The Senator representing Abia North senatorial district, Orji Uzor Kalu, has provided another dimension to the 1966 coup that was led by Major Kaduna Nzeogwu and widely regarded as Igbo coup.
Kalu was still reacting to the book, ‘Journey in Service’ written by a former Head of State, Ibrahim Babangida and launched in Abuja.
In the book, the former head of state made some revelations which have generated a wide range of arguments among Nigerians.
One of the key notes of the book is where the former military leader said that the coup led by Major Kaduna Nzeogwu, was not actually Igbo coup as many would believe.
Speaking on Channels Television on Monday, Kalu said there are many other issues the former army general did not capture in his autobiography.
Such issues include, according to him, that former head of state, Olusegun Obasanjo, was part of the coup.
”When I said the stories are not complete, I wanted President Babangida to write more. It’s not that Babangida just wants to tell a story. There’s more to the story,” Orji Kalu, a former Governor of Abia State said.
“There are officers who told Babangida ‘no, you cannot hand over to this man…’.
“Nigerians are not fair to Babangida. He came out to say what no one had ever said. We’ve expected people to say for example what he said about the Igbos. That the military coup was not Igbo coup.
“And people had held the Igbo on ground for this particular incident which they never committed. Major Kaduna Nzeogwu never spoke Igbo although he is from Igbo land, he was born and brought up in Kaduna.
“And he was just a forthright officer who wanted a new Nigeria with other people. Let me be honest with you, President Obasanjo was part of the coup but he exonerated himself as normal.
“If you ask people , most of those top military officers knew about the coup, he [Obasanjo] came from India…how would he have not known about the coup and he came back to Nigeria from his school.
“So, many of them knew about the coup. But it was when a few officers refused to do what they were supposed to do that it became a problem.
“Few officers didn’t do what they were supposed to do. If they had gone ahead to execute the coup in Eastern Nigeria, there would have no problem,” he said.
