Last hours of Brigadier Zakariya Maimalari
January 14, 1966… There was a party at Maimalari’s house at 11, Thompson Avenue, Ikoyi, Lagos. it was planned by his ADC. The man he trusted with his life, Emmanuel Arinze Ifeajuna. The very man who planned the first coup in Nigeria in which his boss was one of the targets to be eliminated.
At this time, Maimalari was the Commander of 2ndbrigade Nigerian army in Lagos, Ifeajuna was his chief of staff and in charge of his details. Maimalari was the most powerful soldier from the North and a greatly admired public figure among northerners.
Maimalari was celebrating his marriage to a new bride. Ifeajuna sent out all the letters for the party that day. All senior officers and their ADC were at the party that evening. The list included the GOC of the army, Aguyi Ironsi, Colonel Kur Mohammed, Chief of Staff, army headquarters and Colonel Yakubu Gowon, commander of the 2nd battalion at Ikeja. A lot of politicians and cabinet ministers were also at the party. As the party progressed, his new wife from Kano was presented to his friends. She was young and very beautiful. Maimlari showed her off as the soldiers gazed at her while the orchestra and the 2nd battalion band from Ikeja drummed for the occasion.
A lot of junior officers were at the party as well. Some of them were in on Ifeajuna’s plans for a coup the next day. At midnight, shortly after the party, they all met at Ifeajuna’s house at Apapa. He got in late, there were 12 officers waiting for him among them were Humprey Chukwuka (deputy general in the Nigerian army) and Major Christain Anuforo, General staff officer at the army headquarters.
A Yoruba akotileta house negro was at the meeting. His name was Adegboyega. Another very important active member of the group was Anuforo. Other important officers at the meeting that evening were Donatus Okafor, Captain Ogbonna Oji and Lientenant Oyewole. Someone joined them much later at the meeting, Obienu, his task was to take over the barracks at Abeokuta which had a lot of firepower that they needed for the coup. The man tasked to go to Maimalari’s house to kill him was Donatus Okafor.
2am, the phone rang at Maimalari’s house, it was Elizabeth, Yakubu Gowon’s wife that called him to tell him her husband had been arrested by some of the coup plotters. While Maimalari was on the phone with him, he heard commotion at his own gate. One of his guards had been shot and killed for refusing to open the gate . Immediately he heard the gunshot, he ran upstairs to his house, took his new wife and hid her in the servant’s quarters, then he ran to the back of his house, scaled the fence, and disappeared into the darkness.
Donatus Okafor….. nearly ran mad when he realized Maimlari had escaped…. Maimalari was the most powerful solder in Lagos ( although not the most senior)…. he was the commander of the southern brigade in Apapa… lots of the fighting forces of the battalions…. Field artillery corps… armored and mechanized corps were under his command… he could mobilize an entire brigade with his powers in the military….. most of the ammunitions that Ifeajuna took from the barracks for the coup, he did so with forged clearance in the name of Maimlari
Okafor told his soldiers to search every part of the house and to kill Maimalari if they sight him anywhere. If Maimalari made his way to any barracks, they were all doomed. He could easily round them up and they would face a well predicted fate in his hands…. When they did not find him in the house, they went back in their cars and searched around Thompson Street and glover road in search of Maimalari… when they did not find him… they searched along Bourdillon road…. Really frantic to make sure he did not reach the barracks.
Maimlari was running on the streets in his Pijamas… bare feet, trying to make his way to the federal guards palace…. If any car drove by, he docked into the shrubs or bush….. now a car passed by and he tried to dock… then from where he was hiding, he noticed it was a familiar car…. Of his ADC…. They partied together few hours earlier…… he jumped out from the bush where he was hiding and waved down at him… unaware that he just fell into a trap……
‘Emma… thank God…. Some of your boys have gone crazy… Do you have a knowledge of who they might be and what unit? …
’No sir’ replied Ifeajuna
‘Never mind, just get me to the barracks … I am going to find those bastards in the morning and finish them’
As Maimalari walked towards Ifeajuna’s car… He saw the Prime minister… Tafawa Balewa in the car…. Maimalari froze to his feet… realizing he just walked into a trap…. Ifeajuna told him to say his last prayers… cocked his gun and fired three bullets at the Brigadier…. He fell to the floor and died instantly…. Ifeajuna fired five more shots at him on the floor….
This was the last hours of a man that did no wrong…. In the hands of a man he took like a brother and entrusted his life into…. Ifeajuna… the man who celebrated with him just a few hours earlier…. Murdered him on his wedding day……
The January 1966 coup was not a revolution… like the Obidient movement, it was a sham… the rage in the heart of these savages going around at night across the country in their coordinated selective murders as they pelleted their victims with bullets is all that needed to be observed.
On that same route… Aguyi Ironsi was intercepted and allowed to pass as he made his way to the barracks.
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