Besides, Gen. Gowon had been reluctant to change Adekunle at that time because Ibadan, the capital of the then Western Region was boiling with rioting and protests over one problem or the other. The most serious one was the “Agbekoya” riots. The Head of State had thought that it would be politically insensitive and bad for the war effort to remove Adekunle and replace him with a non-Yoruba officer. Gen. Gowon wanted to avoid accusation of discrimination against Yoruba people, so he asked Akinrinade and I to think of somebody who could play that role.

It was at this stage that Akinrinade suggested someone he thought was his friend, Col Olusegun Aremu Obasanjo. I did not know this officer very well, and I never served with him at any stage of my military career, but Akinrinade knew him. Obasanjo was said to be in the Nigerian Army Engineer Corps, but all that didn’t matter to me.

Col. Obasanjo (right) gets briefed on 3MCDO situation by Alabi-Isama. Right is Col (Father) Pedro Martins

When we met the following day, General Gowon wanted us to suggest which senior Yoruba officer we thought should replace Adekunle. Akinrinade once more mentioned Obasanjo’s name instead of Sotomi, Olutoye or Oluleye, who were also staff college-trained senior Yoruba officers. Akinrinade would not have suggested Oluleye; Olutoye, in the Education Corps, was not a combatant. Gen. Gowon was skeptical that Obasanjo would accept the appointment as he was an army sapper. I drew the Head of State’s attention to the fact that the position Obasanjo occupied at that time at Ibadan as the garrison commander was an infantry post. Gowon then said that we should contact him.

Akinrinade suggested that we sent our wives to book appointment with Obasanjo in Ibadan for 10.00hrs the next day. We arrived his doorstep at 0924 hrs, and were ushered in.

We told him our mission, and gave him a comprehensive briefing of the war front situation, and why the change of Adekunle was necessary. By that time, we had been speaking for over three hours without food or drink. The man simply listened as we did the talking. And when he spoke, he asked, “How do you know that Uli-Ihiala is the Centre of Gravity of Biafra?”

That question put me off completely, and I had to ask Akinrinade if he would like to repeat the explanations. He was at it again until 2pm when Obasanjo then told us that he was an engineer, and that he was not going to the war front!!! I was livid. We had been with this man for four hours without food or water as he offered us none; and in spite of all we said, here was this officer saying he won’t come to the war front! I told Akinrinade that we had to get out of Obasanjo’s house fast; but not before I had given him a dressing down. I reminded him of a similar behaviour he had shown when the Biafrans entered the Midwest, and we asked the Army in Ibadan to blow up the Ore Bridge to further delay the Biafran advance to Lagos. Obasanjo’s corps of engineers was nowhere to be found. But for the courage of one Mr. Akande, a civilian from the Public Works Department, who blew up the bridge with the assistance of his men from the Ministry of Works, even without the supervision of the military; the advancing Biafran troops would have probably marched on to Lagos, though they too were poorly led and lily livered.

I was so annoyed that I went on pouring venom on this officer, asking what engineering University he attended anyway; we were out there in the war front carrying our dead and wounded comrades daily, and he just sat there in Ibadan talking of being an engineer – so what!! In anger, I reminded him also that we had engineers like Bayo Onadeko, Oladejobi, Duke who were university graduates, and Capt Olajire at the war front who were building roads, bridges and pontoons to facilitate our advance; and at that point Akinrinade and I stormed out of his house.

By the time we returned to Lagos, General Gowon had given the orders through the Army HQ that all divisional commanders at the war front who had been there for upwards of two years or more should be changed. Col Bisalla would replace Col. Shuwa, while Col. Jalo took over from Col. Haruna, and Col. Obasanjo was named as replacement for Adekunle. Many people received the news of Adekunle’s replacement with shock and sadness. They couldn’t understand why; and one of them was Col. Father Pedro Martins. Together with then Commodore Akinwale Wey, Pedro Martins visited me on our return to Lagos to find out what exactly went wrong for Adekunle to be removed at a time when the entire country thought that 3MCDO was doing well under his leadership.

 Obasanjo’s first battle experience — A fiasco

Briefing over, Col. Obasanjo was ready to go as commander of 3MCDO, but his very first move was a disaster. In complete disregard of our advice, he planned an attack from the same problematic Sector 1 under Lt. Col. Godwin Ally. The target was again Ohoba, a town 25 miles south of Owerri where Adekunle’s conventional war tactics had resulted in heavy casualties earlier on. Obasanjo did exactly what Adekunle had done by reinforcing failure. The pity of this failure, however, was that Obasanjo himself was not there at the war front to experience the tragedy. He ordered Lt. Col. Godwin Ally to counter attack; saw them advance, but turned back and traveled to his HQ in Port Harcourt, a distance of about 150 miles away.

Obasanjo had no Operational HQ in the field. Obasanjo had no map of the operation, there was no intelligence report as to the strength of the enemy, and their reinforcement capability, or how far behind were their reserves. He just thought that the troops will simply get up and capture the place. He thought that our success so far was because we just got up and moved without a plan of action. Our plans had always been slow-slow, quick-quick. That is, we slowly and painstakingly checked and considered all parameters, then made the plan before getting up to attack. In any case what was the aim of attacking Ohoba, and what will the capture of the town mean to the overall plan to end the war. It was like capturing all the individual pawns in a game of chess, just to checkmate the king. That would be curious.

