Southern officers dominated the Supreme Military Council (SMC) yet the North usurped power with little or no challenge. Here is the list:

[list]
[li]Lt Col Adekunle Fajuyi, Military Governor of the Western Region[/li]

[li]Lt Col David Akopde Ejoor, Military Governor of Mid Western Region[/li]

[li]Brigadier B.A.O. Ogundipe, Chief of Staff, Supreme Headquarters[/li]

[li]Commodore JEA Akinwale Wey, head of the Navy[/li]

[li]Lt Col George Kurubo, head of the Air Force[/li]

[li]Lt. Col Yakubu Gowon, Chief of Staff, Army Headquarters[/li]

[li]Lt. Col Hassan Usman Katsina, Military Governor of the Northern Region[/li]

[li]Lt.Col Odumegwu Ojukwu, Military Governor of the Eastern Region[/li]

[list]

Unfortunately,  only two of them (Fajuyi and Ojukwu) resisted Gowon and his blood-thirsty brothers. The rest chickened out and played safe and allowed a semi-illiterate Northerner to ascend power and entrench the northernisation of the Nigerian Army and the perpetuation of the North as Nigeria’s political overlords in the place of the former British colonialists.

Imagine if Ojukwu's counterparts had insisted that the order of succession be followed? Imagine if the three  southern officers ( particularly the military administrators) had displayed uncommon courage and boldness?
Nigeria's histroy would have been rewritten.

Their action(or inaction) reminds me of Diya(a whole General) - another southern soldier - grovelling before Mustapha(an ordinary Major) - another Northern soldier - during the alleged coup against a Abacha.

I give it to muslim Northern soldiers. They undestand the violent concept of power.

(See Ojukwu was sent to expose Nigeria (1)/By Ochereome Nnanna/Vanguard/Dec. 1, 2011)


Lesson: You either pay the cheaper price of courage now and liberate your unborn generation or pay a steeper price of cowardice in future

The South had more senior officers, but the north dominated the other ranks.