1932Eventinferred
Major General David Akpode Ejoor
Major General David Akpode Ejoor (Rtd) (10 January 1932 – 10 February 2019) was a pioneer officer of the Nigerian Army from Ovu, Ethiope East LGA, Delta State (Urhobo) who served as the first Military
Hall of FamePre-Independence
1932
Major General David Akpode Ejoor
Major General David Akpode Ejoor (Rtd) (10 January 1932 – 10 February 2019) was a pioneer officer of the Nigerian Army from Ovu, Ethiope East LGA, Delta State (Urhobo) who served as the first Military
What happened
Major General David Akpode Ejoor (Rtd) (10 January 1932 – 10 February 2019) was a pioneer officer of the Nigerian Army from Ovu, Ethiope East LGA, Delta State (Urhobo) who served as the first Military Governor of the Mid-Western Region (January 1966 – August 1967), first Nigerian Commandant of the NDA (1969–1971), and Chief of Army Staff (January 1972 – 29 July 1975, ending with the coup that toppled Gowon). He famously escaped the August 1967 Biafran invasion of Benin City on a bicycle after three assassination attempts. Designer of the Nigerian Army cap badge and rank insignias; commanded the army guard at the midnight Independence Day ceremony 1 October 1960. Honoured with OFR and GCON. He was widely regarded as a man of integrity who publicly *defended* Gowon against the 1975 charge that the regime was corrupt. The corpus surfaces **no credible corruption allegation against Ejoor personally** — all four JSON entries are social-media artifacts or sidebar-widget keyword scrapes. Recommend `contextual` for the Delta archive. His governorship of the Mid-Western Region also overlaps with the modern Edo archive and the same `contextual` recommendation should apply there.