On this 41st Anniversary of the assassination of Gen Murtala Mohammed, I'm allowing my fertile imagination to sporulate and bring forth all sorts of conjectures.
Had Murtala seen the transition programme to civil rule (which he masterminded) to the end, he probably would have handed over to an Obafemi Awolowo/Aminu Kano ticket. This is because it would have been imprudent to hand over to another Northerner. I believe in this
possiblity given the electoral pact that elements of the Kaduna Mafia (under Maj-Gen Shehu Yar'Adua) had with Awolowo in 1983. In any event, if he had handed over to, say, Alhaji Shehu Shagari and given the ineptitude of that administration, there would have been a loud call on Nigerians on Murtala to contest the 1983 elections. Murtala would have been a very popular leader. When he took over from Gen Gowon in 1975, he initiated a purge of the military and the civil service. Many top guns lost their jobs after being indicted of corruption.
As Murtala came to equity, he came with clean hands. He purged himself first. He was said to have voluntarily handed over about 6 houses of his to government. Imagine if Nigeria had continued on that anti-corruption drive! In short, what President Buhari is trying to do now is about 40 years late. And Murtala would just have been 45 years old then, not 73 years of today's Buhari and the attendant slowing down by the biological processes of the human body!
Had Murtala seen the transition programme to civil rule (which he masterminded) to the end, he probably would have handed over to an Obafemi Awolowo/Aminu Kano ticket. This is because it would have been imprudent to hand over to another Northerner. I believe in this
possiblity given the electoral pact that elements of the Kaduna Mafia (under Maj-Gen Shehu Yar'Adua) had with Awolowo in 1983. In any event, if he had handed over to, say, Alhaji Shehu Shagari and given the ineptitude of that administration, there would have been a loud call on Nigerians on Murtala to contest the 1983 elections. Murtala would have been a very popular leader. When he took over from Gen Gowon in 1975, he initiated a purge of the military and the civil service. Many top guns lost their jobs after being indicted of corruption.
As Murtala came to equity, he came with clean hands. He purged himself first. He was said to have voluntarily handed over about 6 houses of his to government. Imagine if Nigeria had continued on that anti-corruption drive! In short, what President Buhari is trying to do now is about 40 years late. And Murtala would just have been 45 years old then, not 73 years of today's Buhari and the attendant slowing down by the biological processes of the human body!
I know some people will quickly point to Murtala's past less than salutary roles in the coup that removed Ironsi as well as avoidable deaths of his troops in the Civil War. These are incontrovertible facts. But in my imagination, I seek no saints but heroes. Saints are spotless but heroes , though might have made mistakes, they lift the human vista beyond the ordinary thereby propelling the human circumstance equally beyond the ordinary. Who remembers that the Biblical Moses was a fugitive because he murdered a man? Yet we remember him today as the liberator of Jews from Egyptian bondage as well as their lawgiver!
Well, enough of my reverie...that's my imagination.
Bukar Suka Dimka and co ensured that the possibility of a President Murtala Mohammed remained what it is - a conjecture!
Bukar Suka Dimka and co ensured that the possibility of a President Murtala Mohammed remained what it is - a conjecture!
May God bless the families of all those who lost dear ones in our internecine but often avoidable conflicts.
God bless the Federal Republic of Nigeria!
Omi tuntun, Igba Otun!
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