23/02/2025
How can a coup planned to install Awolowo as Prime Minister—a coup that was ultimately stopped by an Igbo officer, Major John Obienu—still be called an "Igbo coup"?
In the same coup labeled an "Igbo coup," something tragic happened. A junior Igbo officer, Major Christian (Chris) Anuforo, killed his own brother, friend, and superior officer, Lt. Col. Arthur Chinyelu Unegbe, in front of his pregnant wife—all to please Obafemi Awolowo.
Lt. Col. Unegbe, the Quartermaster General of the Nigerian Army (responsible for the nation's armouries), was not on the original hit list. However, Anuforo suspected he would refuse to surrender the armoury keys to the coupists, so he made a ruthless decision.
According to a British intelligence report on the coup, Unegbe’s last words to Anuforo were heartbreaking:
“Oh Chris, don’t do this to your brother. Please, Chris nwanne m', please? Chris?”
Yet, Major Chris Anuforo showed no mercy. He gunned down Unegbe in cold blood, right in front of his wife. Ihe nwanne mere nwanne ya! Yadiwa!
Lt. Col. Arthur Chinyelu Unegbe, from Ozubulu in present-day Anambra State, was gone. But karma was swift—just a few months later, Major Chris Anuforo was riddled with bullets in Benin by enraged soldiers of the 4th Battalion Ibadan, enforcing the saying:
—He who kills by the gun shall die by the gun.
Meanwhile, Major John Obienu, an Igbo officer fondly known as "Recce" in the Army, played a key role in halting the 1966 coup. Ironically, the coup itself was planned and executed mainly by officers of Yoruba and northern origin—Major Adewale Ademoyega, Capt. Ganiyu Adeleke, Lt. Col. Fola Oyewole, Lt. O. Olafemiyan, and Kaduna Nzeogwu, who was born in the North.
Yet, despite his efforts to prevent bloodshed, Obienu paid the ultimate price for choosing peace over conspiracy. Just six months later, he was brutally murdered at the Abeokuta Officers' Mess by northern non-commissioned officers. His only "offense"? Leaking the coup plot to the Head of State
