Chukwuma Kaduna Nzeogwu

Patrick Chukwuma Kaduna Nzeogwu, (1937–1967) was born in the Northern Region’s capital of Kaduna to Igbo immigrant parents from the Mid-Western Region-Okpanam Town, near Asaba in the present day Delta State.

Background
Major Nzeogwu was an infantry and intelligence officer of the Nigerian Army. Such was his family’s affinity to the city of Nzeogwu’s birth that they and his military colleagues called him “Kaduna”. Nzeogwu was a devout Roman Catholic and a teetotaler. He attended the military academy at Sandhurst in England, and was a promising, charismatic and rebellious military officer who eventually became the Chief Instructor at the Nigerian Military Training College in Kaduna. The forerunner of the Nigerian Army Intelligence Corps (NAIC) was the Field Security Section (FSS) of the Royal Nigerian Army, which was established on 1 November 1962 with Captain PG Harrington (BR) as General Staff Officer Grade Two (GSO2 Int). The FSS was essentially a security organization whose functions included vetting of Nigerian Army (NA) personnel, document security and counter intelligence. Major Nzeogwu was the first Nigerian Officer to hold that appointment from November 1962 to 1964.

1966 Coup
In the early hours of January 15, 1966, citing a list of complaints against the corrupt political class, Nzeogwu led a military coup against the Nigerian First Republic.These complaints include the violence in Western region instigated by the Sarduana of Sokoto, through his puppet, SL Akintola. At least, two thousand Yorubas died in this violence. The acclaimed Yoruba leader, Obafemi Awolowo has also been jailed in order to wrest control from Action Group. The western Region was by now a satellite region to the north. The January 15 1966 movement was clearly to arrest this slide to anarchy.His accomplices were Majors in the Army, mainly Eastern Nigerians, but also including a Western Nigerian Major (Ademoyega Adewale). The Prime Minister, a federal minister, two regional premiers, and top Army officers from the Northern and Western regions of the nation were brutally murdered. Lt Colonel Chinyere Unegbe,from eastern Nigeria was also killed. The coup failed, and he was later arrested in Lagos on January 18, 1966. He was in the company of Lt. Col. Conrad Nwawo. The coup was initially popular until rumors that it was an Igbo coup began to swirl.

Further fuelling suspicion was the fact that the premiers of the Northern and Western regions were killed, but the premier of the Eastern region (where most of the plotters came from) was overlooked. On the Federal level the (Northern) Prime Minister and the corrupt Finance Minister, Festus Okotie-Ebo(effectively the number 3 man in government) from the eastern region were killed.

The leniency with which the new leader, General Aguiyi Ironsi, handled the coup plotters led to the dissatisfaction of northern officers and subsequently resulted in a counter-coup on the 29th of July, 1966.

Nzeogwu was initially detained at the Kirikiri maximum security prison in Lagos, before later being transferred to the East. He and other January 15 mutiny detainees were subsequently released from jail by Lt. Col. Emeka Ojukwu at the end of the first quarter of 1967, following demonstrations by students of the University of Nigeria, Nsukka.

Nigerian Civil war and death
On May 30, 1967, The nation of Biafra declared its independence from Nigeria. Nzeogwu was released from close observation, and asked to go into battle on the side of the Biafrans. On July 29, 1967, Nzeogwu - who had been promoted to the rank of Biafran Lt. Colonel - was trapped in an ambush near Nsukka while conducting a night reconnaissance operation against federal troops of the 21st battalion under Captain Mohammed Inua Wushishi.

He was killed in action and his corpse was subsequently identified. After the defeat of Biafra and the end of the war, orders were given by the Head of the Nigerian government, Major General Yakubu Gowon, for him to be buried with full military honours at the military cemetery in Kaduna.

However, by the time the corpse arrived in Kaduna, it had been mutilated by unknown persons and his eyes gouged out. A photograph of Nzeogwu's corpse is available at the National Archives in Kaduna.