oyetpel:


What are you saying? They wanted to kill Ironsi too na, but they didn't succeed

gidgiddy:
Ironsi was a good man

His only problem was that he was stupid enough to believe in "one Nigeria"

NwaAmaikpe:


There's a huge difference between bravery and stupidity.
Aguiyi Ironsi died because he was stupid.
He was warned against his trip, but he was foolish enough to go ahead with it.

Muhamadu Buhari was to flag off the Ogoni oil spillage clean-up exercise, but he was threatened by militants not to step foot on their soul or be prepared for the worst.
The Presidency and Security Council insisted the president will visit despite the threats.

What happened?
Osinbanjo was the one who we saw flagging off the imaginary project. Baba feigned an excuse and didn't show up.

Baba was a coward, but he is still alive.
Ironsi was a brave, fearless hero... He died like a villain and not even his crocodile staff could save him .

Like the famous Igbo proverb goes;
"Ijiji na-anaghi e ge ndumodu, na-eso ozu a ba n'ili."

wink2015:
The Unitary System that Late General brought in by virtue of the Army system of CENTRALIZATION has remained with us over 50 years since his death from the crisis that followed the 1966 military coup. Infact, he was killed alongside Fajuyi in Ibadan, Oyo state during a visit he made there.

The Hausa/Fulani leadership ( Northerners in general ) have refused to throw away this FEDERAL UNITARY SYSTEM.

They forced it on Nigerian who are tired of UNITARISM and desire RESTRUCTURING of the FEDERATION.

Ironsi was an hero and leader on one aspect, but on the second aspect his tenureship brought in UNITARY SYSTEM of government that is very difficult to abolish because of the lack of co-operation of the Northerners who throw the suggestion of restructuring away.

Ironsi, the GODFATHER OF UNITARISM, Happy posthumous birthday.

ofai:


Enough of this lame narrative. The brotherhood in the military was not as compromised as it is today.

Ironsi was too believing that his men would remain loyal. This was his NAIVITY not stupidity. This was the first time the military was running an ethnically divided country. So other head of states learnt from ironsi's naivity.

Ojukwu wasn't even near ironsi in terms of bravery and leadership experience. Ironsi was NAIVE, not stupid.

donfemo:


I'm yoruba to start with so I don't even do tribal things. Maj Chukwuma Kaduna's reason for a couple was because the civilians were using the nation's wealth for themselves and in a documentary I watched he said if things continued that way there would be nothing left for the country and there will be no development. That is what we are experiencing today. Brave minds like chukwuma wanted to prevent this with his coup but Ironsi made sure the coup was not successful and the schemed his way to power knowing he was the most senior man in the military.

Chukwuma who you are denying today fought for the Biafra Army and he died in active duty to Biafra. However, because of his outstanding contributions to the Nigerian military, Gen Gowon ensured he was buried in Nigeria with full military honors. We don't know our history hence we don't know who the hero's are.

Deadlytruth:


The fact that the pattern of killings that defined the first coup had already created the perception that it was the execution of a long planned ethnic cleansing agenda by Igbos was enough to tell any sensible Igbo man that the army had become divided against the Igbo at that moment.
I can't wake up one day to see my brothers slaughter their neighbors and while trying to appease them I don't take precautions. That will not be naivete but sheer stupidity.

ofai:


Story story..... Story. Still blaming ironsi for your 60 years of political misfortune? Your leaders who had the chance to change the unitary system, why didn't they stop it?

The 50% resource derivative for each region was still intact during ironsi regime, why did Gowon and other change it?

Keep deluding yourself. Ironsi unitary system was much better than of other heads of state and even todays so called democracy.

Rest in peace the great Ironside!

ofai:


Story story..... Story. Still blaming ironsi for your 60 years of political misfortune? Your leaders who had the chance to change the unitary system, why didn't they stop it?

The 50% resource derivative for each region was still intact during ironsi regime, why did Gowon and other change it?

Keep deluding yourself. Ironsi unitary system was much better than of other heads of state and even todays so called democracy.

