The remains of Gen. David Ejoor, former Military Administrator of Mid-west region and Chief of Staff Nigeria Army, was committed to mother Earth yesterday in his home town, Ovwor-Olomu, in Ughelli South council, Delta State, amid tears, but not devoid of a mild drama.
Midway into the interment oration, however, Gen. Yakubu Gowon, former Nigerian Head of State, suddenly slummed by Ejoor’s graveside and was immediately rushed to a nearby shed by military officers where an ambulance was stationed.
After first aid treatment was administered to the former head of state he recovered and was allowed to rest awhile.
Governor Ifeanyi Okowa was rattled by the development that he left his seat and joined the resuscitation team in the canopy to observe how Gowon fared. He was also joined by a few other eminent personalities including former Governor James Ibori.
Sir Ejoor as a Young soldier
Gowon in his speech rained praises on late Ejoor describing him as a good soldier and family man.
He also pleaded with Nigerians to make sacrifices for the peace and unity of the country.
Gowon said “I thank you all for coming to this ceremony, we served in the Nigerian Army so many years ago and I am delighted with the encomiums poured on the deceased who was a good soldier and a good family man,” Gen. Gowon said, adding that Nigerians should continue to make sacrifices for the peace and unity of the country.
Rev. Fr. Greg Umukoro, remarked that the deceased, “lived a good life of service to the nation and humanity.”
Governor Okowa thanked Nigerians from far and near for attending the burial ceremony, saying “we referred to Gen. Ejoor as Daddy, he was a distinguished elder statesman and if we believe in the thoughts that he had, we will have a great nation, a nation that is peaceful and United.”
“He had all the attributes a man should have; a quality human being who cared for his family and the nation and those of us that lives should emulate the qualities that he had to make our country better”, Okowa said.
His Edo State counterpart, Governor Obaseki, said Ejoor’s spectacular contributions to the unity of Nigeria will continue to be acknowledged.
Obaseki said as a former Military Administrator of Midwest State comprising Delta and Edo States, the deceased deserved to be honoured for erecting structures for future leaders of the two states to build on.
The ceremony was also attended by the Chief of Army Staff, Major General Tukur Yusuf Buratai, Service Chiefs, Speaker of the Delta State House of Assembly, Hon. Sheriff Oborevwori, several retired military officers, politicians, captains of industry and chiefs from the Urhobo ethnic nationality attended the burial ceremony.
WHEN
on the 10th of January 1932, the cry of a new born was heard in
pristine Ovu, I doubt if anybody living there at that time had heard of
petrol, how much less today’s buzz expression, petrol subsidy. Ovu was
then a paradisal jungle. Her neighbours; Kokori, Okpara, and Okurekpo,
were also enshrouded by the same primeval forest which in our
imagination bespeaks humanity’s primal beginning. Life in these Urhobo
communities as in many others in Nigeria at that time must have been
primitive bliss which was later ruptured by the encroachment of
colonialism. The world around that new born was calm, the air was fresh,
the streams held water that sustained the indigenes who ate what they
farmed and farmed what they ate. There were neither kidnappers nor
suicide bombers. Life was ideal to the point of being romantic.
That baby is now a grand old man as he enters his eight decade on earth. The universe of that infant now an oldie has changed drastically. Instead of the lulling serenity that welcomed him to the world eighty years ago, it is an unnerving din and chaos that heralded his entry into the octogenarian circle. All around this grand old man are symptoms of a nation that has lost its soul and spinning disastrously. The mellowness, the sense of history and philosophical disposition that come with age would make this grand old man ask not a few questions regarding how the Nigeria he served with all his strength, intelligence, zeal and more came to this abysmally sorry cul-de-sac. He would be wondering about what happened to the country whose unity he sacrificed so much to defend.
As my fingers jam the keyboard to get out this tribute my attention is constantly drawn to Channels Television as it airs the raging debate and nationwide protests against the removal of petroleum subsidy. It is in this uncertain ambience that Olorogun General David Akpode Ejoor (Rtd) GCON, OFR, LLD, the baby that was born on that beatific morning in 1932 at Ovu, now in Ethiope East Local Government Area of Delta State, attained the grand old age of eighty. General Ejoor was born of Olomu and Orogun parentage. An exempler of Urhobo intelligence, industry and foresight, the young Ejoor braved daunting odds by trekking endless miles to go to Primary School which eventually led him to the portals of the acclaimed Government College Ughelli (GCU) in January 1948.
Ejoor was very outstanding at GCU where he won a scholarship that saw him through. He also gained coveted spurs as a school prefect and athlete quite early. His Principal at GCU was the legendary V. B. Powell who described him on graduating in 1953 as “a thoroughly nice boy in the best sense…” Ejoor’s ambition of proceeding to the then University College Ibadan was truncated by pecuniary constraints. After a brief stint with the Customs, he took the entrance examination to join the Army. Ejoor was the only successful lad among the eleven who took the quiz at the Enugu centre. The next stage of the recruitment exercise in Lagos featured seventeen aspiring cadets. Six of them passed and David Ejoor was one. Of the six, four were from the ranks, only Ejoor and Victor Banjo were civilians. Both of them made history as the first Nigerian officer cadets to get Regular Commission into the Nigerian Army in the process of Nigerianizing the officer corps in the early 1950s.
Early military training took him from Nigeria through Ghana, then to Eaton Hall in the United Kingdom. He finally made it to the prestigious Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst. The training at Sandhurst was rigorous and certainly not for the faint hearted, but David Ejoor was David Ejoor; stout hearted, diligent, persevering, and mercurial. Beside his highly commendable military ability, his outstanding performance in sports earned him laurels including a black belt in Judo, and representing Sandhurst at the French Military Academy in 1955 and 1956.
