By Benson Upah
Colonel Anthony Ochefu was a civil war veteran, a military strategist and a big player in the highly risky and treacherous domain of military in politics. The history of the Nigerian civil war, the military in politics and the social life of the military (Mammy Market phenomenon) cannot be complete without the Ochefus. Ochefu was a philanthropist (ask his boys in the military) and a good family man.
Col. Anthony Ochefu
Rangy, calm and soft voiced (belying the steel in him and the eternal chess game in his head), I first met Colonel Ochefu as a young secondary school boy in company of some of my mates in the evening in the grounds of Wesley High School, Otukpo. He had slipped in under the cover of the evening to be with his friend, the urbane Jonah Ajonye who was the principal. The July 29th coup had succeeded and Ochefu had since been appointed Military Administrator of Old Anambra State. There were no sirens, no body guards (that I noticed). Infact I could not tell how he came in as I did not notice any car either. Just Ochefu!
Talk about Intelligence Officers!
We milled around Colonel Ochefu, intensely proud to be so physically close to a man of such national popularity. When he stretched his hand to no one in particular, I quickly took it, being providentially in front, delighted that I beat my mates to the draw. The hand was soft and cool, or so I had imagined.
The first question Colonel Ochefu asked us was, “Have you commandeered your dining hall today?” We were actually around the dining hall area. We exchanged glances. Commandeer?
What was that? But we quickly collected ourselves and chorused, “Yes sir!” I had learnt my first military lingo.
He said a few other things including the need to be good students and patriotic citizens. Meanwhile, word had spread quickly about his presence and more students were pouring in. Ochefu melted away. Up till today I cannot tell whether he was taken to heaven or to the Okokoro stream behind the school compound. The man disappeared. And although he did, the memory lingered…and still lingers!
Even as kids our sense of kinship with him and the pride that came with it was immeasurable. Looking back several decades after that momentous chance meeting , our enthusiasm was not misplaced. Although Ochefu was not the first commissioned officer from Idoma let alone the whole of Benue, yet he was the first to hold the office of Military Administrator/Governor of a state, even as that appointment did not enjoy the full breadth or length of time due to the internal politics of the military elite.
Colonel Ochefu earned his commission through grit, brilliance and sheer force of personality to not only effectively dominate his environment but earned the confidence of the youngest and longest-serving Nigeria’s military head of state, General Yakubu Gowon. In that role, he was an officer of privilege and influence (though not on Gowon’s personal staff) alongside Colonel Walbe (CoS), Colonel Joe Garba (ADC) and others.
When he alongside fellow strategically positioned colonels (including Joe Garba, Ibrahim Taiwo, Shehu Musa Yar’Adua etc) decided to effect a change of leadership, it became a fait accompli for General Gowon. Gowon in far-away Kampala within hours of his removal, recognised the new government after knowing the identities of those involved in the plot.
But this tribute is about Ochefu and not Gowon. Ochefu himself was soon to fall victim as indeed some other military officers, underscoring the dangers of the military in politics. But while Ochefu was lucky to get away with his life in retirement, some of his colleagues were not so lucky as the bloodbath of February 13, 1976, which claimed the life of Murtala ( the new Head of State), consumed them. Yet that was the beginning of the wave of bloodshed as 32 or more other military lives were wasted as reprisal for taking part in the bloody coup.
Yet it was an irony of life that Ochefu who survived the three-year civil war and a spate of bloody coups and counter-coups would yield to the bullets of some hoodlums in a supermarket in his own home town, Otukpo! But every one of us has an appointment with fate. And although death is not to be romanticised, Ochefu died like a soldier. He died a man of valour. Had he cowardly folded up like the rest that fateful day instead of standing up to the robbers, perhaps, he would have been alive.
But dead or alive, Ochefu lives in our hearts, in our memories including the Anambrarians to whom he left his last salary on hearing the news of his retirement.
Rest on, hero!
_Benson Upah, a Public Affairs and Leadership Analyst, writes from [email protected]_
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