Rest in peace the great Ironside!

Deadlytruth:


You don't get it.
The January coupists claimed they wanted to entrench national unity through the establishment of a unitary government. However, in the Hausa-Fulanis' perception, their quest for unitary system was informed by an Igbo domination agenda which they had earlier on seen Zik demonstrate in his quest to rule the Western Region.
Ironsi confirmed these fears by really imposing the unitary system being favoured by only Igbos back then.
Consequently, it appeared to them that the only way to keep Igbo domination agenda in the cooler perpetually was for themselves to take power and weaken Igbos both economically and politically by retaining that same unitary system till Igbos suffer enough under it to make them hate it completely.

ofai:


Think again.

As the new military head of state (the first of its kind in nigeria) Other ethnicities are accusing you of being too "closed up" in tribalism, while your brothers on the other hand are accusing you of being too open to "enemies", I don't think you would have done any better.

NaijaMutant:
Such a brilliant man with a stellar military career.


His only undoing was the creation of the Federal system of government in Nigeria


Some ignoramuses are calling him a coupist

Let me restate this for all to learn.
The leader of the failed Jan. 1966 coup Maj. Kaduna Chukwuma Nzeogwu hailed from Okpanam Local government in present day Delta state. Midwestern Nigeria and present day South-south.

Maj.Gen Aguiyi Ironsi was the highest ranking military officer at that time which made him an automatic apparent heir to the throne

If you think South- south is not Biafraland because of their oil, kindly note that Maj. Kaduna Chukwuma Nzeogwu is not an Igbo.

ofai:


You are still begging the question. Why wasn't the unitary system changed IN PRACTICE for good?

Ironsi inherited a country deeply divided, so as a military man, the first experiment one would use to checkmate this division is unitary system. No more regional embassies, every thing comes together. Ironsi meant well but other heads of state learnt from his naivity of adopting the unitary system.

By the way, the north wanted to remain dominant at all cost, that was why despite efforts made by ironsi to make them well represented in the supreme military council, they still weren't satisfied.

ofai:


You are still begging the question. Why wasn't the unitary system changed IN PRACTICE for good?

Ironsi inherited a country deeply divided, so as a military man, the first experiment one would use to checkmate this division is unitary system. No more regional embassies, every thing comes together. Ironsi meant well but other heads of state learnt from his naivity of adopting the unitary system.

By the way, the north wanted to remain dominant at all cost, that was why despite efforts made by ironsi to make them well represented in the supreme military council, they still weren't satisfied.

lalasticlala:


https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnson_Aguiyi-Ironsi

Deadlytruth:


The fact that the pattern of killings that defined the first coup had already created the perception that it was the execution of a long planned ethnic cleansing agenda by Igbos was enough to tell any sensible Igbo man that the army had become divided against the Igbo at that moment.
I can't wake up one day to see my brothers slaughter their neighbors and while trying to appease them I don't take precautions. That will not be naivete but sheer stupidity.

Deadlytruth:


The philosophy of "Self preservation first" comes into play.
If you fail to preserve yourself first, then all else is lost.
Buhari has surrounded himself with his kinsmen to the embitterment of the other tribes who have been accusing him of unprecedented nepotism. Has he died? Has that stopped the same Nigerians from acknowledging hid genuine positive achievements like Boko Haram decimation and some slight agricultural revolution?

horsepower101:
So after 50 years, some idiots are still blaming Ironsi for their misfortunes.

This is the reason I really want igbos to leave this useless country.

Igbos think differently from most Nigerians. They try to shape their own destiny no matter the situation.


The rest just accept everything by default. Spineless idiots

You had over 50 years to makes Nigeria a better country without igbo leadership. what happened? What's the excuse?

kingthreat:
And so freaking what? One of the worst head of states ever. Let his people slaughter Northerners and Westerners and denied the victims justice.