Ejoor graduated from Sandhurst in July 1956, and returned to Nigeria on 2nd January 1957 as a Lieutenant. After serving in Kaduna and Ibadan between 1957 and 1959, the lot of securing Nigeria’s border with Cameroon fell on the young officer. However, the attainment of independence in 1960 turned out to be memorable for Ejoor who had become a Captain as he had the historic fortune of commanding the Army Guard at the dawn of independence on 1st October 1960. That event foreshadowed the significant roles Ejoor was to play in the survival of Nigeria. Ejoor was on the United Nations Peace Keeping Force in the Congo from December 1960 to July 1961 where his brilliant military exploits earned him commendation and promotion to the rank of Major. On returning to Nigeria he again had another rare privilege of designing the Nigerian Army cap badge and rank insignias.
The turning point in Ejoor’s career took place on 15th January 1966 when a military coup, the first in Nigeria, swept away the government that took over at independence. Ejoor was then a Lieutenant Colonel and Commander of the Army Battalion in Enugu. He was in the forefront of the offensive that foiled the coup. However, the civilian government still collapsed, and military rule was enthroned. Fate saw David Ejoor being appointed as the Military Governor of the then Midwest Region, by virtue of which he became a member of the Supreme Military Council (SMC), the nation’s highest ruling body. One of his first acts of statesmanship was to restore the unlawfully deposed Olu of Warri to his throne; an act that the Itsekiri nation appreciated no end. Ejoor had hardly settled down when the counter coup of July 1966 took place.
The July coup led by Northern soldiers who were mostly of Hausa/Fulani stock claimed many lives, especially those of officers of the then Eastern Region who were predominantly Igbo. Soon the tension bred by the coup degenerated into a full blown Civil War. Ejoor, more than any other Nigerian suffered from the war, yet his acts of courage and loyalty to Nigeria contributed most to Nigeria surviving the period. His predicament stemmed from being the Governor of the Midwest, a small buffer Region with a substantial population of the aggrieved Igbo ethnicity. His military colleagues in the Midwest with the exception of two were all Igbo. So there was high wire conspiracy to get rid of him. Help was not forthcoming from the Federal Army, and the invading enemy forces overran his base in Benin. He survived three assassination attempts by Igbo officers.
Before and during the early period of the war, Ejoor was the only proponent of one Nigeria among the then four Regional Governors, and military brass hats who saw no need in the continuing existence of Nigeria as one entity. He was a committed Federalist. Ejoor though a brave soldier, played the stabilizer and advocated the peaceful resolution of the crises. He argued in favour of a nation that was indivisible. It was for that that the rebel leader “General” Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu wanted him dead at all cost. The invasion necessitated Ejoor’s flight from Benin the capital of the Midwest.
Ejoor’s escape from Benin, his bicycle ride to Ebor-Orogun, and eventual appearance in Lagos are the stuff military manoeuvres are made of. Yet, it is this act of rare of stratagem that Olusegun Obasanjo had in mind when he referred to General Ejoor as a “bicycle riding fugitive”. It is ironic that Obasanjo, an ordinary road maintenance soldier during the war could make such a disparaging statement about an officer of General Ejoor’s status. Obasanjo probably didn’t fire a shot during the war. When he reluctantly assumed leadership of the 3rd Marine Commando in late 1969, Brigadier Benjamin Maja Adekunle (Black Scorpion) had done all the fighting, and the weary Biafrans were just waiting to surrender. And they did surrender in January 1970. Obasanjo’s military ability couldn’t have earned him a Captaincy, but this is Nigeria. Just be a boy boy to a section of the country, and you get crowned as Head of State, albeit lame duck. You can get sprung from jail and be made President. It is apropos to say that better and braver soldiers than Obasanjo, the likes of Brigadier Ogbemudia, Generals T. Y. Danjuma and Joe Garba had gone on to adulate General Ejoor as an officer and gentleman of the highest mettle.
The Biafran invasion of the Midwest also meant the loss of Ejoor’s post as Governor. But short and tempestuous as his tenure was, he left footprints that are associated with visionary leaders. He set the tone for the making of the Midwest into the most advanced enclave in all of Africa. The strides recorded by his successor, Brigadier Samuel Ogbemudia were derived from the template put in place by Ejoor. But this is hardly acknowledged. How many people know that it was Ejoor who established the first radio broadcasting station in Benin? Who still remembers that it was Ejoor who began the process that gave birth to the once famous Nigerian Observer, or that he was the one who took the decisive steps which metamorphosed into today’s University of Benin, Benin City? What about other landmark projects like the Delta Steel Company, Ovwian-Aladja, the Petroleum Training Institute, Effurun, and the Refinery at Ekpan, all of which he envisioned and inspired?
Ejoor arrived in Lagos on the blaze of military glory in 1967. He became a Director at the Army headquarters and was later assigned the task of getting France, America and India to support the Federal Government during the war. By 1968, he assumed duties as the first Nigerian Commandant of the Nigerian Defence Academy, Kaduna. Ejoor was saddled with the responsibility of training young officers who will help in prosecuting the war. These young officers went on to distinguish themselves as junior war commanders. Many of those who became Generals, Admirals, and Air Marshals from the late 1980s on were the boys who went through military tutelage at the feet of General Ejoor.
Ejoor attained Generalcy on 1st of May 1971. He was between, July and December 1971, at the Royal College of Defence Studies in the United Kingdom where he obtained the military equivalent of a PhD. He reached the apogee of military career when he was appointed as Chief of Army Staff (then known as Chief of Staff Army) in January 1972. As Nigeria’s Army Chief, Ejoor did so much to reshape the military to fit into the nation’s post-war aspiration. He spearheaded the rehabilitation of the Igbo and ensured that their soldiers who fought on the rebel side were not court marshaled. He set about a general reorganization of the Army; building of barracks, welfare, uniforms, resettlement, discipline, among others. In spite of resentment by Northern soldiers who felt the headship of the Army was their birthright, General Ejoor soldiered on and did a great job of restructuring the Nigerian Army.
