Nigerian Civil War - Military Coup

Military Coup

On 15 January 1966, Major Kaduna Nzeogwu and other junior Army officers (mostly majors and captains) attempted a coup d'état. It was generally speculated that the coup had been initiated by the Igbos, and for their own primary benefit, because of the ethnicity of those that were killed. The two major political leaders of the north, The prime Minister, Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa and The Premier of the northern region, Sir Ahmadu Bello were executed by Major Nzeogwu. Also murdered was Sir Ahmadu Bello's wife. Meanwhile, the President, Sir Nnamdi Azikiwe, an Igbo, was on an extended vacation in the West Indies. He did not return until days after the coup. However, evidence exists to the contrary. For example, the coup was not only generally applauded in the Northern region, it was most successful there. The fact that only one Igbo officer, Lt Col Arthur Unegbe, was killed can be attributed to the mere fact that the officers in charge of implementing Nzeogwu's plans in the East were incompetent. The coup, also referred to as "The Coup of the Five Majors", has been described in some quarters as Nigeria's only revolutionary coup. This was the first coup in the short life of Nigeria's nascent 2nd democracy. Claims of electoral fraud was one of the reasons given by the coup plotters. This coup resulted in General Johnson Aguiyi-Ironsi, an Igbo and head of the Nigerian Army, taking power as President, becoming the first military head of state in Nigeria.

The coup d'état itself failed, as Ironsi rallied the military against the plotters. But Ironsi did not bring the failed plotters to trial as requested by military law and as advised by most northern and western officers. Ironsi then instituted military rule, by subverting the constitutional succession and alleging that the democratic institutions had failed and that, while he was defending them, they clearly needed revision and clean-up before reversion back to democratic rule. The coup, despite its failure, was wrongly perceived as having benefited mostly the Igbo because most of the known coup plotters were Igbo. However Ironsi, himself an Igbo, was thought to have made numerous attempts to please Northerners. The other event that also fuelled the so-called "Igbo conspiracy" was the killing of Northern leaders, and the killing of the Colonel Shodeinde's pregnant wife by the coup executioners. Despite the overwhelming contradictions of the coup being executed by mostly Northern soldiers (such as John Atom Kpera later military governor of Benue State), the killing of Igbo soldier Lieutenant-Colonel Arthur Unegbe by coup executioners, and Ironsi's termination of an Igbo-led coup, the ease by which Ironsi stopped the coup led to suspicion that the Igbo coup plotters planned all along to pave the way for Ironsi to take the reins of power in Nigeria. It also ignored the fact that the army was largely composed of Northerners at the private level, but Igbo at the officer level, and thus promotions would have to draw upon a large body of Igbo officers. As the officer corps of the army was dominated by the Igbos logic would have had it that mainly Igbo officers could have been killed in the coup if there wasn't an "igbo Conspiracy". On the contrary, the murdered victims of this coup were mainly northerners. The reason for this coup has never been made clear. If it was a revolutionary coup as some have claimed why were the prime minister and premier of the north killed? It has been proven that they both died with less than ten pounds in their respective personal accounts and with one village home each to their names. This was a young country trying to find its way and that way was abruptly scuttled by overzealous army officers numbering above twenty.