seanet02:

Are they limestones?

It should have been queried. Good for you.

Dede1:

It is an absolute falsehood Mutala Mohammed saw to the court-marshal of the perpetrators. Both the brigade and battalion commanders whose elements were involved in the atrocity were not even queried.

.

We are finally getting to the truth. At least you are honest enough to admit (see bolded above) that brigade and battalion commanders, other than Murtala were directly responsible for the Asaba debacle.

Dede1:


You mis-read my post. It was during Murtala Mohammed’s cowardly retreat from Abagana debacle, he and follow stragglers murdered 300 church worshippers in Ogidi or Onicha as they( Murtala Muhammed and group of stragglers with him) hurriedly attempted to swim across the Niger as Biafran forces were on a hot pursuit.  

hmmm, you may have craftfully dodged the bullet here, but remember that I am watching revisionists closely.

ndu_chucks:

We are finally getting to the truth. At least you are honest enough to admit (see bolded above) that brigade and battalion commanders, other than Murtala were directly responsible for the Asaba debacle.

hmmm, you may have craftfully dodged the bullet here, but remember that I am watching revisionists closely.

I have written extensively about this issue in previous posts. There is no need to twist the facts. As a divisional commander, Murtala Mohammed can not be absolved from the crimes committed by soldiers under his command.

The 8th brigade commander whose soldiers committed the atrocity was Lt Col Francis Aisida, a Yoruba, and it is to my knowledge that no query was issued to him by either Murtala Mohammed or the army headquarters.

I am very far from a revisionist. Such label should be appended on people such as you who are trying very hard to either deny involvement with the civil war which gave rise to idiotic Nigeria or shamefully justify taking side with visionless murderers from northern region of Nigeria.

Dede1:

I have written extensively about this issue in previous posts. There is no need to twist the facts. As a divisional commander, Murtala Mohammed can not be absolved from the crimes committed by soldiers under his command.

The 8th brigade commander whose soldiers committed the atrocity was Lt Col Francis Aisida, a Yoruba, and it is to my knowledge that no query was issued to him by either Murtala Mohammed or the army headquarters.

You can't really blame Murtala Mohammed for lack of query, even if your statement is true. The millitary police who were not under the command of Murtala Mohammed had the responsibility to deal with issues like this. As long as Murtala was not directly involved in any of these killings and did not give the orders for the attrocities, the anger and vilification of Murtala by you and others, is grossly misplaced.   Blame Lt Col. Francis and others, but not the great Murtala Mohammed.

ndu_chucks:

You can't really blame Murtala Mohammed for lack of query, even if your statement is true. The millitary police who were not under the command of Murtala Mohammed had the responsibility to deal with issues like this. As long as Murtala was not directly involved in any of these killings and did not give the orders for the attrocities, the anger and vilification of Murtala by you and others, is grossly misplaced.   Blame Lt Col. Francis and others, but not the great Murtala Mohammed.

Please save me this nonsense about Murtala Mohammed not directly involved. He was the GOC of 2nd division and should be held responsible for atrocities that happened in any sector under his command. Again he was directly responsible for the murder of 300 Catholic Church members at Onicha.

According to logic 101 by ndu_chucks, it is wise to blame the brigade commander but divisional commander.

I held the same position of blame on Benjamin Adekunle for the atrocity committed at Ogba/Egbema by the soldiers from 15th brigade under the command of Major J O Makanjuola, a Yoruba too.

Dede1:


Please save me this nonsense about Murtala Mohammed not directly involved. He was the GOC of 2nd division and should be held responsible for atrocities that happened in any sector under his command. According to logic 101 by ndu_chucks, it is wise to blame the brigade commander but divisional commander.

I maintain that your anger is misplaced and that the Op's assertion that Murtala Mohammed took delight in killing civilians is completely false. Your attempt at debunking anything I've written has, once again failed.

