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STORY TITLE: ADEKUNLE FAJUYI

Lt.Col. Adekunle Fajuyi, first military governor of Western REGION.

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Francis Adekunle Fajuyi MC BEM was a Nigerian soldier of Yoruba origin and the first military governor of the former Western Region, Nigeria.

He was Born 26 June 1926 Ado Ekiti, Nigeria.

He attended St George’s Catholic School where his mates nicknamed him “Theobroma Cacao” (Cacao for short).

In the account of Ladigbolu, when Fajuyi saw that a visiting soldier was better paid than a teacher, he dreamt of joining the Army.

His first attempt was thwarted by his family but he finally joined in 1943 in Ilorin.

Originally a clerk, Fajuyi of Ado Ekiti joined the army in 1943 and as a sergeant in the Nigeria Signal Squadron, Royal West African Frontier Force, was awarded the British Empire Medal in 1951for helping to contain a mutiny in his unit over food rations.

He was trained at the Eaton Hall Officer Candidate School in the United Kingdom from July 1954 until November 1954, when he was short-service commissioned.

In 1961, as the 'C' Company commander with the 4 battalion, Queen's Own Nigeria Regiment under Lt. Col. Price, Major Fajuyi was awarded the Military Cross for actions in North Katanga and extricating his unit from an ambush.

When Fajuyi was appointed the military governor of Western Region on 18 January 1966. One of the moving speeches he delivered was at Aquinas College, Akure on 25 April the same year.

This is published in A. G. A Ladigbolu’s book on Fajuyi, entitled: A Great Hero.

That day, Fajuyi said: “When our country calls upon us for sacrifice, we shall be worthy to follow those who, in all the ages and countries, have lived and even died for God and freedom.”

How prophetic!
That statement was like proclaiming a nunc dimitis in the beginning of a race! It is on record that Fajuyi made a great personal sacrifice for peace, unity of Nigeria, loyalty to his boss, and a form of gallantry that could render the jaw

of a medieval knight hanging slack. The background to the death of Lieutenant-Colonel Francis Adekunle Fajuyi was that of a country in turmoil.

A mutiny by middle-ranking army officers on January 15th 1966 had led to the overthrow of the civilian government which had ruled Nigeria since it had formally become independent from British rule in October 1960.

But the majors at the heart of the coup had not assumed power since they were opposed by Major-General Johnson Aguiyi-Ironsi, the General Officer Commanding the Nigerian Army, to whom they eventually surrendered.

Ironsi had had the mantle of national leader thrust on him when the civilian rulers had “voluntarily” transferred power to the military.

True, the majors had terminated the rule of a government which had been plagued by accusations of incompetence and corruption, but the choices they had made in regard to the figures they had selected for elimination appeared to be grossly slanted.

In short, most of the assassinated politicians came from the Northern region, while the coup was led by officers of mainly Igbo ethnicity, the dominant group of Nigeria’s Eastern region.

And Ironsi, himself an Igbo, had been handed power by an acting Vice President, an Igbo, who was representing the Igbo president, Nnamdi Azikiwe who conveniently, critics assumed, had been abroad at the time of the mutiny.

The soldiers who surrounded Government House, Ibadan in the early hours of Friday, July 29th did so with a sense of vengeance.

They hailed from the Northern region and felt aggrieved by the fact that several senior Northern army officers had been assassinated by the mutineers who had struck in January

The commanding officer of the Ibadan-based 4th battalion, Lieutenant-Colonel Abogo Largema, had been murdered during that putsch.

Northern soldiers had also grumbled over certain promotions Ironsi had made which were construed as favouring officers from his ethnic group even though chief complainers such as Lieutenant-Colonel Murtala Muhammad

who would be among the leaders of the counter-coup of July, had been beneficiaries.

There was a feeling that the North needed to strike in order to preempt another coup by Igbos aimed at consolidating their grip on power.

The dissatisfaction and suspicion in the army reflected the wider feeling of grievance among Northerners who reacted with fury at Ironsi’s decision to promulgate a decree in May which transformed the federal structure of Nigeria into a unitary one.

It was interpreted as the completion of an elaborate plot designed to entrench Igbo hegemony. This, as they perceived it, had been achieved through the control of the army in which Igbos were preponderant in the officer class

as well as through the mechanism of a unified civil service in regard to which the less educated Northerners would be unable to compete with higher attaining Igbos.

Adekunle Fajuyi, an ethnic Yoruba, had been appointed by Ironsi as the governor of the Western Region. He had hosted a cocktail party on the evening of the 28th to mark the conclusion of Ironsi’s nationwide tour aimed at consulting with Nigeria’s traditional rulers

about the situation in the country. The northern Muslim Emirs in particular sought reassurances about the direction that the country was heading.