He enjoyed the confidence and respect of many, especially the then Head of State, General Yakubu Gowon who was his junior at Sandhurst. By 1975, some officers felt Gowon’s regime had become rudderless and concluded that it was time to shove it aside. Ejoor told Gowon about the impending putsch and his intention to quell it. He even decided to call off his vacation, the first he was to have in ten years, so he could deal with the plotters. But Gowon was probably fed up after being on the saddle as Head of State for nine years, and seeing Nigeria through a bloody war as a youth. He didn’t want further bloodshed. He knew the plotters very well; Murtala Muhammed, T. Y. Danjuma and his own major domo, Joe Garba, the same masterminds of the July 1966 mutiny that enthroned him. He ordered Ejoor to go on vacation. Gowon himself flew out to Kampala for a meeting of African Heads of States. That was his last as Nigeria’s ruler. He was toppled on the 29th of July 1975, the ninth anniversary of the coup that brought him to power.
The fall of Gowon also meant the end of General David Akpode Ejoor’s remarkable military career. He was just 43! Ejoor retired to civvy street and pursued a life of quietude contributing to community and nation building. He was for a brief period the President-General of the Urhobo Progress Union, Nigeria’s oldest socio-cultural organization whose proscription he prevented in 1966. President Shehu Shagari invited General Ejoor to draft a Defence policy for Nigeria in 1982. His submission regarding a Two-party system was adopted by the S. J. Cookey Political Bureau which midwifed the Babangida transition. He has received two national honours, Order of the Federal Republic (OFR) and Grand Commander of the Niger (GCON). Ejoor’s military distinction has not gone unrecognized internationally. The governments of Togo, Sudan, Senegal and Belgium have at one point or the other conferred national honours on him. General Ejoor, a husband, father, grand-father, and probably a great grand- father now is also the author of two books, one of which is Reminiscences which presents the most altruistic and authentic account of the Nigerian crisis from 1966 to 1970.WHEN on the 10th of January 1932, the cry of a new born was heard in pristine Ovu, I doubt if anybody living there at that time had heard of petrol, how much less today’s buzz expression, petrol subsidy. Ovu was then a paradisal jungle. Her neighbours; Kokori, Okpara, and Okurekpo, were also enshrouded by the same primeval forest which in our imagination bespeaks humanity’s primal beginning. Life in these Urhobo communities as in many others in Nigeria at that time must have been primitive bliss which was later ruptured by the encroachment of colonialism. The world around that new born was calm, the air was fresh, the streams held water that sustained the indigenes who ate what they farmed and farmed what they ate. There were neither kidnappers nor suicide bombers. Life was ideal to the point of being romantic.
That baby is now a grand old man as he enters his eight decade on earth. The universe of that infant now an oldie has changed drastically. Instead of the lulling serenity that welcomed him to the world eighty years ago, it is an unnerving din and chaos that heralded his entry into the octogenarian circle. All around this grand old man are symptoms of a nation that has lost its soul and spinning disastrously. The mellowness, the sense of history and philosophical disposition that come with age would make this grand old man ask not a few questions regarding how the Nigeria he served with all his strength, intelligence, zeal and more came to this abysmally sorry cul-de-sac. He would be wondering about what happened to the country whose unity he sacrificed so much to defend.
As my fingers jam the keyboard to get out this tribute my attention is constantly drawn to Channels Television as it airs the raging debate and nationwide protests against the removal of petroleum subsidy. It is in this uncertain ambience that Olorogun General David Akpode Ejoor (Rtd) GCON, OFR, LLD, the baby that was born on that beatific morning in 1932 at Ovu, now in Ethiope East Local Government Area of Delta State, attained the grand old age of eighty. General Ejoor was born of Olomu and Orogun parentage. An exempler of Urhobo intelligence, industry and foresight, the young Ejoor braved daunting odds by trekking endless miles to go to Primary School which eventually led him to the portals of the acclaimed Government College Ughelli (GCU) in January 1948.
Ejoor was very outstanding at GCU where he won a scholarship that saw him through. He also gained coveted spurs as a school prefect and athlete quite early. His Principal at GCU was the legendary V. B. Powell who described him on graduating in 1953 as “a thoroughly nice boy in the best sense…” Ejoor’s ambition of proceeding to the then University College Ibadan was truncated by pecuniary constraints. After a brief stint with the Customs, he took the entrance examination to join the Army. Ejoor was the only successful lad among the eleven who took the quiz at the Enugu centre. The next stage of the recruitment exercise in Lagos featured seventeen aspiring cadets. Six of them passed and David Ejoor was one. Of the six, four were from the ranks, only Ejoor and Victor Banjo were civilians. Both of them made history as the first Nigerian officer cadets to get Regular Commission into the Nigerian Army in the process of Nigerianizing the officer corps in the early 1950s.
Early military training took him from Nigeria through Ghana, then to Eaton Hall in the United Kingdom. He finally made it to the prestigious Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst. The training at Sandhurst was rigorous and certainly not for the faint hearted, but David Ejoor was David Ejoor; stout hearted, diligent, persevering, and mercurial. Beside his highly commendable military ability, his outstanding performance in sports earned him laurels including a black belt in Judo, and representing Sandhurst at the French Military Academy in 1955 and 1956.
Ejoor graduated from Sandhurst in July 1956, and returned to Nigeria on 2nd January 1957 as a Lieutenant. After serving in Kaduna and Ibadan between 1957 and 1959, the lot of securing Nigeria’s border with Cameroon fell on the young officer. However, the attainment of independence in 1960 turned out to be memorable for Ejoor who had become a Captain as he had the historic fortune of commanding the Army Guard at the dawn of independence on 1st October 1960. That event foreshadowed the significant roles Ejoor was to play in the survival of Nigeria. Ejoor was on the United Nations Peace Keeping Force in the Congo from December 1960 to July 1961 where his brilliant military exploits earned him commendation and promotion to the rank of Major. On returning to Nigeria he again had another rare privilege of designing the Nigerian Army cap badge and rank insignias.
