[size=14pt]Balewa’s Death Controversy: As an eye witness, the body I saw was fresh – Osoba[/size]
Sep 25, 2010
By Wale Akinola


A former external affairs minister,Chief M.T .Mbu, sparked off a controversy recently when he claimed that the Nigerian prime minister in the first republic, Alhaji Tafawa Balewa,died of asthma. The claim was disputed by those who held on to the view that Balewa had been shot dead by coup plotters who had abducted him ,among other political leaders of the country, on January 15, 1966. Chief Femi Fani-Kayode, a former minister of state in the ministry of transportation, did a two-part article on the controversy on the side of those who believed Balewa was killed by the coup plotters and his body dumped at a spot along Lagos-Abeokuta Road .


Tafawa Balewa

Chief Olusegun Osoba, a former governor of Ogun State, came into the picture courtesy of a report he did as a young reporter and published in the Daily Times Of January 23,1966 after providentially seeing the corpse of the late Nigerian leader where it had been dumped alongside that of Chief Okotie Eboh, the then finance minister. Osoba speaks, in this interview, on his experience of January 21, 1966 when he saw the corpses and other issues surrounding the death of Balewa.

Forty-four years after, a fresh controversy is brewing over the death of Alhaji Tafawa Balewa, Nigeria’s first and last prime minister …
The British intelligence that was in charge of Nigeria’s security then fell flat at the critical time and had no clue whatsoever on the situation in Nigeria. Their intelligence situation was totally flawed.
How?
I could not imagine, even as a young reporter, that a well grounded and well informed security network would allow world leaders to assemble in Nigeria for the Commonwealth conference few hours to a major political upheaval and a military intervention, the first in the history of the country, would be in the offing and they didn’t know. We had heads of government of Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Britain and others from all over the Commonwealth gathered in Nigeria, yet the British intelligence didn’t know. It shows you that any reference to the British archives on this issue, especially by those who claimed that Balewa had been shot by the coup plotters, would be a fruitless exercise.
That means one cannot rely on such source for information on what actually happened.
No, because the then prime minister of Britain himself, Harold Wilson, was still in this country 24hours to the coup. I was at the airport at about 11 p.m., on Friday, 14th of January 1966 when Tafawa Balewa saw off Harold Wilson on his journey back to the UK. That was just 24 hours to the time the coup took place. Would any serious government have risked the head of their government in a country where the military was about to strike? Supposing he was trapped in the crossfire just like the then head of government of Cyprus was caught up in the coup because he was in Enugu on a tour of the country and a guest of Michael Okpara when the coup took place?
Your report of January 23,1966 has become a reference point on the death of Balewa. As someone who saw the body of the late prime minister and reported it, what do you say?

http://www.vanguardngr.com/2010/09/balewa%E2%80%99s-death-controversy-as-an-eye-witness-the-body-i-saw-was-fresh-osoba/

Sam Omatseye, in his column, made a profound statement that there was a failure of intellectualism. Nobody among the writers or those making claims about Tafawa Balewa made adequate research. The newspapers of that time are all in the archives and they are important sources of information or record of what happened.
All those who are talking are basing their information on hearsay, third party, from one person to another. The New Nigerian which was a major newspaper then was just founded at that time. The Daily Times, the leading paper in the country then, was there and The Pilot. These newspapers were all owned by government. Nobody has bothered to go and search for them and read the reports of these papers. Instead, some of them are quoting British archives when already I said the British intelligence on the coup in Nigeria at that time was a total failure; so you cannot rely on such or use a failed report of failed people and intelligence as history, that is my argument.

That means some of the things said, for instance, by Chief Femi Fani- Kayode, who is raising issues on the circumstances surrounding Balewa’s death, cannot be relied upon if his facts are based on the British archives.
I would not say Tafawa Balewa died of asthma for the fact that I am not a medical doctor. But as an eye witness, the body (of Balewa) that I saw was a fresh body. Fani- Kayode, I can understand his emotions, but I think he is getting too emotional and indirectly politicizing history. The first cliche they teach in journalism is facts are sacred. The first thing my editor told me about the story as I got to the office that day was that,’ don’t embellish your report, don’t be flamboyant ,just be factual ,’and the facts I stated in my story have never ever been denied, debunked, controverted in 44 years. Why now? Fani- Kayode had many mistakes and flaws in his argument.
What are the flaws?


First of all, he claimed an autopsy was held on the body(of Balewa) in LUTH before it was taken away. That cannot be true because the late Professor Odunjo, the brother of Soji Odunjo, was in LUTH then when I wrote the story and I remember that Soji and I saw him that same Sunday that my report was published and we talked extensively on the matter .So, if there had been autopsy, he would have told me in the course of our discussion. That was the first error on the part of Fani- Kayode.
In the second article, he now changed ,saying the autopsy was done on the spot where the body was found. That is an impossible thing scientifically, because the body (of Okotie Eboh) I saw close by was already being infested by maggots and ants such that you had to be careful so that the ants would not get into your body. You can imagine if the ants got into your body, you had to strip naked. It was not an environment that you could ever carry out autopsy.