Deadlytruth:
Ironsi remains the worst leader Nigeria ever had because his administration gave birth to all the very issues central to the arguments around which Nigeria's failure in the past 52 years revolve. Here they are:
1. Ironsi introduced to Nigeria the aberration called military rule. This would later militarize our democracy as IBB recently confessed to his creation of a military wing in PDP. Even from 1999 till the present the military has actually been in charge of our democracy both directly and indirectly. Parties totally devoid of military membership content don't usually grow beyond their respective local constituencies because Nigerians generally are no longer used to purely civilian affairs.
2. He met a perfectly working constitution which no one was complaining against but ironically he decided to start amending it.
if at all necessary, the amendment should have been towards further weakening the center since the very crisis on ground was a direct fall out of abuse of power at the centre by way of its illegal interference in the Western Region's internal affairs. But against logic and common sense, Ironsi did the exact opposite by concentrating more powers at the centre.
3. He made the three most offensive Decrees in the history of Nigeria, namely: Unification, Anti-seccession and Anti-tribal Associations Decrees, all of which were aimed at imposing on Nigerians the task of pretending that they were a homogeneous tribe with the same culture and value system. That was tantamount to tearing down all the barriers that separated rats, cats, snakes, crocodiles, pigs, chicken, etc in a farm stead and expecting these animals to thereafter coexist peacefully without predation and blood letting. Ironsi simply lacked an understanding of the characteristics of a complex society required of good leaders.

4. He centralized the regional civil service institutions, thereby also centralizing the source of the revenues from which their salaries were being generated thus striping the future states of the power to control their resources and lands. This would later give birth to marginalization of every other tribes by the tribe lucky to perpetually hold power at the centre. As an evidence the Niger Delta which ended up separated farthest from the center would be the first to take to open armed struggle against the centre for resource control restoration.

5. It took Ironsi less than three months to get Isaac Adaka Boro (a non-Igbo) sentenced to death for mutiny but was talking him eternity to do same for the January coupists (mostly Igbos) whose mutiny was not only by far deadlier and bloodier but recorded victims whose innocence were all too glaring. And he did not bother about how such selectiveness in justice administration would impact on the public's perception of his detachment from the long suspected Igbo domination agenda.

6. He arrogantly turned down all pleas from the public to leave the constitution intact, and then stubbornly went ahead with his pioneership of its mutilation. This alone would later give birth to a constitutional crisis for which the Aburi Summit was convened albeit improperly, leading to a set of resolutions hurriedly done by men unskilled in the art of legislation hence its consequent rejection by the populace which triggered the tragic war that ended up casting inter-tribal resentments and hatred in stone till today.

Deadlytruth:


You seem to paint him as naive thus innocent of his actions. But I disagree.
He was really not naive. As someone who attended secondary school and read it in form four Government Textbooks that unitary system is only workable for a homogeneous society and that only federalism and confederalism suit a heterogeneous country, he was fully aware that all his Decrees would end up doing Nigeria no good. However, he went ahead still because he believed that his tribe would always be in charge thus will not be as hard hit as others.

ofai:


If ironsi had leaned towards nepotism, that would have further justified and solidified the perception of igbo domination to the rest of the world, and if he had died in the course of nepotism, even posterity will be harsh on him. Have you read his biography "Ironside" written by a foreign journalist?

Ironside was just a sacrificial lamb. His naivity cost him his life.

Deadlytruth:


You seem to paint him as naive thus innocent of his actions. But I disagree.
He was really not naive. As someone who attended secondary school and read it in form four Government Textbooks that unitary system is only workable for a homogeneous society and that only federalism and confederalism suit a heterogeneous country, he was fully aware that all his Decrees would end up in catastrophe for the country on the long run. However, he went ahead still because he believed that his tribe would always be in charge thus would not feel the catastrophic consequences.

ofai:


Ironsi's military experiment was an unitary experiment that led some (NOY ALL) pundits into concluding that unitary system is meant only for a homogeneous group. Not every pundit share the same view anyway.