If we assume that soldiers commited cold blooded murder at the order of their brigade commander, only the soldiers who committed the crimes and the brigade commander who gave the orders, would face court marshall. The divisional commander, will not face any court marshall because he has no culpability for the war crime. Stop trying to deceive gullible people here - you know exactly where I am coming from.

ndu_chucks:

I maintain that your anger is misplaced and that the Op's assertion that Murtala Mohammed took delight in killing civilians is completely false. Your attempt at debunking anything I've written has, once again failed.

If we assume that soldiers commited cold blooded murder at the order of their brigade commander, only the soldiers who committed the crimes and the brigade commander who gave the orders, would face court marshall. The divisional commander, will not face any court marshall because he has no culpability for the war crime. Stop trying to deceive gullible people here - you know exactly where I am coming from.

Murtala Mohammed has fallen before the muzzle of a gun just like the people he murdered in cold blood. I have no anger towards him because he never made any noise about the battles as did Benjamin Adekunle. I guess you realized both men (Mohammed and Adekunle) were lazy and useless field commanders.

In war crime cases, the foot soldiers who actually committed the atrocities during the war were often not tried. However, the top brass army commanders are put on trial for crimes committed by soldiers under their command.

Dede1:


Murtala Mohammed has fallen before the muzzle of a gun just like the people he murdered in cold blood. I have no anger towards him because he never made any noise about the battles as did Benjamin Adekunle. I guess you realized both men (Mohammed and Adekunle) were lazy and useless field commanders.

In war crime cases, the foot soldiers who actually committed the atrocities during the war were often not tried. However, the top brass army commanders are put on trial for crimes committed by soldiers under their command.

I maintain that there is no evidence whatsoever that Murtala Mohammed ordered anyone to commit the attrocities in question or that he personally perpetrated any cold blooded murder.

If you accuse Brigadier Adekunle of border line war crimes, I may not disagree with you, for Adekunle, nick named Black Scorpion, was known to personally pull out the teeth of enemies and wayward subordinated alike, with spanners. No one can accuse Murtala of such wrongdoing with a straight face.

Dede1:

I have written extensively about this issue in previous posts. There is no need to twist the facts. As a divisional commander, Murtala Mohammed can not be absolved from the crimes committed by soldiers under his command.

The 8th brigade commander whose soldiers committed the atrocity was Lt Col Francis Aisida, a Yoruba, and it is to my knowledge that no query was issued to him by either Murtala Mohammed or the army headquarters.

I am very far from a revisionist. Such label should be appended on people such as you who are trying very hard to either deny involvement with the civil war which gave rise to idiotic Nigeria or shamefully justify taking side with visionless murderers from northern region of Nigeria.

oh yeah and the igbos were angels abi.

So you all going around torturing ijaws who were against biafra, what do you call that ?

You all going around murdering non igbos for being so called "sabos" , what do you call that angelic behaviour .

Bombing civilian centers in Lagos ? are we supposed to bake a cake for u

i must say that i was shocked to know that the mann whos name adorns the 20 naira note is a nothing but a trigger happy military man ..... but the truth is , any country would fight to keep its territories ( as seen in the American Civil War ) , though lives will always be lost in any war ,war still has rules .... these men who committed those bloody acts will be brought to justice by Karma

God Almighty

It was actually Biafran criminals that entered Benin city and attempted to capture Oba Akenzua, that Murtala Muhammed rescued Benin and chased the criminals out of our land

