by Agbonmagbe Kazeem
Before the Nigerian Civil War turned soldiers into enemies and regions into battlefields, there was a Nigerian Army officer whose own life would become entangled in the political crisis tearing the country apart.
His name was Lieutenant-Colonel Victor Adebukunola Banjo.
A Yoruba officer and a trained engineer, Banjo was already a senior figure in the Nigerian Army when the first military coup shook the country in January 1966.
But only two days after the coup, his own troubles began.
On 17 January, Banjo went to meet Major-General Johnson Aguiyi-Ironsi, who had emerged as Nigeria’s Supreme Commander.
He never made it to the meeting.
He was arrested.
The reason for his arrest became one of the unresolved controversies surrounding his life.
Banjo later wrote to Ironsi from prison, denying that he had attempted to kill the Supreme Commander and giving his own account of the events that led to his detention.
While Nigeria’s political crisis deepened, Banjo remained behind bars.
He was moved through different places of detention as the country went through another coup, the killing of Ironsi and Colonel Adekunle Fajuyi, the emergence of Yakubu Gowon and the growing violence that eventually pushed Nigeria toward civil war.
Then, in 1967, everything changed.
Biafra was proclaimed.
Ojukwu needed experienced officers.
And Banjo, still a prisoner, suddenly became useful to the side that had broken away from Nigeria.
After Biafra’s declaration, Ojukwu ordered Banjo’s release from detention.
The man who had spent months imprisoned by Nigerian authorities was now released into the service of Biafra.
He was given a senior command and placed in charge of the force that would carry Biafra’s war westward.
There was something striking about the appointment.
Banjo was Yoruba.
The force he commanded was a Biafran force, drawn substantially from the Eastern military establishment and led politically by Ojukwu.
Yet the mission was not simply to defend Biafra.
The plan was to move through the Mid-West and push toward the Western Region.
Ojukwu’s instructions to Banjo even referred to the mission as the βliberation of Yorubaland.β But the same instructions made clear that Biafra’s break from Nigeria was regarded as irreversible.
That contradiction would become central to Banjo’s story.
On 9 August 1967, Biafran forces crossed the Niger into the Mid-West.
The advance was astonishingly fast.
Benin City fell.
Much of the Mid-West came under Biafran control.
And Banjo’s forces began moving westward.
For a brief moment, the road to Lagos appeared open.
But the political situation behind the advancing soldiers was becoming increasingly complicated.
Banjo was not simply entering territory as a conventional occupying commander.
He was a Yoruba officer leading a Biafran expedition into a region where Biafran leaders hoped that local political forces might support their advance.
Would the people of the West welcome them?
Would Yoruba political leaders cooperate?
Or would the invasion be seen as a Biafran attempt to impose Eastern influence on another part of Nigeria?
The answer would prove crucial.
The advance eventually reached Ore, a strategic town on the road toward the West.
And then the momentum began to disappear.
Banjo did not immediately push on toward Ibadan and Lagos.
Something had changed.
The man who had led his troops across the Niger and through the Mid-West was now faced with a difficult question:
Should he continue the march westward or wait?
And what happened next would change Banjo’s fate.
To be continue……
“THE HISTORIAN”
AGBONMAGBE REMILEKUN KAZEEM
