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