The turning point in Ejoor’s career took place on 15th January 1966 when a military coup, the first in Nigeria, swept away the government that took over at independence. Ejoor was then a Lieutenant Colonel and Commander of the Army Battalion in Enugu. He was in the forefront of the offensive that foiled the coup. However, the civilian government still collapsed, and military rule was enthroned. Fate saw David Ejoor being appointed as the Military Governor of the then Midwest Region, by virtue of which he became a member of the Supreme Military Council (SMC), the nation’s highest ruling body. One of his first acts of statesmanship was to restore the unlawfully deposed Olu of Warri to his throne; an act that the Itsekiri nation appreciated no end. Ejoor had hardly settled down when the counter coup of July 1966 took place.
The July coup led by Northern soldiers who were mostly of Hausa/Fulani stock claimed many lives, especially those of officers of the then Eastern Region who were predominantly Igbo. Soon the tension bred by the coup degenerated into a full blown Civil War. Ejoor, more than any other Nigerian suffered from the war, yet his acts of courage and loyalty to Nigeria contributed most to Nigeria surviving the period. His predicament stemmed from being the Governor of the Midwest, a small buffer Region with a substantial population of the aggrieved Igbo ethnicity. His military colleagues in the Midwest with the exception of two were all Igbo. So there was high wire conspiracy to get rid of him. Help was not forthcoming from the Federal Army, and the invading enemy forces overran his base in Benin. He survived three assassination attempts by Igbo officers.
Before and during the early period of the war, Ejoor was the only proponent of one Nigeria among the then four Regional Governors, and military brass hats who saw no need in the continuing existence of Nigeria as one entity. He was a committed Federalist. Ejoor though a brave soldier, played the stabilizer and advocated the peaceful resolution of the crises. He argued in favour of a nation that was indivisible. It was for that that the rebel leader “General” Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu wanted him dead at all cost. The invasion necessitated Ejoor’s flight from Benin the capital of the Midwest.
Ejoor’s escape from Benin, his bicycle ride to Ebor-Orogun, and eventual appearance in Lagos are the stuff military manoeuvres are made of. Yet, it is this act of rare of stratagem that Olusegun Obasanjo had in mind when he referred to General Ejoor as a “bicycle riding fugitive”. It is ironic that Obasanjo, an ordinary road maintenance soldier during the war could make such a disparaging statement about an officer of General Ejoor’s status. Obasanjo probably didn’t fire a shot during the war. When he reluctantly assumed leadership of the 3rd Marine Commando in late 1969, Brigadier Benjamin Maja Adekunle (Black Scorpion) had done all the fighting, and the weary Biafrans were just waiting to surrender. And they did surrender in January 1970. Obasanjo’s military ability couldn’t have earned him a Captaincy, but this is Nigeria. Just be a boy boy to a section of the country, and you get crowned as Head of State, albeit lame duck. You can get sprung from jail and be made President. It is apropos to say that better and braver soldiers than Obasanjo, the likes of Brigadier Ogbemudia, Generals T. Y. Danjuma and Joe Garba had gone on to adulate General Ejoor as an officer and gentleman of the highest mettle.
The Biafran invasion of the Midwest also meant the loss of Ejoor’s post as Governor. But short and tempestuous as his tenure was, he left footprints that are associated with visionary leaders. He set the tone for the making of the Midwest into the most advanced enclave in all of Africa. The strides recorded by his successor, Brigadier Samuel Ogbemudia were derived from the template put in place by Ejoor. But this is hardly acknowledged. How many people know that it was Ejoor who established the first radio broadcasting station in Benin? Who still remembers that it was Ejoor who began the process that gave birth to the once famous Nigerian Observer, or that he was the one who took the decisive steps which metamorphosed into today’s University of Benin, Benin City? What about other landmark projects like the Delta Steel Company, Ovwian-Aladja, the Petroleum Training Institute, Effurun, and the Refinery at Ekpan, all of which he envisioned and inspired?
Ejoor arrived in Lagos on the blaze of military glory in 1967. He became a Director at the Army headquarters and was later assigned the task of getting France, America and India to support the Federal Government during the war. By 1968, he assumed duties as the first Nigerian Commandant of the Nigerian Defence Academy, Kaduna. Ejoor was saddled with the responsibility of training young officers who will help in prosecuting the war. These young officers went on to distinguish themselves as junior war commanders. Many of those who became Generals, Admirals, and Air Marshals from the late 1980s on were the boys who went through military tutelage at the feet of General Ejoor.
Ejoor attained Generalcy on 1st of May 1971. He was between, July and December 1971, at the Royal College of Defence Studies in the United Kingdom where he obtained the military equivalent of a PhD. He reached the apogee of military career when he was appointed as Chief of Army Staff (then known as Chief of Staff Army) in January 1972. As Nigeria’s Army Chief, Ejoor did so much to reshape the military to fit into the nation’s post-war aspiration. He spearheaded the rehabilitation of the Igbo and ensured that their soldiers who fought on the rebel side were not court marshaled. He set about a general reorganization of the Army; building of barracks, welfare, uniforms, resettlement, discipline, among others. In spite of resentment by Northern soldiers who felt the headship of the Army was their birthright, General Ejoor soldiered on and did a great job of restructuring the Nigerian Army.
He enjoyed the confidence and respect of many, especially the then Head of State, General Yakubu Gowon who was his junior at Sandhurst. By 1975, some officers felt Gowon’s regime had become rudderless and concluded that it was time to shove it aside. Ejoor told Gowon about the impending putsch and his intention to quell it. He even decided to call off his vacation, the first he was to have in ten years, so he could deal with the plotters. But Gowon was probably fed up after being on the saddle as Head of State for nine years, and seeing Nigeria through a bloody war as a youth. He didn’t want further bloodshed. He knew the plotters very well; Murtala Muhammed, T. Y. Danjuma and his own major domo, Joe Garba, the same masterminds of the July 1966 mutiny that enthroned him. He ordered Ejoor to go on vacation. Gowon himself flew out to Kampala for a meeting of African Heads of States. That was his last as Nigeria’s ruler. He was toppled on the 29th of July 1975, the ninth anniversary of the coup that brought him to power.
