THE ENCOUNTER BETWEEN COL. BEN GBULIE AND COL. JOE ACHUZIA

THE ENCOUNTER BETWEEN COL. BEN GBULIE AND COL. JOE ACHUZIA

THE ENCOUNTER BETWEEN COL. BEN GBULIE AND COL. JOE ACHUZIA

Biafra was about to surrender officially with Gen. Ojukwu, Gen. Madiebo, N.U Akpan and a few other leaders already out of Biafra in search of peace in Cote d’ Ivoire, Col. Ben Gbulie had a frustrating experience with Col. Joe Achuzia.

At Amichi, Gen. Efiong and some Biafran leaders were mulling over the best way to craft the surrender document without sounding slavish. It was then it dawned on him(Gbulie) of the need for his safety.

Three things influenced Gbulie’s thinking towards escape. One, the disappearance of his colleague in the January 1966 coup, Col. Timothy Onwuatuegwu. Onwuatuegwu dropped out of sight and was said to have escaped to the Camerounian border. Two, the rumour bruited by Lagos about some “traitorous” attitude of some officers across the lordly River Niger. The Biafran invasion of the Midwest was blamed on these officers. Three and perhaps the greatest of the reasons, was the fate that awaited officers like Gbulie and co who masterminded the January “66 coup.

With these, Gbulie made plans to flee Biafra through Uga Airport which at the time was still under Biafran control. He met General Efiong at Amichi where he sought his permission to leave Biafra alongside his colleagues in the January putsch.

“He granted this double-barrelled entreaty of mine without any hesitation on his part – at the same time voicing a shrewd suspicion that, fired with lust of conquest, the triumphant Federal troops might indeed succumb to the temptation to parade those of us most likely to be top on the list of wanted men before a firing squad….”

But this journey was aborted by the fact of Col. Achuzia’s order against planes flying in and out of Biafra. He went further to say that Achuzia planted troops within the Uga vicinity to shoot down any plane landing at or flying out of the airport.
“The heartless fellow( Achuzia) had, for some insane reason, physically planted puppet troops in close vicinity to the Uga airfield, with express orders not only to shoot down any relief-carrying aircraft hovering over the area with a view to effecting a landing, but also to stop any planes already on the tarmac from taking off”.

Consequently, he confronted Achuzia, expecting him to apologize for the no-fly -order but was disappointed. Achuzia did not only own up to the order, he told Gbulie that he had taken overall control of the remnant of the Biafran army and that he had “issued specific instructions to the effect that nobody, not even his expatriate wife, residing very close to Uga should be allowed to leave the country…”.