Non-Igbo officers who were principal
participants in the January 15, 1966 Coup de'tat

--- Major Wale Ademoyega (Yoruba and author
of the book - "Why We Struck"), Captain Ganiyu
Adeleke (Yoruba), Lt Fola Oyewole (Yoruba and
author of the book - "The Reluctant Rebel") 2nd
Lt. Bob Egbikor (Ishan), 2Lt Tijani Katsina
(Fulani), 2Lt O. Olafemiyan (Yoruba), Capt.
Gibson Jalo (Bali), Capt S. Swanton (Moddle
Belt), Lt Dag Waribor (Ijaw) 2 Lt Hope Eghagha
(Urhobo and later governor of Ogun State in
1979), 2 Lt Saleh Dambo (Hausa), 2 Lt J. Atom-
Kpera (Tiv and later governor of Anambra State
1976).

"People were told that it was an Igbo coup but
that is not correct. It is a very interesting part
of the Nigerian story.
In the first place, there
have been many serious lies that have been told
by our leaders in the last 45 years of Nigeria's
history.

Our leaders have not been bold enough
to tell us the truth...""the plan of the coup
makers was to release Awolowo from jail and
make him their own leader."

---- Odia Ofeimun --- Guardian Newspapers
Sunday May 6, 2007.

Bro, will you also do a list of those killed by the plotters and highlight their non-igbo affiliation? ?

Like I posited in an earlier thread, originally the coup was planned without an ethnic agenda, however ethnic sentiments creeped in during execution, in effect rendering the non-igbo participants as mugus who were duped into supporting it. To top it off an Igbo officer ended up being the beneficiary of the coup by emerging as C-in-C (Ironsi) after all was said and done.

How else do you explain the fact that no single high profile igbo target lost his life during the coup? Not Zik (who was coveniently out of the country) not Okpara the Eastern premier. Or is it that the igbo leaders were saints compared to the non-igbos that were killed?

The only igbo casualty (Unuegbe) was killed as collateral damage in order not to prevent him from raising an alarm over maimalari's murder -- he wasn't even an orgininal target.

So don't blame those that call it an igbo coup.

If one looks at the whole thing with passion and little reasoning it does appear to be an igbo coup but upon further analysis that claim can be disproven. For starters Lt. Col Victor Banjo,Ademoyega, Olamifihan, Lt, Oyewole,Capt. Adeleke all took part in or at least supported the coup. Important factors that could explain the ethnic/regional dichotomy of the perpetrators are the composition of the officer corps at the time and the regional character of the ruling government.
Officer corps: The army initially had stringent enlistment requirements(academic) and since the Yoruba generally didn't enlist the only other major group that had been sufficiently penetrated by western education was the former Eastern Region( mostly dominated by Igbo). This characteristic marker followed them even as they left their region to go and live/work in others. Whereas a regular/average Northerner wasn't predisposed or inclined to pursue a formal education, southerners on the other hand did and given that Igbos were the dominant group from the region in the army it only made them climb the ranks faster as promotions came along.However NCOs and the junior officers later became mostly Northern as ruling NPC politics later interfered to reduce requirements( Min of Defense was headed by inuwa Wada, Ahmadu Kurfi etc). Majors shared clannish( classmate ) ties to each other and were the ones most prone to disaffection with govt as the senior officers like ironsi and maimalri were part of the establishment so to speak and the junior ones were northern NCOs that almost unilaterally obeyed whatever the regional leadership( which was also the national leadership) put forward.
Ruling Govt: Ruling party was NPC ( NPC/NNDP alliance). That is, Sir Bello and his people. But NPC-led Naija stumbled from crisis to crisi. Esp in the western region, the whole Awo/Akintola dispute.
One could say that the soldiers were guilty of being too interested in political developments and that the coup was naive, but not necessarily tribalistic. Even Ironsi complained about getting 'politicians in uniform instead of soldiers'. Hassan Katsina's "bookish people" statement also points to this issue. What was the goal of the coup? Not to ensure Igbo domination, but to install the more progressive Awolowo( or at least to them he seemed more progressive with his Leftist leanings). I doubt Igbo domination means breaking Awo out and installing him to fix things. Sam Ikoku( Awo's aide) who was in exile in Ghana expressed the pro-Awo leaning of Ifeajuna an co. Note that ppl like Ifeajuna, Anuforo were involved with the radical U.I ( soyinka, Jp clark) crowd.Imagine what "Afro hippies( in a good way)" thought about the state of affairs at the time ?? Now this wasn't necessarily a pro-UPGA stance as several of the leaders showed no enthusiasm to support Zik or Ironsi, and they even killed Okotie-Eboh. Ironsi was at a party aboard a ship and missed the men when they came to his house to murder as they had done to all the other victims.
Even looking at the character of ppl like Nzeogwu points one toward reconsideration. An easterner only by famiy-affiliation. He spoke hausa, and lived and ate like a hausa man. The detachment that accompanied him to the sardauna's lodge had northern officers in it, and in the aftermath of the assault he only trusted his hausa doctor to treat him ( one doc Rimi). Generally the coup wasn't executed properly, IBB in an interview with newswatch in '90 commented along these lines. Saying that the poor execution made it appear to be tribalistic. And when u look at the journals left behind by the plotters one can see the equal condemnation for evryone from ironsi to unegbe. Unegbe it was believed was killed for not allowing them access to armory.. But how could that have been since they had already accessed it and saw him as guilt of 'graft' as Capt. Gbulie put it. The tribalistic translation was expedient for hotheads to like Murtala to justify their anger, and not saying that they didn't deserve to get mad. But the unguided feelings/passions that were at work, led to the mass murders of the Igbos months later which one could describe as generally non-ideological in its nature. Just my thoughts, I ran out of steam as I wasn't able to properly categorize my points the way I wanted to, but just something to put out there.

