OJUKWU LED 1966 COUP

Press, Volume CVII, Issue 31381, 29 May 1967, Page 13

OJUKWU LED 1966 COUP

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter—Copyright)

ENUGU, May 28.

Lieutenant-Colonel Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu, who was educated at Oxford, became the military governor of Eastern Nigeria after the military coup of January 15, 1966, which overthrew the Federal Nigerian Government

Before the coup, Colonel Ojukwu commanded the Sth Battalion of the Nigerian Army in Kano, Northern Nigeria. He reached this rank in seven years.

Previously, he had served in the Eastern Nigerian public service soon after returning from Britain, where he had graduated bachelor of arts in 1955.

After a year’s course at two military institutions in Britain and a term at the Royal West African Frontier Force training school in Ghana, where he taught officer cadets

tactiqs and military law, Colonel Ojukwu returned to Nigeria to hold several military posts. He was promoted to major in 1961 and posted to Kaduna, Northern Nigeria, where he was deputy assistant adjutant and quartermaster-general. Soon after, he went to the Congo with the United Nations peace-keeping programme and served in Luluaburg in Kasai province. He

was selected to attend the Joint Services Staff College in England in 1962. Returning to Nigeria at the end of 1962, he was promoted lieutenant-colonel in January, 1963, and appointed quarter-master-general. A year later he was in command of the sth Battalion in Kano.