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Olugbemi. Adeyinka Ogunleye
2 days ago
Overview
JANUARY 15th 1966: A MORNING OF MURDER, MAYHEM AND CARNAGE - Part 2
Zurumi drew his sword to defend his principal whilst Hafsatu threw her body over her dear husband in an attempt to protect him from the bullets.
Chief S. L. Akintola was gunned down as he stepped out of his house in the presence of his family and Chief Festus Okotie-Eboh was beaten, brutalised, abducted from his home, maimed & murdered & his body was dumped in a bush.
Brigadier Zakariya Maimalari had held a cocktail party in his home the evening before which was attended by some of the young officers that went back to his house early the following morning and murdered him.
...Brigadier Samuel Ademulegun was shot to death at home, in his bedroom & in his matrimonial bed along with his eight-month pregnant wife Lateefat.
Colonel Shodeinde was murdered in Ikoyi hotel whilst Col. Pam was abducted from his home & murdered in a bush.
Most of the individuals that were killed that morning were subjected to a degree of humiliation, shame and torture that was so horrendous that I am constrained to decline from sharing them in this contribution.
The mutineers came to our home as well which at that time was the official residence of the Deputy Premier of the Old Western Region & which remains there till today.
After storming our house and almost killing my brother, sister and me, they beat, brutalised and abducted my father Chief Remi Fani-Kayode.
What I witnessed that morning was traumatic and devastating and, of course, what the entire nation witnessed was horrific.
It was a morning of carnage, barbarity and terror.
Those events set in motion a cycle of carnage which changed our entire history and the consequences remain with us till this day.
It was a sad and terrible morning and one of blood and slaughter.
My recollection of the events in our home is as follows.
At around 2.00 a.m. my mother, Mrs. Adia Aduni Fani-Kayode, came into the bedroom which I shared with my older brother, Rotimi and my younger sister Toyin. I was six years old at the time.
The lights had been cut off by the mutineers so we were in complete darkness and all we could see and hear were the headlights from three or four large and heavy trucks with big loud engines.
The official residence of the Deputy Premier had a very long drive so it took the vehicles a while to reach us.
We saw four sets of headlights and heard the engines of four lorries drive up the drive-way.
The occupants of the lorries, who were uniformed men who carried torches, positioned themselves and prepared to storm our home whilst calling my fathers name and ordering him to come out.
My father courageously went out to meet them after he had called us together, prayed for us and explained to us that since it was him they wanted he must go out there.
He explained that he would rather go out to meet them and, if necessary, meet his death than let them come into the house to shoot or harm us all.
The minute he stepped out they brutalised him. I witnessed this. They beat him, tied him up and threw him into one of the lorries.
The first thing they said to him as he stepped out was “where are your thugs now Fani-Power?”
My father’s response was typical of him, sharp and to the point. He said, “I don’t have thugs, only gentlemen.”
I think this annoyed them and made them brutalise him even more. They tied him up, threw him in the back of the lorry and then stormed the house.
When they got into the house they ransacked every nook and cranny, shooting into the ceiling and wardrobes. They were brutal and frightful and we were terrified.
My mother was screaming and crying from the balcony because all she could do was focus on her husband who was in the back of the truck downstairs. There is little doubt that she loved him more than life itself.
“Don’t kill him, don’t kill him!!” she kept screaming at them. I can still visualise this and hear her voice pleading, screaming and crying.
I didn’t know where my brother or sister were at this point because the house was in total chaos.
I was just six years old and I was standing there in the middle of the passage upstairs in the house by my parents bedroom, surrounded by uniformed men who were ransacking the whole place and terrorising my family.
Then out of the blue something extraordinary happened. All of a sudden one of the soldiers came up to me, put his hand on my head and said: “don’t worry, we won’t kill your father, stop crying.”
He said this to me three times. After he said it the third time I looked in his eyes and I stopped crying.
Credit: Femi Fani-Kayode