Mbat200:
If one looks at the whole thing with passion and little reasoning it does appear to be an igbo coup but upon further analysis that claim can be disproven. For starters Lt. Col Victor Banjo,Ademoyega, Olamifihan, Lt, Oyewole,Capt. Adeleke all took part in or at least supported the coup. Important factors that could explain the ethnic/regional dichotomy of the perpetrators are the composition of the officer corps at the time and the regional character of the ruling government.
Officer corps: The army initially had stringent enlistment requirements(academic) and since the Yoruba generally didn't enlist the only other major group that had been sufficiently penetrated by western education was the former Eastern Region( mostly dominated by Igbo). This characteristic marker followed them even as they left their region to go and live/work in others. Whereas a regular/average Northerner wasn't predisposed or inclined to pursue a formal education, southerners on the other hand did and given that Igbos were the dominant group from the region in the army it only made them climb the ranks faster as promotions came along.However NCOs and the junior officers later became mostly Northern as ruling NPC politics later interfered to reduce requirements( Min of Defense was headed by inuwa Wada, Ahmadu Kurfi etc). Majors shared clannish( classmate ) ties to each other and were the ones most prone to disaffection with govt as the senior officers like ironsi and maimalri were part of the establishment so to speak and the junior ones were northern NCOs that almost unilaterally obeyed whatever the regional leadership( which was also the national leadership) put forward.
Ruling Govt: Ruling party was NPC ( NPC/NNDP alliance). That is, Sir Bello and his people. But NPC-led Naija stumbled from crisis to crisi. Esp in the western region, the whole Awo/Akintola dispute.
One could say that the soldiers were guilty of being too interested in political developments and that the coup was naive, but not necessarily tribalistic. Even Ironsi complained about getting 'politicians in uniform instead of soldiers'. Hassan Katsina's "bookish people" statement also points to this issue. What was the goal of the coup? Not to ensure Igbo domination, but to install the more progressive Awolowo( or at least to them he seemed more progressive with his Leftist leanings). I doubt Igbo domination means breaking Awo out and installing him to fix things. Sam Ikoku( Awo's aide) who was in exile in Ghana expressed the pro-Awo leaning of Ifeajuna an co. Note that ppl like Ifeajuna, Anuforo were involved with the radical U.I ( soyinka, Jp clark) crowd.Imagine what "Afro hippies( in a good way)" thought about the state of affairs at the time ?? Now this wasn't necessarily a pro-UPGA stance as several of the leaders showed no enthusiasm to support Zik or Ironsi, and they even killed Okotie-Eboh. Ironsi was at a party aboard a ship and missed the men when they came to his house to murder as they had done to all the other victims.
Even looking at the character of ppl like Nzeogwu points one toward reconsideration. An easterner only by famiy-affiliation. He spoke hausa, and lived and ate like a hausa man. The detachment that accompanied him to the sardauna's lodge had northern officers in it, and in the aftermath of the assault he only trusted his hausa doctor to treat him ( one doc Rimi). Generally the coup wasn't executed properly, IBB in an interview with newswatch in '90 commented along these lines. Saying that the poor execution made it appear to be tribalistic. And when u look at the journals left behind by the plotters one can see the equal condemnation for evryone from ironsi to unegbe. Unegbe it was believed was killed for not allowing them access to armory.. But how could that have been since they had already accessed it and saw him as guilt of 'graft' as Capt. Gbulie put it. The tribalistic translation was expedient for hotheads to like Murtala to justify their anger, and not saying that they didn't deserve to get mad. But the unguided feelings/passions that were at work, led to the mass murders of the Igbos months later which one could describe as generally non-ideological in its nature. Just my thoughts, I ran out of steam as I wasn't able to properly categorize my points the way I wanted to, but just something to put out there.

What the fucckk is this long nonsense about...trying to justify jackshit?

The igbos were the "Major" perpetrators and the progenitors simple!

Majority of the casualties are non igbos and that's why it was rightly termed as a "igbo" masterminded coup!

jackshit ?Facts make u uncomfortable ?? If I made anything mentioned above is false, then correct me. When u have the politicized army officers especially when its of ideas left of the spectrum, the tendency for them to act irrationally esp toward a vulnerable conservative establishment is present.

Only thing I can apologize for is my rather monotonic delivery, I might have been a little too eager at the moment of my comment because I had just read Maz Siollun's Oil, Politics and Violence. The book is quite insightful, more emphasis on ideology and objectivity.You should grab a cpoy if you can. My initial point was directed toward interpreting things from an ideological perspective. Conservative establishment vs renegade military faction is how the struggle should be viewed in retrospect( ethnicity should be a side-note). Partly because the 'ethnic' composition of the rank of "Major" at the time was a given-mostly Southern Igbo with a few Yoruba- and chiefly because ideology is 'borderless' in the sense of the word.Participants would have had to have had shared certain principles and if for example one looks at the team that stormed the Sardauna's Lodge the presence of Northern soldiers on the team stands out , esp against the backdrop of the rather simplistic and convenient explanation of it being an 'IGBO coup'. Tribal sentiment is of course existent and has played a role in our political history but when it comes to making calls on events as pivotal as this, historiographical considerations come first and everything else including sentiments after.