The fall of Gowon also meant the end of General David Akpode Ejoor’s remarkable military career. He was just 43! Ejoor retired to civvy street and pursued a life of quietude contributing to community and nation building. He was for a brief period the President-General of the Urhobo Progress Union, Nigeria’s oldest socio-cultural organization whose proscription he prevented in 1966. President Shehu Shagari invited General Ejoor to draft a Defence policy for Nigeria in 1982. His submission regarding a Two-party system was adopted by the S. J. Cookey Political Bureau which midwifed the Babangida transition. He has received two national honours, Order of the Federal Republic (OFR) and Grand Commander of the Niger (GCON). Ejoor’s military distinction has not gone unrecognized internationally. The governments of Togo, Sudan, Senegal and Belgium have at one point or the other conferred national honours on him. General Ejoor, a husband, father, grand-father, and probably a great grand- father now is also the author of two books, one of which is Reminiscences which presents the most altruistic and authentic account of the Nigerian crisis from 1966 to 1970.
Ejoor is honest to a fault. He neither stole government money nor oil blocs like some pot bellied generals. Nigeria would have realized her great potentials as a great country had.
Ejoor’s colleagues been imbued with his altruism. Let Nigeria rise in salute to this distinguished General the Olorogun, the tested Generalissimo, Ogbofovwinrode, Adjerese, Oruerakpo, Uhoho! Kukpe kukpe amre egodi…iseeee….
RIP to the great general.
1932- 2019
Today is his Burial.
#allformilitaryhistory
That baby is now a grand old man as he enters his eight decade on earth. The universe of that infant now an oldie has changed drastically. Instead of the lulling serenity that welcomed him to the world eighty years ago, it is an unnerving din and chaos that heralded his entry into the octogenarian circle. All around this grand old man are symptoms of a nation that has lost its soul and spinning disastrously. The mellowness, the sense of history and philosophical disposition that come with age would make this grand old man ask not a few questions regarding how the Nigeria he served with all his strength, intelligence, zeal and more came to this abysmally sorry cul-de-sac. He would be wondering about what happened to the country whose unity he sacrificed so much to defend.
As my fingers jam the keyboard to get out this tribute my attention is constantly drawn to Channels Television as it airs the raging debate and nationwide protests against the removal of petroleum subsidy. It is in this uncertain ambience that Olorogun General David Akpode Ejoor (Rtd) GCON, OFR, LLD, the baby that was born on that beatific morning in 1932 at Ovu, now in Ethiope East Local Government Area of Delta State, attained the grand old age of eighty. General Ejoor was born of Olomu and Orogun parentage. An exempler of Urhobo intelligence, industry and foresight, the young Ejoor braved daunting odds by trekking endless miles to go to Primary School which eventually led him to the portals of the acclaimed Government College Ughelli (GCU) in January 1948.
Ejoor was very outstanding at GCU where he won a scholarship that saw him through. He also gained coveted spurs as a school prefect and athlete quite early. His Principal at GCU was the legendary V. B. Powell who described him on graduating in 1953 as “a thoroughly nice boy in the best sense…” Ejoor’s ambition of proceeding to the then University College Ibadan was truncated by pecuniary constraints. After a brief stint with the Customs, he took the entrance examination to join the Army. Ejoor was the only successful lad among the eleven who took the quiz at the Enugu centre. The next stage of the recruitment exercise in Lagos featured seventeen aspiring cadets. Six of them passed and David Ejoor was one. Of the six, four were from the ranks, only Ejoor and Victor Banjo were civilians. Both of them made history as the first Nigerian officer cadets to get Regular Commission into the Nigerian Army in the process of Nigerianizing the officer corps in the early 1950s.
Early military training took him from Nigeria through Ghana, then to Eaton Hall in the United Kingdom. He finally made it to the prestigious Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst. The training at Sandhurst was rigorous and certainly not for the faint hearted, but David Ejoor was David Ejoor; stout hearted, diligent, persevering, and mercurial. Beside his highly commendable military ability, his outstanding performance in sports earned him laurels including a black belt in Judo, and representing Sandhurst at the French Military Academy in 1955 and 1956.
Ejoor graduated from Sandhurst in July 1956, and returned to Nigeria on 2nd January 1957 as a Lieutenant. After serving in Kaduna and Ibadan between 1957 and 1959, the lot of securing Nigeria’s border with Cameroon fell on the young officer. However, the attainment of independence in 1960 turned out to be memorable for Ejoor who had become a Captain as he had the historic fortune of commanding the Army Guard at the dawn of independence on 1st October 1960. That event foreshadowed the significant roles Ejoor was to play in the survival of Nigeria. Ejoor was on the United Nations Peace Keeping Force in the Congo from December 1960 to July 1961 where his brilliant military exploits earned him commendation and promotion to the rank of Major. On returning to Nigeria he again had another rare privilege of designing the Nigerian Army cap badge and rank insignias.
The turning point in Ejoor’s career took place on 15th January 1966 when a military coup, the first in Nigeria, swept away the government that took over at independence. Ejoor was then a Lieutenant Colonel and Commander of the Army Battalion in Enugu. He was in the forefront of the offensive that foiled the coup. However, the civilian government still collapsed, and military rule was enthroned. Fate saw David Ejoor being appointed as the Military Governor of the then Midwest Region, by virtue of which he became a member of the Supreme Military Council (SMC), the nation’s highest ruling body. One of his first acts of statesmanship was to restore the unlawfully deposed Olu of Warri to his throne; an act that the Itsekiri nation appreciated no end. Ejoor had hardly settled down when the counter coup of July 1966 took place.