The last error he made was that it was done right there in the bush. As at the time I wrote my story, the body was already being flown out of Lagos to the north but I guess they had to take it first to Kaduna because I was not sure there were landing facilities in Bauchi where it was buried; they probably had to take the body in the morning to Bauchi and I stated in my report the Indian pilot and the co-pilot that accompanied the body. All this happened within fours hours after I saw the body.
You don’t fly a decomposed body and stay in the aircraft for one or two hours and you survive .These are some of the flaws in his claim. And he is getting emotional about it and the evidence he is producing are third party:’ General Danjuma told me,’‘ M.D, Yusuf told me’. The military too at that time were hamstrung because for communication network, they had to depend on the police communication system as they did not have signal department in the army of that time.

What was the situation of the bodies at the time you got there?
The Okotie-Eboh body had decompsed and I didn’t even see any sign of gunshots on his body. His head was mangled, I suspect he was maltreated and manhandled. I am still suspicious of the involvement of the then government in the whole saga. How Tafawa Balewa died is not something I want to talk about. M.T. Mbu didn’t say he was the source of the manner of Tafawa Balewa’s death; he said he was told by Okigbo who was told by Ifeajuna. His own story is for empathy. He didn’t make a claim of it. He just made a statement as a minister that the man died of asthma based on what he was told. The death of Tafawa Balewa may have been influenced by elements in government who wanted to cover certain things up and now had to put his body on the same spot with Okotie-Eboh so that the story would be that the coupists put the two bodies there. I have reason to believe that there are some games played by some people in government who had a hand in it.


So there were no signs of gun shots on either of the bodies?

Tafawa Balewa was highly respected by everybody whether those in government or outside. He was a gentleman, he didn’t only have an image of a gentleman nationally; internationally, he was also respected.


When the OAU was being formed which broke into factions then, the Casablanca group, the Nkrumah group and all kinds of groups, he was involved in bringing all the African countries together and, out of the respect he had worldwide for sorting out the issue of East and Southern Rhodesia then which had gone out of the British government, that Commonwealth conference hosted by Nigeria was the first to be held outside UK, it show the kind of respect and affection for Tafawa Balewa. So the coupists might not want to manhandle him. And that this is why I think there was a foul play.
How?
In the first place, there was a coup of some majors which became very bloody in some parts of the country. It was a funny situation there was a coup where Ironsi survived. One, attempt must have been made to kill him and the federal cabinet decided to hand over to the military or the coupists and Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe was on a tour of the Carribean; so the acting president of the Senate joined to formally hand over government to Ironsi.

That was the situation and after that, all the heavy weights in politics took flight. They ran away. Therefore the issue that they called everybody to come and identify Tafawa Balewa’s body didn’t arise because I still have my newspaper cuttings … even politicians from Western Region ran to Cotonou, Benin Republic.
And I went to interview them and they said they would not return to Nigeria until the military handed over power.

If such politicians ran away, what makes you think the other ministers would be around when they had already handed over power to the military and particularly at a time Major Nzeogwu was making serious statements on the radio that any major offence became death sentence? There was fear in everybody. My suspicion is that after the rein of government had been handed over to Ironsi, if Tafawa Balewa had been alive then, the government of the day would have wasted him because if Tafawa Balewa were alive, the handing over by the ministers would have been null and void because he was the head of government. So writers and researchers still need a lot of work to do. In 44 years, nobody has denied, whether in government or outside, nobody has said anything contrary to what I wrote in the Sunday Times of 23 January 1966.

So, no matter what anybody says ,you hold on to your story on what you saw at the spot where Balewa and Okotie Eboh’‘s bodies were found.?

[size=14pt]Yes, Balewa’s body was a fresh one. It could be that day (January 21, 1966) or overnight that the body was put there. There were no signs of gunshots on Tafawa Balewa’s body.[/size] Fani-Kayode was just being sentimental that I should have gone with a photographer. He didn’t know that in those days, it could take three hours to develop a film. If I didn’t leave immediately as I left that day, perhaps those who evacuated the body would have done so before I got there.
What was important to me then was to confirm the story and I did confirm my story? Why is it that 44 years after, some people are now talking of their own story. Why didn’t they talk then? Tafawa Balewa was abducted and captured. Fani-Kayode’s father was abducted and captured. If the coupists didn’t kill his father, what makes him think they would kill all those they abducted?
How did his father manage not to be killed? If they didn’t kill his father who was highly controversial in the politics of that time and highly visible, what makes him now believe that Tafawa Balewa, a gentle man, a highly respected individual, somebody that was loved by Nigerians for his humility and mild disposition in his life time, would be killed?

Even though the nigerian government refused to revisit the war and events dat led to it, the truth shall surface one day.

You cant follow your future if you dont know your past.

True talk.

So ironsi killed balewa to hold on to his new power

There is something fishy bout the episode . I really need to know why ifeajuna didnt clear the air on hw balewa died. If he died of asthma on the same day okotie eboh died why was his body nt decomposed. Frm what osoba has said ifeajuna mite nt even be aware of hw balewa died making the okigbo reference a farce

idupaul:

There is something fishy bout the episode . I really need to know why ifeajuna didnt clear the air on hw balewa died. If he died of asthma on the same day okotie eboh died why was his body nt decomposed. Frm what osoba has said  ifeajuna mite nt even be aware of hw balewa died making the okigbo reference a farce

What if there was a third party in this whole mess who benefitted something from balewas death?