Memories of Brigadier Musa Usman

There is a popular song regularly played on Radio Kaduna in the mid-1970s, when we were school boys, but which still rings in my ears. It was, “Birgediya Musa Usman!” I cannot even remember who the singer was. In the mid-1970s, when the peanut farmer and hardly known Governor of Georgia State, Jimmy Carter, began a long-shot run for US President, many Americans asked, “Jimmy Who?” Today, many young Nigerian folks will look at this article’s headline and ask, “Brigadier Who?”

Brigadier Musa Usman, in case you never heard of him. One young lad may even ask me, “You mean Brigadier General?” No, sir. Before, during the Civil War and for many years after, we didn’t have Brigadier Generals in Nigeria; only plain Brigadiers. There were quite a few of them then, including Brigadier Hassan Usman Katsina, first and last military governor of Northern Nigeria and later Army Chief. Many state military governors of the Yakubu Gowon era were also Brigadiers, including Mobolaji Johnson [Lagos], Abba Kyari [North Central], Oluwole Rotimi [Western State], Samuel Ogbemudia [Mid-Western State], Udo Jacob Esuene [South Eastern State], Theophilus Bamigboye [West Central, later renamed Kwara State], as well as Musa Usman. Three others were policemen [Usman Faruk of North West, Audu Bako of Kano and Joseph Gomwalk of Benue Plateau]; one was a Naval officer [Alfred Diete-Spiff of Rivers] and one, Ukpabi Asika of East Central State, was a civilian.

If young folks do not remember Brigadier Musa Usman, it must be due to effluxion of time and also the banishing of History from the school syllabus. Musa Usman, born in Enugu in 1940, became Military Governor of the huge North Eastern State, one fifth of Nigeria, 59 years ago. He ceased to be a Military Governor when the Gowon regime was overthrown 51 years ago, and he passed away in Kaduna 35 years ago. It was therefore highly welcome when his family decided to have a book written on their late father, and they drafted me as co-author. It appeared to be difficult because most of his contemporaries are gone. Of the Gowon era’s eleven military governors and one civilian Administrator, only Alfred Diete-Spiff of Rivers is still living today. Luckily however, their boss, General Yakubu Gowon is still alive and he graciously provided a rich insight into his old subordinate.

Also available to provide rich insights are former Head of State Abdulsalami Abubakar, who served under Usman when the latter was Commander of Nigeria Airforce Base in Kaduna in 1966. Then there was Usman’s ADC, retired Group Capt. Murtala Salami; his Principal Private Secretary, Alhaji Adamu Aliyu; his Commissioner of Finance, Adamu Wazirin Fika [now deceased]; his brother-in-law, General Ike Nwachukwu, and Usman’s widow, Hajiya Chioma Jummai Usman, herself a retired permanent secretary in Kaduna State.

When Theophilus Abbah and I started work on the book,

I initially wondered where the material will come from, given that too much historical, administrative and military water has passed under the Nigerian bridge. Beginning from the serial split of Usman’s old domain; a year after he left Maiduguri, his state was carved into three, Borno, Bauchi and Gongola. Fifteen years later, Yobe and Taraba were carved out of it, and five years later, Gombe was carved out of Bauchi. A territory that Musa Usman once ruled from one Government House, now has six.

We sent researchers to dig into the State Library in Maiduguri. Luckily, civil servants of old were meticulous record keepers. There we found all of Musa Usman’s speeches at program launches and project commissionings, his annual budget speeches, and his long speeches at the launch of the Second and Third National Development Plans, all well preserved.

Another rich source of material was the archives of New Nigerian Newspapers. The then six Northern states inherited the newspaper from the Northern Nigerian Government. They apparently run it well, and in return activities of the region’s six military governors were copiously reported on its pages. Musa Usman’s activities were well covered on its pages, and our researchers photocopied every mention of him, including photographs, which filled many files. Then there were the family members, as well as the boss, remaining colleagues and former subordinates to fill the story gaps. The resultant book is being launched today in Abuja.

Brigadier Musa Usman’s relatively short life of only five decades was nevertheless a study in the rich complexity of Nigeria’s history, ethnic mix, formation of the colonial army and its subsequent development into the Nigerian Army, the tumultuous events of the mid 1960s, the epic struggle for the take off and development of the new states as well as the events of the mid-1970s and his subsequent personal travails.

Usman’s family history is deeply rooted in the old Kanem Borno Empire, which British, German and French colonial powers serially split among themselves. His father, Usman Kakagida, a Kanuri man of Chadian ancestry, was born in Maiduguri, joined the colonial West African Frontier Force in the 1930s, was stationed at Ankpa and married Musa Usman’s mother, who was Igala, in 1938.