Fajuyi like others in Government House that early morning were likely roused by the sound of gunfire outside the building. He sent messages to the guard house and to his aide-de-camp, one Lieutenant Umar, a northerner.

Most of the staff were northerners and they were part of the coup which had already claimed the lives of Igbo soldiers at a garrison in the city of Abeokuta. Umar falsely reported back that all was well.

Fajuyi met with Ironsi and it quickly became apparent that they were surrounded by troops with hostile intent. They had taken positions from all vantage points. Some were nestled in tree tops, while others lay around the grounds in combat posture.

A 106mm gun, an anti-tank weapon, was positioned in support. The entrances and exits were blocked.

They intended for no one to escape.

Major Theophilus Danjuma who was coordinating the siege resisted calls from impatient non-commissioned officers to storm Government House, and was content with arresting those who intermittently emerged from the building on errands on behalf of the governor and the head of state.

His aim, he would later claim, was to arrest Fajuyi and Ironsi. But when Lieutenant-Colonel Hilary Njoku, the Igbo commander of the 2nd Brigade in Lagos was sighted leaving, a burst of machine gun fire was aimed at him. He sustained a leg injury but managed to escape.

Frantic calls were placed to officers around the country to explain their dire predicament. An attempt to get a helicopter to rescue them came to nothing. Fajuyi was the first to make his way to the living room where he paced up and down in full uniform.

He summoned Ironsi’s air force aide-de-camp, Captain Andrew Nwankwo and told him to go outside to find out what was happening. Nwankwo met Major Danjuma who told him that he wanted “to see Ironsi”.

It was during this prolonged, tense conversation that Fajuyi came outside to find out why Nwankwo hadn’t returned.

Danjuma recounted the following conversation taking place between Fajuyi and himself:

Danjuma: Sir, you are under arrest. Raise your hands.

Fajuyi: What do you want?

Danjuma: I want the supreme commander.

Fajuyi: Promise me that no harm will come to him.

Danjuma agreed, but objections were raised by a number of NCOs who felt that Fajuyi ought to have been detained and not allowed back in. Danjuma noted this and produced a grenade informing Fajuyi that if he made a “false move” he would blow both of them up.

So Danjuma, grenade in hand and walking behind Fajuyi, made his way to meet Ironsi in the company of a handful of NCOs. After disarming two police guards at the staircase, they made their way up to the living room which was situated on the first floor.

When they encountered Ironsi, Danjuma saluted him and an argument ensued between both men over Danjuma’s complaint that Ironsi had not kept his promise to court martial the mutineers of January.

Fajuyi reportedly interjected with repeated reminders that Danjuma had assured Ironsi of his safety. Ironsi was then seized. He was relieved of his trademark crocodile swagger stick and his major-general’s pips and shirt were torn from him.

Ironsi, Fajuyi and Ironsi’s military aides, Nwankwo and Lieutenant Sani Bello, had their hands tied behind their backs with telephone wire.

Danjuma, who had given Fajuyi assurances that there would be no bloodshed, then claimed to have instructed an adjutant of the 4th battalion to take Fajuyi and Ironsi to a guest house on a nearby cattle ranch.

But, he recalled, an NCO impatiently tapped him on the shoulder with the butt of a rifle and took the prisoners from him. They were then spirited away in two of what formed a convoy of three vehicles. He was forced to hitch-hike back to the barracks.

However another account has Danjuma entering one of the vehicles and being a part of the convoy until waving them on and heading for the barracks.

It was a callous, gruesome end.

A wine tapper nareated as recorded in the book titled, The Road to Lalupon, edited by Dr. Akin Onigbinde, the soldiers drove to Lalupon on the outskirts of Ibadan. The wine tapper was watching the hideous drama unfolding under his palm tree.

As the desperate soldiers would make to shoot Ironsi, Fajuyi would rush between them and the victim, his hands spread in a you-cannot-kill-my-guest or boss fashion.

He repeated the intervention many times so much that the killers were frustrated and angrily pumped hot bullets into the two hostages. And Fajuyi died a hero, a true friend, great officer and patriot.

The bodies of both were left at the spot of their execution until the next day when a group of Northern soldiers buried them in the shallow graves discovered a few days later by a unit of the police Special Branch.

They were disinterred and reburied at the military cemetery in Ibadan.

No official announcements of the death of either man was made by the succeeding government

Both Fajuyi and Ironsi were accorded state funerals with each being buried in his hometown: Fajuyi in Ado-Ekiti and Ironsi in Umuahia.

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