Lt. Colonel Chris Ugokwe (left) and Brigadier Muhammadu Buhari were captured together ...
Both men joined the Nigerian Army in the early 1960s (Ugokwe claimed that he enrolled on the same day as both Buhari and Shehu Musa Yar'Adua). Ugokwe was officially put on army leave after the "reprisal coup" of July 1966. His escape from the North which had become unsafe for officers and people of Eastern Region origin was facilitated by Lt. Colonel Hassan Usman Katsina, the governor of the Northern province to whom he was serving as aide-de-camp. In September 1966, Ugokwe was escorted to Kaduna Railway station by Ibrahim Babangida and Garba Duba before embarking on his journey to the Eastern Region. Ugokwe fought on the side of the secessionist state of Biafra between 1967 and 1970 as a brigade commander. He was reabsorbed into the Nigerian Army after the civil war with a loss of seniority. He was significantly involved in two prominent military operations after his reabsorption into the Nigerian military. As a Major, he was instrumental in flushing out dissident sold...