The July coup led by Northern soldiers who were mostly of Hausa/Fulani stock claimed many lives, especially those of officers of the then Eastern Region who were predominantly Igbo. Soon the tension bred by the coup degenerated into a full blown Civil War. Ejoor, more than any other Nigerian suffered from the war, yet his acts of courage and loyalty to Nigeria contributed most to Nigeria surviving the period. His predicament stemmed from being the Governor of the Midwest, a small buffer Region with a substantial population of the aggrieved Igbo ethnicity. His military colleagues in the Midwest with the exception of two were all Igbo. So there was high wire conspiracy to get rid of him. Help was not forthcoming from the Federal Army, and the invading enemy forces overran his base in Benin. He survived three assassination attempts by Igbo officers.
Before and during the early period of the war, Ejoor was the only proponent of one Nigeria among the then four Regional Governors, and military brass hats who saw no need in the continuing existence of Nigeria as one entity. He was a committed Federalist. Ejoor though a brave soldier, played the stabilizer and advocated the peaceful resolution of the crises. He argued in favour of a nation that was indivisible. It was for that that the rebel leader “General” Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu wanted him dead at all cost. The invasion necessitated Ejoor’s flight from Benin the capital of the Midwest.
Ejoor’s escape from Benin, his bicycle ride to Ebor-Orogun, and eventual appearance in Lagos are the stuff military manoeuvres are made of. Yet, it is this act of rare of stratagem that Olusegun Obasanjo had in mind when he referred to General Ejoor as a “bicycle riding fugitive”. It is ironic that Obasanjo, an ordinary road maintenance soldier during the war could make such a disparaging statement about an officer of General Ejoor’s status. Obasanjo probably didn’t fire a shot during the war. When he reluctantly assumed leadership of the 3rd Marine Commando in late 1969, Brigadier Benjamin Maja Adekunle (Black Scorpion) had done all the fighting, and the weary Biafrans were just waiting to surrender. And they did surrender in January 1970. Obasanjo’s military ability couldn’t have earned him a Captaincy, but this is Nigeria. Just be a boy boy to a section of the country, and you get crowned as Head of State, albeit lame duck. You can get sprung from jail and be made President. It is apropos to say that better and braver soldiers than Obasanjo, the likes of Brigadier Ogbemudia, Generals T. Y. Danjuma and Joe Garba had gone on to adulate General Ejoor as an officer and gentleman of the highest mettle.
The Biafran invasion of the Midwest also meant the loss of Ejoor’s post as Governor. But short and tempestuous as his tenure was, he left footprints that are associated with visionary leaders. He set the tone for the making of the Midwest into the most advanced enclave in all of Africa. The strides recorded by his successor, Brigadier Samuel Ogbemudia were derived from the template put in place by Ejoor. But this is hardly acknowledged. How many people know that it was Ejoor who established the first radio broadcasting station in Benin? Who still remembers that it was Ejoor who began the process that gave birth to the once famous Nigerian Observer, or that he was the one who took the decisive steps which metamorphosed into today’s University of Benin, Benin City? What about other landmark projects like the Delta Steel Company, Ovwian-Aladja, the Petroleum Training Institute, Effurun, and the Refinery at Ekpan, all of which he envisioned and inspired?
Ejoor arrived in Lagos on the blaze of military glory in 1967. He became a Director at the Army headquarters and was later assigned the task of getting France, America and India to support the Federal Government during the war. By 1968, he assumed duties as the first Nigerian Commandant of the Nigerian Defence Academy, Kaduna. Ejoor was saddled with the responsibility of training young officers who will help in prosecuting the war. These young officers went on to distinguish themselves as junior war commanders. Many of those who became Generals, Admirals, and Air Marshals from the late 1980s on were the boys who went through military tutelage at the feet of General Ejoor.
Ejoor attained Generalcy on 1st of May 1971. He was between, July and December 1971, at the Royal College of Defence Studies in the United Kingdom where he obtained the military equivalent of a PhD. He reached the apogee of military career when he was appointed as Chief of Army Staff (then known as Chief of Staff Army) in January 1972. As Nigeria’s Army Chief, Ejoor did so much to reshape the military to fit into the nation’s post-war aspiration. He spearheaded the rehabilitation of the Igbo and ensured that their soldiers who fought on the rebel side were not court marshaled. He set about a general reorganization of the Army; building of barracks, welfare, uniforms, resettlement, discipline, among others. In spite of resentment by Northern soldiers who felt the headship of the Army was their birthright, General Ejoor soldiered on and did a great job of restructuring the Nigerian Army.
He enjoyed the confidence and respect of many, especially the then Head of State, General Yakubu Gowon who was his junior at Sandhurst. By 1975, some officers felt Gowon’s regime had become rudderless and concluded that it was time to shove it aside. Ejoor told Gowon about the impending putsch and his intention to quell it. He even decided to call off his vacation, the first he was to have in ten years, so he could deal with the plotters. But Gowon was probably fed up after being on the saddle as Head of State for nine years, and seeing Nigeria through a bloody war as a youth. He didn’t want further bloodshed. He knew the plotters very well; Murtala Muhammed, T. Y. Danjuma and his own major domo, Joe Garba, the same masterminds of the July 1966 mutiny that enthroned him. He ordered Ejoor to go on vacation. Gowon himself flew out to Kampala for a meeting of African Heads of States. That was his last as Nigeria’s ruler. He was toppled on the 29th of July 1975, the ninth anniversary of the coup that brought him to power.
