PM News
It is exactly 56 years today that Lt Col Francis Adekunle Fajuyi, Military Governor of Western Region, was killed in a revenge coup, led by Theophilus Danjuma, Joe Garba and others. Fajuyi lost his life along with General Aguiyi Ironsi, the Head of State in Ibadan.
Apart from his efforts at reconstruction in the West (after the Operation Wetie crisis), Fajuyi and officers like him then will forever be remembered for their integrity. As a reporter with Tempo, my editors sent me to interview Fajuyi’s wife, the late Eunice, in Ado Ekiti, the Ekiti State capital
That day, the woman had been granted countless interviews and was tired of another. But this reporter persisted and, like a desperate news hound, told her in Ado-Ekiti dialect: “Omo Ado ni mei ha, (I am from this town mama).”
She smiled and greeted me, okun kee momi (my son, you are welcome). That day, she granted an interview and gave this reporter a book gift, the biography of Fajuyi, entitled, A Great Hero, written by Prince A.G.A Ladigbolu.
The visit provided an opportunity for the reporter to see the building the woman lived in.
The woman who, out of love for the husband, refused to marry after his death, lived in a one-storey structure (with a staircase and the first floor made of planks, not concrete). As you moved, your steps would make sounds, reverberating everywhere. That was the only house built by the late soldier; he had no bank accounts in Switzerland or those remote Islands in the West Indies like the current pot-bellied brass hats…
This writer also experienced the same shock in Umuahuia, Abia State capital when he met Ironsi’s late wife, Victoria. Orji Uzor Kalu was still the governor.
“Is this the bungalow your husband left for you?” the reporter asked.
“Yes oh, my son,” she replied. “During my husband’s time, senior army officers did not steal money…