By the way, Nigeria was just too fragmented, so for an apolitical military man like Ironside, unitary system was the way to go. That was indeed naive. Got it?

seguno2:


Was Nnamdi Azikiwe not Igbo

Deadlytruth:


Unfortunately, posterity has not absolved him of nepotism. People logically believe that he would not have enacted the Unification and Civil service harmonization Decrees, and many other Igbo-favoured centripetal decrees had he actually not surrounded himself with only Igbos as advisers.
Put in another way;
none of those perceived Igbo-centric decrees would have successfully scaled through a composition of advisers defined by a fair balance of Igbos, Western and Northern Region politicians.

What we can see is that he surrounded himself with Igbo advisers while his personal security details were almost 100℅ non-Igbo. That was pure suicide.
It would have made more senses for him to have made his security 100℅ Igbos and made the composition of his advisers have a national spread.

Deadlytruth:


No genuinely educated person shares the perception that unitary system will ever succeed in a heterogeneous society. As at that point in time all heterogeneous societies which had experimented unitary system had failed woefully. What convinced Ironsi that Nigeria could miraculously be an exception?

gidgiddy:


Military rule never operates as democratic rule. So definitely, no matter eho took over, wether Ironsi or another officer, they would have had to jettison the constitution and rule by decree. However, Ironsi deserves his credits. He was only in power for 6 months but in that time, he :-

1) maintained the 4 Regions he met
2) Maintained the revenue sharing formular he met, Regions still got 50%
3) Refused to use military might to crush Northerners that were killing Igbos in.the North
4) Tried to promote national unity by touring different parts of the country at great risk to his life.

Every other Military head of state did far much worse than Ironsi

Gowon abolished the four constitutional Regions and replaced them with 12 unconstitutional and illegal states, which led to the declaration of Biafra by Ojukwu and the war to followed. Gowon then went on to use several other military decrees to to strip the provinces of the 50% derivation they enjoyed under Ironsi as well as resource control.

Murtala Mohammed came in and increased the states from 12 to 19. He the used one horrific decree or the other to sack tbousands of civil servants and placed the petroleum industry under military supervision.

Obasunjo came in and promulgated the Land Use Act which futher stripped people of control of their ancestral lands. Obasunjo also over saw the adoption of Americas style of democrasy with the federalism as against Regionalism.

By the time Nigeria went through Babangida and Abacha, we had 36 states and Abubakar completed the fraud called the 1999 constitution.


Ironsi's short military regime was by far the best of all the military regimes tbat came after him. Ironsi's government was the closest to the 1963 constitution. His regime was the only one that respected the existence of the 4 constitutionally created Regions, their revenue sharing formular, resouce control and fiscal federalism.

gidgiddy:


Military rule never operates as democratic rule. So definitely, no matter eho took over, wether Ironsi or another officer, they would have had to jettison the constitution and rule by decree. However, Ironsi deserves his credits. He was only in power for 6 months but in that time, he :-

1) maintained the 4 Regions he met
2) Maintained the revenue sharing formular he met, Regions still got 50%
3) Refused to use military might to crush Northerners that were killing Igbos in.the North
4) Tried to promote national unity by touring different parts of the country at great risk to his life.

Every other Military head of state did far much worse than Ironsi

Gowon abolished the four constitutional Regions and replaced them with 12 unconstitutional and illegal states, which led to the declaration of Biafra by Ojukwu and the war to followed. Gowon then went on to use several other military decrees to to strip the provinces of the 50% derivation they enjoyed under Ironsi as well as resource control.

Murtala Mohammed came in and increased the states from 12 to 19. He the used one horrific decree or the other to sack tbousands of civil servants and placed the petroleum industry under military supervision.

Obasunjo came in and promulgated the Land Use Act which futher stripped people of control of their ancestral lands. Obasunjo also over saw the adoption of Americas style of democrasy with the federalism as against Regionalism.

By the time Nigeria went through Babangida and Abacha, we had 36 states and Abubakar completed the fraud called the 1999 constitution.


Ironsi's short military regime was by far the best of all the military regimes tbat came after him. Ironsi's government was the closest to the 1963 constitution. His regime was the only one that respected the existence of the 4 constitutionally created Regions, their revenue sharing formular, resouce control and fiscal federalism.