General Murtala Mohammed: Forty Years On- By Femi Fani-Kayode
Of all the former Heads of State and leaders in our country I admire him the most. His courage, focus, brazenness, righteous anger, strength of character, bellicose nature, passion and ability to take the bull by the horns and do what needed to be done, no matter whose ox was gored and no matter what the consequences were, was exemplary and outstanding.
In those days we were rich, loud and boisterous. We could boast of having Africa's strongest army and her most outstanding and best- educated middle class. We were big, strong and powerful and when Nigeria spoke the world listened. When we sneezed Africa literally caught a cold. When we roared, the world shook. We wielded this great power and influence on the world stage with immense dazzle and razzmatazz. Yet we were also cautious, restrained and deemed as being highly responsible. That is when Nigeria was regarded as the Giant of Africa and rightly so.
Without General Murtala Mohammed the eventual liberation of Angola, Zimbabwe and South Africa would not have been achieved when it was. Though he did not live to see it, he set the ball rolling and he threw down the gauntlet to the western powers and all those that supported racial tyranny and apartheid in the nations of southern Africa.
Some historians have even argued that that is precisely why he was eventually murdered. Yet if that was the motivation for organizing his assassination it did not stop anything because the cat was already out of the bag and his legacy had already been established and taken root.
This is confirmed by the fact that his extraordinary and dynamic foreign policy vis a vis the total liberation of our brother African nations and his unrelenting opposition and resistance to white minority rule in South Africa and Rhodesia (as it then was) continued under the able leadership of his second in command, General Olusegun Obasanjo, after he took over as Head of State on Feb. 14th 1976. The rest is history.
May General Murtala Ramat Mohammed's courageous soul continue to rest in peace and may those that are in power today resurrect his spirit and build on his great legacy.