So when Musa Usman, who was born in 1940, enrolled in Boys’ Company [later renamed Nigeria Military School], Zaria in 1954 and became its Senior Prefect, he was only following in his father’s footsteps. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, he received the best military training at Regular Officers Training School, Teshie, Ghana; Mons Officers Cadet School, Aldershot, UK and Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst. Ask old soldiers what all that means.

He was a staff officer in the epic Nigerian contingent that was part of the United Nations Peace Keeping Force during the Congo crisis in the early 1960s, did further infantry training at Fort Benning, USA, and was one of the Army officers that was drafted to form the nucleus officer corps of Nigerian Air Force in 1966, where he became head of NAF station in Kaduna. In 1965, Musa Usman continued his family’s tradition of inter-ethnic mix when he married Chioma Jummai, herself of Abia Igbo father and Katsina Fulani mother, sister of General Ike Nwachukwu.

In May 1967, only 27 years old, Usman was appointed Military Governor of North Eastern State and member of the Supreme Military Council, alongside Service Chiefs and other military governors. Talk about Gen A careers.

Musa Usman’s lasting imprints in all sectors of the North East in the next eight years are well documented in the book, including the road networks,  irrigation projects, housing projects, the state secretariat [since renamed Musa Usman Secretariat], Ashaka Cement factory, expansion of Yankari Game Reserve, North East College of Arts and Science, which became University of Maiduguri; Government Technical College, Maiduguri [which became Ramat Polytechnic]; Savannah Sugar Company, Numan;  Maiduguri Airport; and numerous other schools and health projects that all bore his huge imprints.

As General Gowon testified, Musa Usman undertook many international assignments on his behalf, especially to do with neighbouring countries during the Civil War, and also in establishing the epic Chad Basin Agricultural Project. General Gowon, who appointed him Military Governor, said Usman had been recommended by the Air Force for the appointment but he personally knew him as “young, very bright, very capable and had a good record in his confidential report.” He also knew his record at Sandhurst, and Gowon was Adjutant General in 1965 when he selected Usman for posting to the Air Force.

Former Head of State General Abdulsalami Abubakar was a cadet at Nigeria Air Force base in Kaduna when Musa Usman, then a Major, arrived as Commandant. On one occasion, Usman locked up the future Head of State when, as Duty Cadet, Abdulsalami abandoned his post and went into town due, the General now says, “to youthful exuberance.” He said Usman restored discipline to the base because prior to his coming, Air Force cadets gave a lot of trouble to NCOs drafted from the Army.

There were also interesting testimonies from Major General I.B.M. Haruna, together with whom Usman was recruited into Boys Company, Zaria in 1954. From former Chief of Air Staff Air Marshal Abdullahi Dominic Bello, who told of the unrest at Kaduna Air Force base following the January 1966 coup and the detention of its senior officers, including the Commander, Col. Jacob Esuene, and how Musa Usman was brought in and he speedily restored order. From Major General John Obada, former ADC to First Republic President Nnamdi Azikiwe, Musa Usman’s mate at Sandhurst and best man at his wedding. Obada also succeeded him as Commander of the Air Force base, and had to move Usman’s family to safety when a Biafran plane dropped a bomb at the air base. And by Major General Ike Nwachukwu, Musa Usman’s brother-in-law, who told of how his string of military officer friends in 1961, including Musa Usman, made him to abandon his career as a newspaper reporter and join the Army.

Also a rich account by veteran journalist Dan Agbese, who in 1967 was sent by his Editor at New Nigerian, Adamu Ciroma, to interview all six military governors of the Northern states. By Wazirin Fika, his Commissioner of Finance, who told of Usman’s central role in the Interim Common Services Agency [ICSA] and in getting Ahmadu Bello University [ABU], Zaria to establish the School of Basic Studies [SBS]. By former civilian Governor of Borno State Muhammadu Goni, who spoke of how and why Musa Usman moved the state’s capital from Bauchi to Maiduguri. And by his ADC, Group Captain Murtala Salami, who said Musa Usman’s only property was a house he bought in Kaduna with a loan from Union Bank, which the government seized and later returned.

Brigadier Musa Usman’s widow, Hajiya Chioma Jummai Usman, narrated how she met him in Lagos in 1962, when he was a Second Lieutenant just back from the Congo. At their wedding in 1965, she listed the cream of top military officers that attended, including Major General Adeyinka Adebayo, Colonel Kur Mohamed and Colonel Arthur Unegbu, who presided. The marriage itself and the wedding gathering were a reflection of what Nigeria was at the time, before things fell apart a few months later in January 1966.