I spent more than an hour this morning listening to Edmund Obilo’s interview with Col. Victor Banjo’s daughter, Prof. Oluyinka Omigbodun. As she narrated her father’s life — his brilliance, his courage, his idealism — what leapt out at me was the gaping, almost tragic strain of naïveté that ran through his story. It was alarming. And it stirred something deeply personal.
Because with all sense of humility, I saw in Banjo, Nzeogwu, Ifeajuna, Ademola Adegboyega and the others a reflection of myself and of the young men and women with whom I walked through the University of Ife — and later marched into the battlefield of guerrilla journalism. Had we chosen soldiering instead of journalism, some of us might have ended like those brilliant officers: consumed by our idealism, undone by our misreading of power, punished for believing too deeply in the purity of our intentions.
For every Banjo in the barracks, there were Banjo-like souls in the newsroom and on the streets — young idealists convinced that exposing injustice would automatically produce justice, that speaking truth would automatically provoke reform, that courage and clarity were enough to change a nation. We too carried brilliance and naïveté in the same pocket.
I recognize that dangerous blend because I have lived it. I recognize it even in my political career and support for people seeking power and offices at different levels
I have studied these men for decades — Chukwuma Kaduna Nzeogwu, Emmanuel Ifeajuna, Adewale
Ademoyega, Victor Banjo and their cohort. They were brilliant, courageous, revolutionary, and sincerely patriotic. But running through their stories, like a quiet but persistent fault line, is a profound naïveté. It is one of our nation’s great ironies: how men so gifted, so bold, and so aflame with purpose could so disastrously misread the political terrain they sought to reform.
The paradox is not uniquely Nigerian. Che Guevara — another brilliant, self-sacrificing revolutionary — fell to the same flaw. He believed that moral purity could defeat geopolitical complexity; that charisma could conquer entrenched interests; that once the spark of revolution was lit, ordinary people would simply rise and follow. His brilliance fed his courage — and fed his naïveté too.
Like Guevara, the young officers of 1966 believed that vision, sincerity, and willpower alone could bend history. They were wrong.
The Seductive Trap of Brilliance
Brilliance, on its own, is a seductively dangerous thing.
It creates the illusion that because one sees possibilities clearly, others will see them too.
It convinces the gifted that logic will prevail, that noble intentions will translate into noble outcomes, and that society will naturally follow those who mean well.
But history does not obey brilliance.
History obeys power, fear, vested interests, old resentments, and the cultural anxieties that shape human behaviour.
This was the trap into which the January 1966 actors fell.
When Idealism Meets Reality
Nzeogwu believed corruption would vanish once a few men were eliminated.
Ifeajuna thought he could choreograph political chaos like a theatre script.
Banjo — a strategist of rare depth — misjudged timing, misread alliances, and placed too much faith in the rationality of men and the loyalty of friends at moments ruled entirely by fear.
These were not foolish men.
They were exceedingly intelligent.
But intelligence can become a blinding light.
It can illuminate the dream while hiding the pitfalls.
They mistook personal integrity for national consensus.
They assumed that once the door of change was pushed open, the entire house would rearrange itself.
I once believed that too — in my youthful days of guerrilla journalism, when we imagined that one explosive story could topple a dictatorship and rebirth a nation. Life taught us otherwise.
The Uncomfortable Truth
The truth — then and now — is stark:
People, allies and enemies alike, do not act based on what is right.
They act based on what they fear, what they desire, and what they believe protects their own.
This is why excessively brilliant individuals can still be dangerously naïve.
They overestimate logic.
They underestimate emotion.
They assume good intentions are enough.
They fail to grasp the slow, stubborn rhythm of political reality.
A Lesson for Today’s Idealists
Nigeria’s early tragedy was not only a failure of governance — it was a failure of understanding. A failure by brilliant young men to recognise that nation-building demands not only courage and intellect but also patience, political wisdom, timing, and a nuanced reading of society’s anxieties.
And this lesson endures.
Many of our reformers, technocrats, and fiery young idealists still fall into the same trap — believing that clarity of ideas equals readiness of the nation. It does not. Nations do not move at the speed of their brightest minds; they move at the speed of their most complex realities.
The Warning
The story of Nzeogwu, Ifeajuna, Banjo, and Ademoyega is not just a historical episode.
It is a cautionary tale for every generation that longs to remake Nigeria.
Genius is no shield against error.
Courage is no substitute for wisdom.
And patriotism, no matter how fiery, must be tempered with an understanding of people, power, and possibility.
