AND THE 1990 COUP: A PERSONAL OPINION

By Terwase Swande

“In this Life, Follow Those with a Strong Conviction and Will Power, Not Just Ideas and A Silver Tongue” (Anon)

Professor Saliba Mukoro and Tony Nyiam, who were Major and Lt Colonel respectively, during the Gideon Orkar Coup and who jointly penned down the speech Orkar read, without bordering to edit a sentence, conveniently escaped trial and death from the subsequent trials and firing squad that consumed the life of Major Gideon Orkar and the likes of Captain Harley Empere.

Tony Nyiam and Saliba Mukoro are brilliant persons. Who can argue that? Afterall, Mukoro is a professor of Criminal Justice or is it Criminal Psychology?  And he taught in elite schools in Europe and America.

The twist here is that the first thing Professor Mukoro did when he came back to Nigeria after a long period in exile was to go to Minna to beg Babangida to forgive him (Mukoro) for “sins” he committed against Babangida. My father used to say Gideon Orkar died because he followed the wrong group but his view was a minority view and in Tivland where Orkar is idolized, my father (who was also an Army Officer by the time Orkar was arrested) was lucky he was in the village, otherwise he risked a lynching but his major argument was that Orkar was in a revolution with people who did not believe in the revolution. The officers who planned the coup with Gideon Orkar were only at the stage of a romantic idea of a coup plot.

To have ideas is a different ball game from having conviction. Two different things. To have ambition is also different from having the will power to fight for your ambition. Also, two different things.

Major Saliba Mukoro, Lt Col Tony Nyiam, Major GT Edoja and Captain Sowaribi Tolofari (who wrote a long book just as General Babangida) all escaped to Europe leaving Major Orkar, Captain Perebo Dakolo and others to face the firing squad. Dakolo’s death in action in a shootout with loyalist soldiers was perhaps a coup de grace when one considers the fate of those who were arrested with Major Orkar.

I will not reproduce the coup speech Orkar read but one of the many reasons the coup failed was because of the illogical excision of five states from the North, ostensibly because of issues stemming from the succession tussles of the Sokoto caliphate and Sultanate. It was very illogical. Even if he spoke the truth, a Gideon should not tell a Mustapha how to organize the Sultanate because of religious sensitivities involved. Religious matters should be settled through dialogue by the right religious leaders and not by soldiers spitting decrees because they have guns and bombs.

On the pages of his book, Babangida seems to gloat over this faux pas of the excision of five states with words like “illogical” (I agree) and “adolescent” (I raise my eyebrows here) approach of the coup plotters. Major Orkar was not the only officer of Tiv extraction who mismatched passion and conviction with the wrong company. S/Sgt Godwin Donko paid the price too. Donko retired and was recalled for his expertise only to be shot because he followed Orkar. Sgt Yeke also died. L/Cpl Aondoakaa also died. Sometimes I wonder if Major Orkar had time to explain to Sergeants Yeke and Donko and Corporal Aondoakaa that he mismatched his conviction with the wrong company?

 

For a coup to succeed, you need excellent planners and die-hard executors and ready-to-die combatants and then the commanders (suppliers) of resources.  Major Mukoro and Colonel Nyiam and Captain Empere who first sold the idea of a coup plot to jolly good Orkar were neither of these.

 

Contrary to popular views, Major Orkar was not the originator nor the chief planner of the coup. He did not even write the speech neither did he edit it. Unlike Orkar, Tony Nyiam and Major Mukoro and Great Ovadje Ogboru (allegedly one of the financiers) had plan Bs, that is, escape plans in case the coup failed. Management Experts have an exotic phrase for it: “Contingency planning”. If Nyiam and Mukoro had put in more time in perfecting the coup plot as much as they did in their Plan B, Orkar may be alive today.

 

It will be somewhat inconclusive if we do not discuss the expected gain of Gideon Orkar if the coup had succeeded. What would have become of Gideon Orkar? Definitely not Head of State and Commander-in-Chief. Some retired soldiers and officers I have spoken to speculate he was offered the choice between Chief of Army Staff and Chief of Defence Staff. Of course, that would have meant he would move from Major to Lt General or Major General in one promotion. Great Ovadje Ogboru was to be the Civilian Vice President while Lt Col Tony Nyiam, who conveniently fled with his ideas to Europe, was to be Head of State. What about Major Mukoro and Captain Empere and Captain Tolofari and Captain Perebo Dakolo and Major Obahor? Big questions. Maybe another coup would have been executed to address grievances arising from power sharing? I want to refer the reader to history: to Colonel Nasser and General Nequib in Egypt; To General Ibrahim Babangida and General Muhammad Buhari; To General Sani Abacha and Chief Ernest Shonekan. In the hay days of military authoritarianism, power sharing grudges were always settled with coups.

 

Orkar was a great soldier. He commanded an Armoured Battalion at Saki as a Captain and was a decorated soldier.  As mentioned in his book, Babangida and Maryam knew Orkar on a personal level. As at the time of his execution, Orkar was an instructor of Armored Combat at Command and Staff College Jaji and was already due for promotion to Lt Colonel.

 

Did Orkar regret his participation in the coup? Not really. He did not regret taking up arms to overthrow the Babangida regime. He regretted the fact that he did not assess the situation as much as he should have done. According to Sowaribi Tolofari who was at the battle front and in radio contact with Orkar before he fled and left Orkar to manage what remained of their coup, Orkar at a point said ” you guys should have told me the exact situation. I could have arranged to bring my boys from Jaji”. The resources at his disposal were not enough for the large-scale operation he was to command and he discovered that the planning was weak when someone (one of his mates) snitched to DMI about a possible coup plot and they had to shift the date of execution backwards. Given what they accomplished, if that word is appropriate here, one must give them kudos for ruling Nigeria for at least 12 hours.

 

In an encounter with Turner Ogboru (younger brother to Great Ovadje Ogboru) during their trials, Orkar said his major regret was not that he would be shot, his major regret was that his wife (who is Yoruba) had given birth to his son barely three weeks before he struck in April 22, 1990.

 

Orkar may not appear on the National currency as a hero but he has his place in the history of Nigeria and the Armed Forces of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

 

I will make my opinion known about Late Lt Colonel Mike Iyorshe, another Tiv Officer who was shot for coup plotting, in another column.

 

Pictures

1. Major Orkar (2nd from left) and comrades at their trial in 1990

2. Major Orkar (left) and General Ibrahim Babangida.