By Celestine Okafor (Editor-in-Chief)
Nonagenarian wife of Nigeria's first military leader, Ezenwanyi Chief (Mrs). Victoria Aguiyi-Ironsi, is dead. She was 97-years and nine months. She would have turned 98-years this November.
The wife of the former Head of State, late General Johnson Thomas Umunnakwe Aguiyi Ironsi, reportedly died peacefully on Monday morning August 23, 2021, at her residence in Ndume, Ibeku, in Umuahia, Abia state.
Her husband, General JTU Aguiyi Ironsi became Nigeria's first military leader after the first revolutionary military coup of January 15, 1966 organised by some young military officers from the then three regional blocks of Nigeria with late Major Chukwuma Kaduna Nzeogwu, from Okpanam, Delta State, South South Nigeria, as their arrow head coordinator of that bloody military psutch.
General Ironsi, a former Nigeria's Defense Adviser to the United Kingdom, however reigned as the Supreme Commander of the National Military Government for only six months before he was gruesomely killed at midnight in Ibadan, Oyo State while on a State visit, in a counter military coup of July 29, 1966, allegedly planned by some group of military officers of northern extraction in a suspected revenge military action. Ironsi died along with his host, Col. Adekunle Fajuyi, who was the military Governor of old Western Region at the time.
The January 15, 1966 bloody coup however claimed the lives of some northern and southern Nigeria army officers and political leaders like the former Prime Minister of Nigeria, Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa; the ex-Premier of Northern region and Sardauna of Sokoto, Alhaji Ahmed Bello and Chief Samuel Ladoke Akintola, the former Premier of the old Western Region, among some other victims of the coup.
The unexpected assassination of her husband, General Aguiyi Ironsi, however, thrusted the burdensome of sole responsibility of raising their eight children (2 boys and 6 girls) who were very young at the time of the unfortunate incident in Nigeria's national history on Chief Mrs. Victoria Aguiyi-Ironsi.
Though equally a young woman at the time, aged 42-years, Mrs Ironsi, who her late husband describes as his adorable "jewel", did not bother to re-marry. Instead, she summoned the willful courage to overcome her grief and trudged on with life and with raising her children, some of who grew up afterwards to play pivotal roles in the running of the affairs of Nigeria in government.
She is survived by her children, many grand children and some great grand children. Among her illustrious offsprings are the former Minister of State for Defense in the Olusegun Obasanjo administration, Ambassador Thomas Ikeokwuadighim Aguiyi Ironsi who was only 18-years old at the time of his father's death and his only brother, late John Aguiyi Ironsi.
Others are Caroline, Louisa, Jane (a Ph.D holder in Law); Fo (a former director in the Federal Ministry of Health); Angela and Anne. Mrs Vicky Ironsi's grand children includes Ms Suzan Aguiyi Ironsi, seasoned journalist like her aunt, Louisa. NNL.