Was Murtala Ramat Mohammed All That?
 

Daily Independent Online.
Tuesday, February 14, 2006
Nigerians, Nujoma Relive Murtala's Virtues
By Rafiu Ajakaye (Lagos)
and Idris Ahmed (Kano)

Nigerians of diverse culture, religions and callings converged on Lagos on Monday to remember Murtala Muhammed, their "unmatched hero" of Nigerian unity and founder of the African Liberation Project.

Former Namibian President, Sam Nujoma, had his own reminiscences too.
Murtala became Head of State in July 1975 after he staged a coup d'etat against Yakubu Gowon who had ruled the country for nine years.

He led a rather revolutionary regime for six months, assisted by Olusegun Obasanjo, but was assassinated 30 years ago, on February 13, by Buka Suka Dimka who led a coup to oust him.

Murtala was on his way to a Jumat service that Friday afternoon.
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http://odili.net/news/source/2006/feb/14/610.html

COMMENT:

Was Murtala Rammart Mohammed all that, or was he lucky to have been killed when he was? So far, not one of our military heads of state, not even the civilian rulers, has been clean. So I wonder, had he lived longer, would MRM have traversed the same corruption path as did his colleagues! I guess, we shall never know!

I Think He Was All That
 

I'm old enough to remember a few things about his administration and have to say that in my opinion, of all the regimes we've had in Nigeria, his ranks 2nd after the Buhari/Idiagbon regime.
He was a man of principles who led by example, he led a completely transparent life and that largely contributed to his assassination.
He planned on handling power over to a civilian government because he believed that soldiers had no business being in politics.
Obasanjo later implemented that plan among others.
I've heard rumors that he embezzled some money along with the late MKO Abiola and that Nigeria joined the OIC(Organization of Islamic States) during his tenure, but these rumors were never substantiated.

BTW, not all military rulers embezzled money, Idiagbon was clean and that's why he returned to the country from his Hajj pilgrimage even after having being overthrown.

Really? Who paid for his trip to Hajj? Or, maybe he was just too smart to be caught with is hands in the cookie jar!

MRM did not live long enough for his true agenda to materialize! All of dictators behaved commendably at the beginning of their reign of terror, even Abacha!

What killed Murtala Muhammed was his immature approach to America. The dude was threatening to hit America with an oil embargo over her support for Apartheid South Africa, in addition to refusing Henry Kissinger entry into Nigeria. And then he goes to the OAU saying "Africa has come of Age, and will not take instructions from America". Kissinger himself in a recent declssified CIA file dating back to 1976 said efforts should be made either to use the silver bullet, or a full scale American military invasion, should Murtala go ahead with his oil embargo.

This is such an eye opener. Please keep the contributions going!

Another act of his that I could characterized as an atrocity is the wanton layoffs without regards to prevailing conditions at the time. Even though I do admit that we do need a kick in our rears once in a while, but his was getting out of hands!

I heard some people actually committed suicide after being laid off!

The process to register Nigeria into the OIC began with him.

So, he might have been lucky to die when he did!

Or you would have shot him yourself, Agso?

I think he was a man with balls! Do you know that the reason Saddam was kicked out Iraq was because he decided American Dollars weren't good enough for Iragi oil? He wanted to sell in Euro instead!

This thread is so full of rumors that I can't believe it- Uncle sholly in the name of accuracy can u shut down this thread?

nonsense. What is wrong with Nigerians being regsitered in OIC? With the largest number of muslims in Africa? Or dont we belong to the World Council of churches with no economic benefits but IMF commands and world bank loans? Is the Islamic Bank loans from OIC to Nigeria since 99 not over half a billion interest free dollars? Please stay on the point boi

Do you:
Hear nothing, See nothing and Do nothing
too?

then u were supposed to read this: :""You know that children are growing up when they start asking questions that have answers."

Am learning about things dat happened b4 i was born.

You know, Michael, you are beginning to sound very trite!

Do you know the difference between a country's membership in an organization and organization having members in a country?

Nigeria is not a Moslem country, so, what the hell are we doing in that terrorist organization, OIC? And FYI, Nigeria is NOT a member of any other religious organization, except OIC. Just because some Nigerians are member of the World Council of Churches (whatever that is!), does not make Nigeria as a country a member.

While citizens' membership in any organization IS NOT binding on the country as a whole, the country's membership, on the other hand, IS binding on the whole citizens of that country! Can you grasp the difference?

Wrong. A country's membership should be based on the acruable benefits. For all I care Nigeria should withdraw from World Bank and IMF as well as UN and AU - we just pay dues while all those small kids like kenya insult us daily and plot our downfall and we behave around like some big men. What have we gained from IMF? Big debts that just cost us 13 billion chineke dollars! I put it to you that our OIC membership has been beneficial. I put it to you that future membership of organization should be based on benefits not parochial or sectional reasons as you posit. Infact OIC is meant for countries not people- so it is ur own arguement that is trite- and who are you to label an organization terrorist? All these holier than thou attitudes is why many more of what just happened over the cartoons will happen again. useless extremists!

Exactly! So if OIC is meant for countries as you wrote, it then logically follows that I am a citizen of an Islamic country with no future to look forward to other than a bleak future of Islamic terrorism!

And why do decent and honest people refer to anything Islamic as potentially terroristic if it isn't yet so? That's because the Islamists are responsible for over 99% of all the world terrorism today! Those Islamists get ticked off (or is it PISSed off?) easily don't they?

And by the way, before the cartoon incident, before Osama Bin Hiding, before Saddam Insane, before the Iranian looney,... and before there was even a Nigeria, Islamic terrorism dominated the whole existing world!!

The History of Islam is synonymous with terrorism!!! Therefore, there is no doubt in my mind that Islamic terrorism shall continue to dominate the affairs of the world until the Mohammadans are finally crushed. And ironically, they will be crushed, not by America, but by the same Europeans whose citizenry, for the larger part, is now sympathetic to those silly Islamic causes!!

Islam; what a faith!!!