Who was Murtala Muhammed?


Olakunle Abimbola

19/2/2008

Who was Murtala Ramat Muhammed? To his friends, he was the greatest pan-Nigeria hero that ever lived. But to his foes, he was no hero, even if his six-month tenure as military head of state was dramatic, if not outright heroic. The truth probably lies between these two extremes.

Gen. Muhammed was head of state from July 29, 1975 (when Gen. Yakubu Gowon was ousted) and February 13, 1976 (when he was killed in the foiled Bukar Sukar Dimka coup). But that brief period of explosive drama quaked with contrasting passions: the good and the ugly; the reasonable and the irrational, the ordered and the chaotic, the noble and the ignoble.

Gen. Muhammed symbolised the best and the worst for the polity. As head of state, his personal probity was legendary. So was his simplicity. And so was his ability to rouse others.

But his sense of judgment was simply ruinous. As an institution, the federal civil service is yet to recover from Hurricane Ramat, which rocked it to its very basis, in the Murtala purges. Nigerian Civil War (1967-1970) accounts also spoke of avoidable routs, if the young officer-in-charge would only act less on passion, but more after deep thinking.

On February 13, it was 32 years since the mercurial Murtala was assassinated. But the jury is still out on which side of his tempestuous coin history should endorse as his true essence. That debate is not about to end – even with his posthumous 70
th birthday coming up on November 8.

But for an intimate impression, Aishat Oyebode, the general’s daughter and first-born, who was only 12 when the coup plotters struck, offers a clue. Mrs Oyebode told The Nation (February 13) that her father was an epitome of calm, love, passion and patriotism.

He was also a simple family man who skipped no opportunity to be with his children; and who shared his dinner with his friends under the almond tree in their vast, Ikoyi, Lagos home.

That account might be a study in filial love. It could also have been coloured by the impressionable eyes of childhood. Still, it is evocative of the total devotion to his family of an otherwise fiery general.

Besides, Mrs Oyebode’s candid concession that the Nigerian state has done more than enough for her father bespeaks a lack of presumption, so lacking among the high and the mighty. Now, if Muhammed’s daughter speaks with so much grace, so much humility and so much calm – surely, she must have inherited such traits from her father?

But the public perception of Gen. Muhammed is much less placid – particularly in his relations with superior officers. The general impression was that of a presumptuous officer, contemptuous of his superiors. And accounts to support this view come from both friends and foe.

First, friends. After the first transition to democratic order in 1979 under Olusegun Obasanjo’s tutelage, came a slew of self-laudatory accounts that branded the Murtala-Obasanjo regime as a band of new super-patriots, for handing over power to President Shehu Shagari: Obasanjo (Not My Will), David Jemibewon (Combatant in Government) and Joe Garba (Diplomatic Soldiering), just to mention a few.

In one of those accounts (Combatant in Government, I think), the author lauded Gen. Muhammed as a reincarnation of the charismatic Brig Zakariya Maimalari (felled in the first coup of January 15, 1966), who was very popular among junior officers.

But as Maimalari was contemptuous of Gen. Thomas Aguiyi-Ironsi (who the army grapevine back then claimed could hardly command a funeral detail), the book proudly announced, so was Murtala Muhammed contemptuous of Gen. Gowon!

That Murtala fired the imagination of junior officers but held some of his seniors in contempt came clear in his pledge, in Garba’s Diplomatic Soldiering, to the "junta" that plotted Gowon’s ouster. He would not support the action, he told them. But he would do whatever in his power to save their necks, should things go wrong!

So, whatever gave Murtala the impression that he could save the coup plotters should their action fail against Gowon, the sitting head of state? If Gen. Muhammed had indeed displayed such devil-may-care contempt for constituted authority, could he in all good conscience, take power (from that same action) and still decry the galloping indiscipline all over the place?

Sowaribi Tolofari, a former army major who was part of the abortive Gideon Orkar coup, introduced a not-so-noble motive to the Murtala take-over.

Quoting extensively from a January 20, 1986 issue of Newswatch magazine, in his book, Exploitation and Instability in Nigeria: the Orkar Coup in Perspective, he alleged that Murtala supported the coup plotters because Gen. Gowon would not succumb to his blackmail to install less qualified candidates as general manager of the then Nigerian National Oil Corporation (now NNPC), instead of IGT Ordor, head of Nigeria’s only refinery then in Port Harcourt.

Gen. Gowon, according to Tolofari, put his foot down. Mr. Ordor got his appointment on July 4, 1975. On July 29, 1975 – 25 days later – Gowon was ousted and Murtala took over. Eight days after the coup, Obasanjo, as chief of staff, Supreme Headquarters, signed a letter dismissing Ordor as NNOC general manager.

Even if this chain of events were true, would it be enough to void Gen. Muhammed’s perceived claim to patriotism and the highest of ideals during his brief tenure as head of state? Maybe not; even if many may disagree. But maybe, the received wisdom concerning Murtala’s tenure has been hasty. That is only to be expected in a country desperately in search of genuine heroes.

So, what is Murtala’s place in history? In personal probity and integrity, a model the present leaders can learn a lot from. But as a builder of institutions? Well neigh nothing to teach on that score – for the collapse of the civil service and the stifling centralisation that is the bane of Nigerian underdevelopment started during his regime.

Even then, Gen. Muhammed, good or bad, gave his all. That much cannot be said of many that have come after him.

http://www.thenationonlineng.com/dynamicpage.asp?id=45506

d only regret i haveis dt i never met d man since i was not born b4 his assasination.
I wonder how it must have been 4 d chidren n his wife then .Indeed i really wonder.

There is a profile of him here:
http://www.nigeriavillagesquare.com/index.php/content/view/6255/55

good question.

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