By
Andy Ezeani
The family of Late Brigadier Samuel Adesujo Ademulegun is making a straight-forward plea to the Nigerian government.
Brigadier Ademulegun was in the early batch of Nigerian soldiers. Born in 1924 in Owo, Ondo State, he holds the registration number N3 in the Nigerian Army, coming on the heels of Brigadier Wellington Bassey (N1) and General Johnson Aguiyi Ironsi (N2). Trained at Sandhurst Military Academy in the United Kingdom as the early officers of the Nigerian military did, Ademulegun served in various assignments such as Burma and Congo among others.
As at 1966, six years after the Nigerian independence, Ademulegun was at the First Brigade of the Nigerian Army, Kaduna as the Commanding Officer. He was in the prime of his career in independent] Nigeria and the future looked very promising. Then, it burst.
Nigeria was a young sovereign country, but her politicians were already deep into divisive politics that had foisted political crisis on the land. On the fateful night of January 15,1966, Ademulegun, having done with the work of the day retired to the comfort of his home in an elite area of Kaduna. His wife, Latifat was eight months pregnant.
What happened soon could not have been written by any thriller writer. Over a dozen soldiers, led by Major Timothy Onwuatuegwu, a friend of the Ademuleguns and others the Brigadier recognized, shattered the peace of the night and burst into the bedroom of the Commanding Officer. He was in shorts. Unknown to Brigadier Ademulegun, the first coup d’état in Nigeria had commenced. When he found heavily armed soldiers in his bedroom, his first reported comment was a question to the leader of the invading troop; what are you doing here?
The mission of the troop was clear to them. They needed the keys of the armoury. It was a matter of choice. For the Commanding Officer, the options were dire. In fact, there was no option. He knew he would not comply to the demand.
His heavily pregnant wife, Latifat, who was also on their bed when the soldier intruded in their privacy, equally knew the leaders of the troop. She obviously underestimated the danger at hand. He inserted herself between her husband and Major Onwuatuegwu and his team. Her attempt must have been to appeal to sentiment. She was heavily pregnant and also knew a number of those soldiers. In fact, some were close enough that they eat at the home of the Ademuleguns when they come on a social visit. In the heat of a coup d’état, such relationship counts for nothing. Unfortunately, Latifat Ademulegun did not live to note that. As he husband made to move, perhaps to draw his service weapon, the Onwuatuegwu team rained bullet on the woman standing between them and her husband. Next, followed the Brigadier. The blood of the couple ran all over their bedroom, a matrimonial enclave that had seemed so peaceful just minutes back.
The horror of the killing of Brigadier Samuel Ademulegun and his wife, played out before their six-year-old daughter, Solape, who was also in the room. Her younger brother, Adegoke, barely four years, was sleeping in a cot in the bedroom also. Another child of the couple,13-year-old Bankole, who was home on holiday was in an adjoining room when he heard the commotion. When he came out and saw armed soldiers at his parents’ bedroom, he simply ran back.
Brigadier Samuel Ademulegun and his wife counted among those who lost their lives in the night of January 15,1966, a night of horror that eventually culminated in a national crisis that claimed millions of lives. The Number 3 officer in the Nigerian Army lost his life because he refused to surrender the keys to the armoury. To him, service to country came above his personal safety.
In the morning after Brigadier Ademulegun and his wife were killed, a military vehicle came over to their residence and took away their bodies. That was the last their children saw of them.
As for their six children, that was the beginning of a life they could not have imagined. A life of uncertainty and living at the mercy of friends and relations of their parents. By God’s grace the six children later grew to stand on their feet. The first of the children even joined the Airforce and retired as a Group Captain before he died. Two other of them have also departed, leaving behind three.
January 15,2026 is the 60th anniversary of the killing of Brigadier Samuel Ademulegun, the first Commanding officer of the First Brigade of the Nigerian Army Kaduna. Sixty years down a harrowing life lived with a nightmare that never went away, the family of the late Brigadier is pleading with the Nigerian State, especially the Armed Forces to kindly show them where their parents were buried. A Brigadier and Commanding Officer who died protecting the country could not have been discarded just like that. The Ademuleguns have made several efforts to get an answer to the single question that has agitated their mind for long; Where was Brigadier Samuel Ademulegun and his wife, Latifat buried? As Solape Ademulegun-Agbi, the only daughter of the couple asked, is this too much to ask for? Before her six-year-old eyes her parents were killed. Over these decades she cannot even go to their burial ground to honour them because neither her nor her siblings know where they were buried. And they did not die in a war.
Is there no honour in Nigeria for a senior military officer who gave his life for the country? While the remaining children of Brigadier Samuel Ademulegun and his wife still live, all they say they are asking of Nigeria is to help them bring a closure of sorts to this nightmare.
- Andy Ezeani, Veteran Journalist, was Editor of Daily Champion Newspaper