Lt.Col Ayo Ariyo and Col Obasanjo

Col. Ally had been hamstrung all along as to how that sector’s problems should be solved. Once again, that attack was beaten back by the Biafrans with heavy casualties to the commando forces. A most unthinkable aspect of this failure was that Obasanjo made some of the tired, spent and recuperating 16 Bde troops that were previously beleaguered inside Owerri for seven months to join in the attack. Initially, as far as Ayo Ariyo was concerned, Obasanjo’s blunder should not be our concern since that was what got us into trouble with Adekunle in the first place, although the situation got us pretty worried. Later, Akinrinade, Ayo Ariyo and myself met and decided to see Obasanjo in Port Harcourt, to let him appreciate the dangers associated with his Ohoba failure.

We thought we should not sit back at our bases and watch what we had worked so hard to achieve crumble right in front of us. At that point, Biafran troops morale was riding high: they had recaptured Owerri, and beaten back the counter-attack ordered by Obasanjo, and were now threatening to advance further south to Port-Harcourt. Should that happen, our positions in Calabar, Uyo and Aba would have been untenable, and we would also have been in greater trouble should the Biafrans get to Bonny. In our attempt to prevent this threat, we decided that I should go and brief Obasanjo again, and try to make him see reason, because his very first command action had become a disaster and was causing troops to desert their frontline positions all over again.

My meeting with Obasanjo was a difficult one. I recounted the series of blunders that led to the problem of Utuk in Owerri. I gave graphic description of how Makanjuola, Iluyomade and George Innih had been responsible for Utuk being besieged in Owerri. Makanjuola’s 15 Bde and Innih’s 14 Bde withdrew from the battle front and were unable to link up with Utuk. After the change in command, they went to Sector 1 HQ and were involved in dancing “Swange” to receive Obasanjo to Sector 1. These same officers who had failed in that particular sector were the same ones Obasanjo sent on his first mission to attack Ohoba without supervision, and our troops were killed like chicken. My remarks angered Ally and Innih who became openly hostile towards me. However, Utuk, who had suffered from these two officers’ incompetence for seven months in Owerri understood what I was talking about.

Notwithstanding their hostility, I didn’t hide my feeling at all, and warned Obasanjo again that war was no longer fought that way. I started all over again explaining the plan (Pincer 2) that we knew would work and end the war quickly. He did not have to agree with me, he only had to listen as the final decision was his anyway, as the commander. I retold the stories of the ”Battle of the Bulge” of World War II, and Hannibal’s battle at Cannas in 216 BC, and what strategy was best to bring the war to an end. Obasanjo thereafter called a meeting of all officers where he spoke about what he planned to do next. If anything, I least expected what I heard.

First, he wanted to straighten the line of defence, then he planned to make all troops get their full salaries at the war front. Then he went on talking about welfare, as if he was in the barracks. This time I did not confront him openly; I waited until the end of the meeting and had a private audience with him. As humbly as I could ever be, I told him why we would not find it easy to operate that way in a war front. Many of the soldiers who he wanted to give their full salaries to, were the bread winners of their families back home. So it could not have been advisable to pay them full salaries at the war front. Instead, allotments of their salaries (as we were organized before Obasanjo took over) were better paid to their next of kin for rents, school fees and other bills to be settled back home, since troops have nothing to buy in the war front.

Position of 3MCDO in May 1969 when Obasanjo took over command

In the case of straightening the defence line, I brought maps to show him 3MCDO positions as of May 1969 when he arrived. It was not a question of using a ruler, or making a straight line as in a ceremonial parade, or some kind of geometry or engineering drawing where one would be looking for straight lines. The defence lines Obasanjo met stretched from Obubra to the east and Omoku to the west, spanning about 700 miles of the states bordering Ibo heartland. They were state boundaries before Adekunle committed the Division to Operation OAU, which is what brought us this far. To straighten them would have taken 3MCDO smack into Ibo heartland for which we were not prepared. I reiterated that in a war setting (which he himself was aware of), infantry troops would normally take defensible lines which were what we had done in the 700 mile-long border between Ibo heartland and the two non-Ibo States which had been liberated. I went further to inform him (if he did not know already) that but for officers like Capt. Ola Oni holding doggedly on to Chokocho, Port-Harcourt itself would have been in trouble since George Innih’s withdrawal from Utuk’s right flank at Owerri. By this time, Obasanjo had become not only uncomfortable but also irritated with my loud complaints and advice, more so because his war “Plans” were not working (if he had any really). His ego would not allow him to take our advice, and the man he depended on to draw a plan for him, Lt. Col. Godwin Ally, only brought forward plans that led to mounting casualties which resulted in troops deserting the war front.

It was only when this started to happen that Obasanjo thought it was time he did something different. He came back to look at the Pincer Operations Plan, what he should have done from day one in the first place!

Tomorrow

IN the next take of this serial, read of how the author, and his friend, Akinrinade formulated plans for the Pincer operations eventually used to end the war, plus Col Obasanjo’s plans, which his colleague, Col Bisalla who then was GOC 1 Duvision rejected. Alabi-Isama postulated that had the Army High Command okayed Obasanjo’s plans, it would have led to unprecednted mass killings…