The fall of Gowon also meant the end of General David Akpode Ejoor’s remarkable military career. He was just 43! Ejoor retired to civvy street and pursued a life of quietude contributing to community and nation building. He was for a brief period the President-General of the Urhobo Progress Union, Nigeria’s oldest socio-cultural organization whose proscription he prevented in 1966. President Shehu Shagari invited General Ejoor to draft a Defence policy for Nigeria in 1982. His submission regarding a Two-party system was adopted by the S. J. Cookey Political Bureau which midwifed the Babangida transition. He has received two national honours, Order of the Federal Republic (OFR) and Grand Commander of the Niger (GCON). Ejoor’s military distinction has not gone unrecognized internationally. The governments of Togo, Sudan, Senegal and Belgium have at one point or the other conferred national honours on him. General Ejoor, a husband, father, grand-father, and probably a great grand- father now is also the author of two books, one of which is Reminiscences which presents the most altruistic and authentic account of the Nigerian crisis from 1966 to 1970.WHEN on the 10th of January 1932, the cry of a new born was heard in pristine Ovu, I doubt if anybody living there at that time had heard of petrol, how much less today’s buzz expression, petrol subsidy. Ovu was then a paradisal jungle. Her neighbours; Kokori, Okpara, and Okurekpo, were also enshrouded by the same primeval forest which in our imagination bespeaks humanity’s primal beginning. Life in these Urhobo communities as in many others in Nigeria at that time must have been primitive bliss which was later ruptured by the encroachment of colonialism. The world around that new born was calm, the air was fresh, the streams held water that sustained the indigenes who ate what they farmed and farmed what they ate. There were neither kidnappers nor suicide bombers. Life was ideal to the point of being romantic.
That baby is now a grand old man as he enters his eight decade on earth. The universe of that infant now an oldie has changed drastically. Instead of the lulling serenity that welcomed him to the world eighty years ago, it is an unnerving din and chaos that heralded his entry into the octogenarian circle. All around this grand old man are symptoms of a nation that has lost its soul and spinning disastrously. The mellowness, the sense of history and philosophical disposition that come with age would make this grand old man ask not a few questions regarding how the Nigeria he served with all his strength, intelligence, zeal and more came to this abysmally sorry cul-de-sac. He would be wondering about what happened to the country whose unity he sacrificed so much to defend.
As my fingers jam the keyboard to get out this tribute my attention is constantly drawn to Channels Television as it airs the raging debate and nationwide protests against the removal of petroleum subsidy. It is in this uncertain ambience that Olorogun General David Akpode Ejoor (Rtd) GCON, OFR, LLD, the baby that was born on that beatific morning in 1932 at Ovu, now in Ethiope East Local Government Area of Delta State, attained the grand old age of eighty. General Ejoor was born of Olomu and Orogun parentage. An exempler of Urhobo intelligence, industry and foresight, the young Ejoor braved daunting odds by trekking endless miles to go to Primary School which eventually led him to the portals of the acclaimed Government College Ughelli (GCU) in January 1948.
Ejoor was very outstanding at GCU where he won a scholarship that saw him through. He also gained coveted spurs as a school prefect and athlete quite early. His Principal at GCU was the legendary V. B. Powell who described him on graduating in 1953 as “a thoroughly nice boy in the best sense…” Ejoor’s ambition of proceeding to the then University College Ibadan was truncated by pecuniary constraints. After a brief stint with the Customs, he took the entrance examination to join the Army. Ejoor was the only successful lad among the eleven who took the quiz at the Enugu centre. The next stage of the recruitment exercise in Lagos featured seventeen aspiring cadets. Six of them passed and David Ejoor was one. Of the six, four were from the ranks, only Ejoor and Victor Banjo were civilians. Both of them made history as the first Nigerian officer cadets to get Regular Commission into the Nigerian Army in the process of Nigerianizing the officer corps in the early 1950s.
Early military training took him from Nigeria through Ghana, then to Eaton Hall in the United Kingdom. He finally made it to the prestigious Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst. The training at Sandhurst was rigorous and certainly not for the faint hearted, but David Ejoor was David Ejoor; stout hearted, diligent, persevering, and mercurial. Beside his highly commendable military ability, his outstanding performance in sports earned him laurels including a black belt in Judo, and representing Sandhurst at the French Military Academy in 1955 and 1956.
Ejoor graduated from Sandhurst in July 1956, and returned to Nigeria on 2nd January 1957 as a Lieutenant. After serving in Kaduna and Ibadan between 1957 and 1959, the lot of securing Nigeria’s border with Cameroon fell on the young officer. However, the attainment of independence in 1960 turned out to be memorable for Ejoor who had become a Captain as he had the historic fortune of commanding the Army Guard at the dawn of independence on 1st October 1960. That event foreshadowed the significant roles Ejoor was to play in the survival of Nigeria. Ejoor was on the United Nations Peace Keeping Force in the Congo from December 1960 to July 1961 where his brilliant military exploits earned him commendation and promotion to the rank of Major. On returning to Nigeria he again had another rare privilege of designing the Nigerian Army cap badge and rank insignias.
The turning point in Ejoor’s career took place on 15th January 1966 when a military coup, the first in Nigeria, swept away the government that took over at independence. Ejoor was then a Lieutenant Colonel and Commander of the Army Battalion in Enugu. He was in the forefront of the offensive that foiled the coup. However, the civilian government still collapsed, and military rule was enthroned. Fate saw David Ejoor being appointed as the Military Governor of the then Midwest Region, by virtue of which he became a member of the Supreme Military Council (SMC), the nation’s highest ruling body. One of his first acts of statesmanship was to restore the unlawfully deposed Olu of Warri to his throne; an act that the Itsekiri nation appreciated no end. Ejoor had hardly settled down when the counter coup of July 1966 took place.
The July coup led by Northern soldiers who were mostly of Hausa/Fulani stock claimed many lives, especially those of officers of the then Eastern Region who were predominantly Igbo. Soon the tension bred by the coup degenerated into a full blown Civil War. Ejoor, more than any other Nigerian suffered from the war, yet his acts of courage and loyalty to Nigeria contributed most to Nigeria surviving the period. His predicament stemmed from being the Governor of the Midwest, a small buffer Region with a substantial population of the aggrieved Igbo ethnicity. His military colleagues in the Midwest with the exception of two were all Igbo. So there was high wire conspiracy to get rid of him. Help was not forthcoming from the Federal Army, and the invading enemy forces overran his base in Benin. He survived three assassination attempts by Igbo officers.
Before and during the early period of the war, Ejoor was the only proponent of one Nigeria among the then four Regional Governors, and military brass hats who saw no need in the continuing existence of Nigeria as one entity. He was a committed Federalist. Ejoor though a brave soldier, played the stabilizer and advocated the peaceful resolution of the crises. He argued in favour of a nation that was indivisible. It was for that that the rebel leader “General” Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu wanted him dead at all cost. The invasion necessitated Ejoor’s flight from Benin the capital of the Midwest.
