Groups ask National Assembly to declare Major Orkar, others national heroes

Demands decent burial

By Akeem Oriade

The National Assembly has been asked to declare Major Gideon Orkar and the 41 executed participants in the April 22 coup as national heroes.

The soldiers were executed 36 years ago on July 27, 1999 by the military regime of General Ibrahim Babangida. A few of the plotters escaped. Orkar’s wife, Bunmi a Yoruba woman from Ogun State, later relocated to the United States.

The lawmakers were also asked to declassify the trial of the coup plotters while exhuming their bodies for heroic burial.

The groups also want the lawmakers to apologise to the soldiers saying the soldiers laid down their lives for freedom and justice of ethnic groups that for long have been oppressed and traumatised by the Nigerian skewed system.

In a joint statement on Friday and made available to Irohioodua, the O’odua Nationalist Coalition, (ONAC), Middle Belt Indigenous Peoples Congress, (MBIPC), Niger Delta Peoples Coalition, (NDPEC) and the Hausa Indigenous Front, (HAIF) all called on the National Assembly to declare the late Orkar and his comrades, both dead and alive National heroes. Orkar and 41 soldiers were found guilty of plans to overthrown General Ibrahim Babangida. The coup was crushed while Orkar and the 41 other allies were convicted of treason and executed. Some of the plotters escaped from the country

The groups in a joint statement noted that the April coup was staged to address the National Question and the long standing injustice that characterise Nigerian political economy.

‘Though we condemn military coups and by no means support any attempt to overthrow democratically elected governments. The April 22, 1990 coup plotters were heroes. They saw what the best strategists in Nigeria at the time did not see. They were prophets who saw tomorrow. They raised fundamental questions about the future of the country. Events have proved them to be absolutely right. They were men of courage who staked their lives for the freedom and liberty that we all desire’, the joint statement signed by Saliu Akinbola, Abukar Onalo, Monsor Sanusi and Digifa Werinipre stated.

The four groups said the National Assembly owe it as an historic responsibility to honour the coup plotters and declare them national assets.
‘The men from Middle Belt, Hausa and Southern Nigeria rose against the fascist state under General Ibrahim Babangida whose regime killed so many innocent victims, deepened ethnic and religious divides and cultivated a conscious policy of minority persecution in the military and within civil institutions. The killing of the heroes and the events of today are indications that truth cannot be buried for ever.’

The groups also called for a Judicial Enquiry into the 1992 Ejigbo crash of a Nigerian Air Force C-130 Hercules transport plane which led to the death of 165 military personnel and crew at the swampy area and canal in Ejigbo (Oke-Afa), Lagos State.140 students and 7 directing staff from Senior Course 15 of the Armed Forces Command and Staff College (AFCSC), Jaji, alongside support staff, crew members, and international military officers from countries like Ghana, Tanzania and Uganda.

The groups said the death might have been masterminded to eliminate Southern and Middle Belt

The groups said the current uprising in the Middle Belt amidst terrorist onslaught and the current plot to turn Nigeria into an Islamic state through sponsored violent insurgents were some of the reasons why Orkar and his group wanted some states where Fulani have dominion to be excised from Nigeria. The groups described Orkar and his team a patriots who chose to be loyal to the people than being loyal to corrupt, inept tyrants who came to power through the barrel of the gun converting the state into the personal fiefdom in their desperate bid to promote ethnic and religious supremacy in Nigeria the consequences of which Nigeria is facing today.
The groups said Orkar and his team would have resolved the contradictions and saved Nigeria from the current chaos and the almost imminent state of war and unrelenting terrorism that have been imposed on Nigerians by the same people Orkar and his group rose