OPERATION DAMISA: THE ASSASSINATION OF SIR AHMADU BELLO, THE SARDAUNA OF SOKOTO, JANUARY 15, 1966
''Ina Sardauna? Where is the Sardauna?” Nzeogwu shouted, pointing his gun at him but the man kept shaking his head asserting no knowledge of the Sardauna’s location.
“If you won’t tell me where your master is, I’ll kill you,” Nzeogwu screamed at him in Hausa.
“Okay, okay,” the man replied fearfully and led Nzeogwu to the annex of the building. Three other soldiers followed Nzeogwu while Waribor and the rest returned to the staging area...
As Nzeogwu approached the adjoining rooms the man was leading them to, he heard screams and cries of women and children.
“Where’s the Sardauna?” Nzeogwu shouted. But the women would not allow Bello to move. Even the children were clinging to their mothers.
At last, the Premier managed to wriggle himself free from his wives but the eldest, Hafsatu, held on to him as he spoke.
“I am Ahmadu Bello, the Sardauna of Sokoto and the Premi…” With those words, Nzeogwu shot thrice at him; a bullet hitting his jaw, his wife, Hafsatu, and...
...babaringa which penetrated his lower abdomen and lodged in his spinal cord.
The Sardauna and his wife fell with a loud thud to the screams of the women and children at the loudest decibels. It was music to Nzeogwu’s ears. The mission had been accomplished.
He had satisfied his blood lust and his enraged eyes were returning to their former calm state. He blew the whistle to signal the end of the mission. Operation Damisa had finally come to an end.
As he approached the gate, he met Waribor and his men of the Charlie Company.
“Did you get the man?” Waribor asked.
“Yes, I got him,” Nzeogwu answered assuredly. He turned to the rest of the soldiers after he had got out of the gate and spoke triumphantly, “I have been successful, he’s dead.”
They then packed their remnants and proceeded to their next mission unchallenged leaving the Sardauna’s residence in the glory of its former self. It was 2:45 a.m. and the harshness of the harmattan had just begun. #HistoryVille
Source: A Carnage Before Dawn: A Historical Novel On Nigeria's First Coup D'etat.
When the British slave ship, "Zong" sailed from Accra with 442 slaves on August 18, 1781, it had taken on more than twice the number of people that it could safely transport (in order to maximise profit), when it was discovered that the water supply would not be enough.
If the slaves died a natural death the loss would fall on the owners. But if they were cast into the sea to drown, the loss would be covered by insurance, £30 for each slave lost. And that's what they did.
On November 29, 1781, 54 women and children were thrown through cabin windows into the sea.
On December 1, 1781, 42 male enslaved people were thrown overboard, and 36 more followed in the next few days.
During the Civil War, when the Ministry of Defence shared the same building with the External Affairs, Michael Ojukwu, an officer with External Affairs, had to show his service identification card before being allowed in.
A military guard who first caught sight of his name hollered for the others to come and see his catch.
" You are Ojukwu?"
" Yes, I am."
" You're under arrest!"
" I am a foreign service officer."
Before the poor man could complete the sentence, he was beaten so badly that he had to be hospitalised.
Some Ministry of External Affairs colleagues who tried to intervene told the soldiers that Michael was not a Biafran or any relation of the secessionist leader...
On March 21, 2007, 30-year-old Christianah Oluwatoyin Oluwasesin was lynched and burnt to death by Muslim students for allegedly desecrating the Qur'an at a secondary school in Gandu, Gombe State, North-East Nigeria.
A mother of two, Oluwasesin was assigned to supervise an Islamic Religious Knowledge exam when one of the students wanted to enter the exam hall with books. Oluwasesin collected them and threw them outside.
The students, who claimed that one of the books was a copy of the Qur'an, started to chant "Allahu Akbar" (Allah is Great) and chased her to the school principal's office.
They dragged her out of the office, stripped her naked, and stabbed her to death.
Just before dawn on a Saturday morning, about 2:10 am, January 15, 1966, the Adjutant-General of the Nigerian Army, Lieutenant-Colonel James Pam (pictured), his wife Elizabeth, and all other members of his family in their...
...Nigerian Army residence at 8, Ikoyi Crescent, Ikoyi, Lagos, awoke to the sight of soldiers crouching decidedly towards their house.
Eventually, the fully-armed soldiers continued to make their way to Lt. Col. Pam's home. Those approaching the kitchen chose to make their...
...entrance by shooting through the door. A quick run up the stairs and the soldiers took over the bedrooms.
By this time, Elizabeth was no longer in doubt that something has badly gone wrong. As she ran to the children’s rooms in distress and confusion, she screamed for her...
MOTIVATIONAL MONDAY: NEVER UNDERESTIMATE YOUR OPPONENT
The Super Eagles of Nigeria finished the group stage of the 1998 FIFA World Cup in France as winners. They were on top of the world. They were over the moon. They were looking forward to outperforming Cameroon as the best...
...African nation to have played at the World Cup.
Their next opponent for the Round of 16 was Denmark.
They had defeated Spain at the maiden match of the Group Stage. To Nigeria, Denmark was a less formidable opponent.
However, the D-day arrived and the Nigerians, who were overwhelming favourites against the Danish opponents, put up a lacklustre performance and were humiliated, embarrassed, and whitewashed 4-1 by the Europeans in a one-sided encounter in front of 77,000 fans at Saint-Denis.
Due to the lack of refrigerators in rural areas in Northern Nigeria, Mohammed Bah Abba designed the Pot-in-Pot cooling system in 1995 to help farmers reduce food spoilage and waste, increasing their income and limiting the health hazards of decaying foods.
The fridge Pot-in-Pot is known in Arabic as Zeer.
The fridge is composed of two pots of clay, of the same shape but of different sizes, placing one inside the other. The space in between the two containers is filled with sand which is simply humidified with water.
Food is placed inside the pot that is in the interior, covered with a lid or a humid piece of cloth. The Zeer has to stay in a dry and ventilated place. The laws of thermodynamics take care of the rest.