Justcash:
By Comrade Lawrence Chinedu Nwobu

Murtala Muhammed represents one of the greatest tragedies that has befallen Nigeria. An unintelligent, ill disciplined, uncharismatic, unprincipled and nondescript failed soldier, it is indeed a measure of the extent to which the nation has been unlucky to have been saddled with such despicable characters that ultimately shaped Nigeria’s destruction. As fate would have it, the Jan. 1966 coup unleashed a chain of circumstances that threw up characters like Murtala Muhammed who ordinarily would have remained an isolated and unknown officer for the duration of his career.
In the aftermath of the Major Kaduna Nzeogwu led coup, Murtala Muhammed and other Northern officers organised a secessionist coup (Araba) and pogrom that targeted and consumed the lives of over 50,000 innocent Eastern civilians in the first barbarity of such a scale to be seen in Africa. Artisans, traders, civil servants, children were all hacked to death. Women were violated and killed, pregnant women were first violated, then had their stomach cut open, the unborn children plucked out and stabbed to death. It was an SinParty of bloodbath that rivalled Hitler’s death camps in Nazi Germany. Murtala Muhammed personally participated in this bloodletting preparatory to seceding from Nigeria. The flag of the Northern republic was already flying and Yakubu Gowon had also preparatory to Northern secession given his now famous “no basis for Nigerian unity” speech.

However, before the smouldering flames and dust could settle, the face of crass opportunism by Murtala Muhammed, Yakubu Gowon and other Northern officers emerged. On persuasion by the British, desirous of a willing stooge to aid their exploitation of Nigeria’s resources, the officers who had premised their coup and pogrom on secession did a volte-face and changed from secession to “one Nigeria.” It is ironical that after displaying such barbarity and blood lust targeted at ordinary civilians who had no hand in a coup organised by the military-political class, the same officers that orchestrated and participated in such pogrom of genocidal proportions changed course and proved their lack of principles and opportunism by insisting on Nigeria.
But the damage had already been done. The mass killing of civilians had established a fault line and a sense of insecurity that made co-habitation in the same nation impossible. Yakubu Gowon had failed as head of state to protect the lives and property of citizens in repeated attacks, paving the way for the civil-war, but this was only to give the blood hungry likes of Murtala Muhammed a further opportunity to satisfy their lust for blood.

As the civil-war commenced, Murtala Muhammed entered the war in the Midwest campaign where he robbed the Central Bank in Benin, and began his litany of war crimes. Federal forces under his command unleashed a massacre of Igbos in Benin city and environs, however Asaba became the legendary centre were Murtala Muhammed set a record of war crimes. In a rain of blood, tens of thousands of innocent youths, some of them just 6 years old were lined up on the streets of Asaba and executed in cold blood on the direct orders of Murtala Muhammed. The Asaba massacre was the first of its kind in Africa and remains one of the bloodiest to date in the history of the African continent. As a further testimony to the bloodlust and depravity demonstrated by Murtala Muhammed and his forces, few kilometres away in Onitsha, another barbaric massacre was unleashed in the Apostolic Church where over 300 civilians, devout Christians including women and children who had stayed back and continued in their prayers after the fall of Onitsha were brutally murdered in cold blood.

But beyond his crude barbarity which he repeatedly manifested in the violation of women and cold blooded massacre of defenceless civilians, he was an ill disciplined, failed soldier who In spite of the immense amounts of men and ammunition at his disposal suffered crushing defeats in most of his military campaigns against barely armed Biafran soldiers. His military campaign to take Onitsha, where he acted against orders from military headquarters ended in a humiliating defeat, and his 96 vehicle column of heavily armed troops who were ambushed and totally wiped out at Abagana are some of the worst defeats suffered by the Nigerian army in the civil war. His string of tactical failures led to his exit from the war theatre.

No doubt, one of the greatest murderers, war criminals, and opportunists in Nigeria‘s chequered history, his entire war career is littered with war crimes committed in different theatres of war.

In July 1975, he seized power in a coup but was shot dead in a military putsch in February 1976, at last a victim of the bullets he had used to kill so many. In the end he left behind a legacy of barbarities, war crimes, bank robbery, destruction of the federal civil service and failure as a soldier. An avowed secessionist who became an opportunist apostle of one Nigeria, not because he genuinely believed in Nigeria, but for reasons of opportunism. The emergence of his likes as leaders, remains the greatest reason why Nigeria has failed.

Murtala Muhammed’s hands are soiled with so much blood, and even though by his death he escaped justice in the physical, he is sure getting his punishment in the spiritual realm. His entire generation of descendants shall also continue to pay one way or the other for the sins of their father.

Source: http://asaba.com/?p=352