1990 COUP: I didn’t see Gideon Orkar before Babangida killed him, Elder brother speaks 31 years after

*Explains why Nigeria can’t break

*Describes agitations for secession, restructuring as senseless

*Tells reason Igbo shouldn’t have led secessionist agitations

*’Why we didn’t petition IBB at Oputa panel’

By BASHIR ADEFAKA

“When Nigeria was made a nation at the time the British was to hand over, the late Anthony Enahoro suggested that they should include a clause that will enable any portion of Nigeria that may wish to secede to do so; but (the late) Nnamdi Azikiwe was the one who vehemently opposed it, yet it is the same Igbo that first tried to secede. Can you see how people behave? Nigeria had to fight to bring them (Igbo) back.”

Elder brother to Major Gideon Orkar, mastermind of the failed 1990 coup in Nigeria, Mr. Jethro Orkar, does not seem to have pushed behind him the sad story of what his brother did to the country and what he got in return.

He said despite being detained alongside with Gideon, he did not see him before the then would-have-been victim of his action, Gen. Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida killed him.

Jethro Orkar, a Second Republic commissioner in Benue State, said he was in Makurdi when Major Gideon Orkar was executed alongside 41 others, by a firing squad, for staging coup against the regime of Babangida, who was President and Commander-in-Chief of the Nigerian Armed Forces at the time.

Jethro spoke in an interview he granted to Punch, published on Saturday 30 October, 2021, during which he recalled the events of the time.

Asked where he was on July 27, 1990 when his brother was executed, he said:

“I was here in Makurdi (Benue State capital) because I had been released (from detention),” he said.

Capturing the mood of the family on the day the execution took place, he said:

“What could we have done? We never liked it (the execution) because we love our brother, Gideon, but there was nothing we could do to stop it. For me, I took it as it came; I am a courageous person.

“When you think about his execution, do you blame him for organising that coup or do you feel anger against the government? Does the family see him as a hero or someone who died as a result of his mistake?

“We don’t necessarily think about him being a hero for having staged a coup, pointing out all irregularities then, but we do remember him as Gideon, our own; we don’t think about the coup.

“The ideology behind that coup by Gideon was to break the North off Nigeria. It’s 31 years after that coup and you have secession agitations in the country at their most strident, with south-eastern and south-western elements blaming the country’s woes on the North. Will you say your brother has been vindicated by the current happenings in the country?

“It was not just Gideon that was dreaming about what Nigeria should be, many people were. Let Nigerians come out and say that what Gideon said at the time was right or wrong. When Nigeria was made a nation at the time the British was to hand over, the late Anthony Enahoro suggested that they should include a clause that will enable any portion of Nigeria that may wish to secede to do so; but (the late) Nnamdi Azikiwe was the one who vehemently opposed it, yet it is the same Igbo that first tried to secede,” he expressed dismay.

He then continued, “Can you see how people behave? Nigeria had to fight to bring them (Igbo) back. Now, the same Igbo and Yoruba are agitating for secession, which is similar to what Gideon said at that time. So, it is difficult to understand what Nigerians actually want.”

Orkar described the current agitation for restructuring as meaningless because, according to him, Nigeria was long restructured.

“Now you hear people talking of restructuring, it is high-sounding but meaningless because Nigeria has been restructured. We had regions and now states, every bit is able to govern itself. There is no point in some of these things, they are meaningless. When we learned Geography in our school days, we knew of some countries in Africa but they are no more today because they have merged and have taken a new name.

“So, if those people are coming together, why is Nigeria talking about disintegration? What will we benefit from that? We are benefiting from one another as a country. I have always said to people that I don’t like this idea of celebrating Independence Day.

“It is good that the British came and made us to be what we are, otherwise, a Yoruba man wouldn’t know that there is a Tiv man somewhere. So, it is to our advantage. We shouldn’t be thinking of a mushroom country. Some of our leaders’ utterances are not helping matters. Though, we, in the North here, are many but that population wouldn’t give us anything. We benefit from one another; we should not talk as if we are senseless.

“So, I wish we should be celebrating a National Day, not Independence Day. It is more dignifying the British made us one as a nation, so the celebration should be National Day.”

Oputa panel

On why the Orkar family did not petition against INB when former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s administration, between 1999 and 2003, set up the Justice Oputa panel to reconcile aggrieved people, the former Benue commissioner Obasanjo did not want it to happen.

“We didn’t go there because if he (Obasanjo) wanted it, he would have sent people to us; we could not go there just because somebody said he wanted to reconcile. If anyone said he wanted reconciliation, such person should have come to my house and talk to me here.”