Ejoor’s escape from Benin, his bicycle ride to Ebor-Orogun, and eventual appearance in Lagos are the stuff military manoeuvres are made of. Yet, it is this act of rare of stratagem that Olusegun Obasanjo had in mind when he referred to General Ejoor as a “bicycle riding fugitive”. It is ironic that Obasanjo, an ordinary road maintenance soldier during the war could make such a disparaging statement about an officer of General Ejoor’s status. Obasanjo probably didn’t fire a shot during the war. When he reluctantly assumed leadership of the 3rd Marine Commando in late 1969, Brigadier Benjamin Maja Adekunle (Black Scorpion) had done all the fighting, and the weary Biafrans were just waiting to surrender. And they did surrender in January 1970. Obasanjo’s military ability couldn’t have earned him a Captaincy, but this is Nigeria. Just be a boy boy to a section of the country, and you get crowned as Head of State, albeit lame duck. You can get sprung from jail and be made President. It is apropos to say that better and braver soldiers than Obasanjo, the likes of Brigadier Ogbemudia, Generals T. Y. Danjuma and Joe Garba had gone on to adulate General Ejoor as an officer and gentleman of the highest mettle.
The Biafran invasion of the Midwest also meant the loss of Ejoor’s post as Governor. But short and tempestuous as his tenure was, he left footprints that are associated with visionary leaders. He set the tone for the making of the Midwest into the most advanced enclave in all of Africa. The strides recorded by his successor, Brigadier Samuel Ogbemudia were derived from the template put in place by Ejoor. But this is hardly acknowledged. How many people know that it was Ejoor who established the first radio broadcasting station in Benin? Who still remembers that it was Ejoor who began the process that gave birth to the once famous Nigerian Observer, or that he was the one who took the decisive steps which metamorphosed into today’s University of Benin, Benin City? What about other landmark projects like the Delta Steel Company, Ovwian-Aladja, the Petroleum Training Institute, Effurun, and the Refinery at Ekpan, all of which he envisioned and inspired?
Ejoor arrived in Lagos on the blaze of military glory in 1967. He became a Director at the Army headquarters and was later assigned the task of getting France, America and India to support the Federal Government during the war. By 1968, he assumed duties as the first Nigerian Commandant of the Nigerian Defence Academy, Kaduna. Ejoor was saddled with the responsibility of training young officers who will help in prosecuting the war. These young officers went on to distinguish themselves as junior war commanders. Many of those who became Generals, Admirals, and Air Marshals from the late 1980s on were the boys who went through military tutelage at the feet of General Ejoor.
Ejoor attained Generalcy on 1st of May 1971. He was between, July and December 1971, at the Royal College of Defence Studies in the United Kingdom where he obtained the military equivalent of a PhD. He reached the apogee of military career when he was appointed as Chief of Army Staff (then known as Chief of Staff Army) in January 1972. As Nigeria’s Army Chief, Ejoor did so much to reshape the military to fit into the nation’s post-war aspiration. He spearheaded the rehabilitation of the Igbo and ensured that their soldiers who fought on the rebel side were not court marshaled. He set about a general reorganization of the Army; building of barracks, welfare, uniforms, resettlement, discipline, among others. In spite of resentment by Northern soldiers who felt the headship of the Army was their birthright, General Ejoor soldiered on and did a great job of restructuring the Nigerian Army.
He enjoyed the confidence and respect of many, especially the then Head of State, General Yakubu Gowon who was his junior at Sandhurst. By 1975, some officers felt Gowon’s regime had become rudderless and concluded that it was time to shove it aside. Ejoor told Gowon about the impending putsch and his intention to quell it. He even decided to call off his vacation, the first he was to have in ten years, so he could deal with the plotters. But Gowon was probably fed up after being on the saddle as Head of State for nine years, and seeing Nigeria through a bloody war as a youth. He didn’t want further bloodshed. He knew the plotters very well; Murtala Muhammed, T. Y. Danjuma and his own major domo, Joe Garba, the same masterminds of the July 1966 mutiny that enthroned him. He ordered Ejoor to go on vacation. Gowon himself flew out to Kampala for a meeting of African Heads of States. That was his last as Nigeria’s ruler. He was toppled on the 29th of July 1975, the ninth anniversary of the coup that brought him to power.
The fall of Gowon also meant the end of General David Akpode Ejoor’s remarkable military career. He was just 43! Ejoor retired to civvy street and pursued a life of quietude contributing to community and nation building. He was for a brief period the President-General of the Urhobo Progress Union, Nigeria’s oldest socio-cultural organization whose proscription he prevented in 1966. President Shehu Shagari invited General Ejoor to draft a Defence policy for Nigeria in 1982. His submission regarding a Two-party system was adopted by the S. J. Cookey Political Bureau which midwifed the Babangida transition. He has received two national honours, Order of the Federal Republic (OFR) and Grand Commander of the Niger (GCON). Ejoor’s military distinction has not gone unrecognized internationally. The governments of Togo, Sudan, Senegal and Belgium have at one point or the other conferred national honours on him. General Ejoor, a husband, father, grand-father, and probably a great grand- father now is also the author of two books, one of which is Reminiscences which presents the most altruistic and authentic account of the Nigerian crisis from 1966 to 1970.
Ejoor is honest to a fault. He neither stole government money nor oil blocs like some pot bellied generals. Nigeria would have realized her great potentials as a great country had.
Ejoor’s colleagues been imbued with his altruism. Let Nigeria rise in salute to this distinguished General the Olorogun, the tested Generalissimo, Ogbofovwinrode, Adjerese, Oruerakpo, Uhoho! Kukpe kukpe amre egodi…iseeee….
RIP to the great general.
1932- 2019
Today is his Burial.
#allformilitaryhistory
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