Femi Fani-Kayode opens old wounds asking Buhari to explain his role in July 66 coup

PEOPLE'S Democratic Party (PDP) media director Chief Femi Fani-Kayode has accused the All Progressives Congress (APC) presidential candidate General Muhammadu Buhari of being complicit in the murder of about 300 Igbos in the January 1966 military coup.  

In a sure sign that the ongoing presidential election campaign is getting nastier as polling day draws closer, Chief Fani-Kayode has called on General Buhari to account for his role in the July 29, 1966 coup d ‘etat. On that day, 49 years ago, officers of northern extraction overthrew the government of Major General Thomas Aguiyi-Ironsi, in what was dubbed the northern counter coup.  

Following the bloody coup during which soldiers of Igbo extraction were murdered by their northern colleagues, widespread pogroms were carried out against Ndigbo across Nigeria. Although General Buhari was not one of the coup plotters, he was then a lieutenant in the Nigerian Army stationed in Kaduna.  
On a campaign stop in Umuahia, the Abia State capital, where General Aguiyi-Ironsi hails from, Chief Fani-Kayode calling on Igbos from across the southeast to shun the APC presidential candidate at the polls because of his past. He said he was in the area to attend some caucus meetings, during which the alleged role of General Buhari against the Igbos during the Civil War became a recurring issue.   According to Chief Fani-Kayode, the role played by General Buhari in the massacre of defenceless Igbos by the army division in which he served, was part of the questions that was to have been put to the general during the sitting of the Justice Chukwudufu Oputa panel which he shunned. He added that it was important that General Buhari addressed the issues now that he is seeking to become the president of the country.

Chief Fani-Kayode said: “We attended caucus meetings with them and the questions that kept coming up on the issue of the presidential election centred on the role Buhari played in the very sad events of the night of July 29, 1966, when a coup d’état took place in our country, during which no fewer than 300 Igbo army officers, a sitting head of state, General Aguiyi-Ironsi and a serving governor of the old Western Region, Colonel Fajuyi, were killed in the most brutal fashion in less than 24 hours. It is important for us to look into this today, considering the fact that Buhari is aspiring to be the next president of Nigeria.   “The Nigerian people have a right to know the truth about Buhari’s role in the tragic events of that night, as they do not deserve to be kept in the dark. We deserve to know who did what, who to and how many times."  

He added that issues were also raised on General Buhari's role during the very tragic events in the core north in the mid 60s just before the Civil War, when no fewer than 30,000 defenceless Igbo civilians were killed within a period of three months by irate and armed local mobs. In response, the APC has described Chief Fani-Kayode's comments as felonious and amounting to questioning the purpose of the continued being of Nigeria as a single entity.  

APC spokesman Garba Shehu, said: "This is nothing short of treason. It rocks at the foundation of the oneness of Nigeria, its constitution, its flag and desecrates the blood of fellow citizens who fought on both sides of the war as part of their commitment to one, united nation.”

Source - Nigerianwatch