How first coup still haunts Nigeria 50 years on
Published15 January 2016
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Undated file picture of Colonel Odumegwu Emeka Ojukwu, the leader of the breakaway Republic of Biafra, giving a press conference during the Biafra war
IMAGE COPYRIGHTAFP
image captionA civil war broke out soon after the military seized power in 1966
Although most of Nigeria's current population of about 170 million was not born when the country's first coup was staged 50 years ago, its legacy lingers on, writes Nigerian historian and author Max Siollun.
On 15 January 1966, a group of young, idealistic, UK-trained army majors overthrew Nigeria's democratic government in a violent military coup.
The coup leaders described it as a brief and temporary revolution to end corruption and ethnic rivalry. Instead, it made them worse.

The coup exposed the vulnerability of the Nigerian state, and how simple it was to use soldiers to attack the government, rather than protect it.
A succession of increasingly repressive military governments ruled Nigeria for 29 of the next 33 years, until the restoration of democracy in 1999. Here are four ways in which Nigeria - Africa's most populous state and leading oil producer - is still affected by the events of 1966:

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Biafra protests
A pro-Biafra supporter chants a song in Aba, southeastern Nigeria, during a protest calling for the release of a key activist on November 18, 2015
IMAGE COPYRIGHTAFP
image captionMany ethnic Igbos feel politically marginalised in Nigeria
Protesters in south-east Nigeria have recently demanded the region's secession from Nigeria and the formation of a new country called Biafra. The Biafra movement's origins can be traced back to the January 1966 coup.



The officers who staged the coup were mostly Christian southerners from the Igbo ethnic group, and they assassinated several northerners, including the four highest-ranking northern army officers, Prime Minister Tafawa Balewa, and Northern Region Premier Ahmadu Bello (both Muslims from the north).
Army commander Major-General Johnson Aguiyi-Ironsi, an Igbo, suppressed the coup, but seized power himself. Northerners interpreted the coup as an Igbo-led conspiracy to subjugate the north and impose Igbo domination.

Six months later, northern soldiers staged another even bloodier counter-coup against their Igbo colleagues.
Northern mobs killed around 30,000 Igbos, and Igbos fled south, and in the following year sought to form a new breakaway country called Biafra. Northerners living in Igbo areas were also killed in revenge attacks.
Although the army suppressed the attempt at secession after a brutal civil war, bitterness remains 50 years later.

Undated file picture of Colonel Odumegwu Emeka Ojukwu, the leader of the breakaway Republic of Biafra, giving a press conference during the Biafra war
IMAGE COPYRIGHTAFP

image captionThe late Emeka Ojukwu led the attempt to create a separate state in the south-east
Unaddressed grievances from 1966 lie at the heart of the Biafra movement's resurgence. Many Igbos feel that Nigeria regards them as a fifth column and is still punishing them for their previous attempt at secession.
Should new protests worry Nigeria?
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Corruption

Youths celebrate on March 31, 2015 the victory of main opposition All Progressives Congress (APC) presidential candidate Mohammadu Buhari in Abuja
IMAGE COPYRIGHTAFP
image captionA sitting president was voted out of office for the first time in March
One of the coup leaders Major Nzeogwu said: "We wanted to get rid of rotten and corrupt ministers… We wanted to gun down the bigwigs in our way."
His coup unwittingly entrenched the presence of "rotten and corrupt ministers". His best friend was a young western army officer named Major Olusegun Obasanjo.

Ten years later, he found himself at the head of a different military government. It promulgated a new constitution that gave the government ownership of all mineral resources.
A protestor sports a an anti-corruption T-shirt on January 9, 2012 in Lagos during a demonstration against the more than doubling of petrol prices after government abolished fuel subsidies.
IMAGE COPYRIGHTAFP
image captionMany Nigerians feel corruption is endemic in government
Can corruption be defeated?
This provision encouraged corruption and the do-or-die nature of Nigeria's elections, as winners now had control over the country's vast mineral wealth.
It is also the source of much bitterness in Nigeria's oil-producing areas, and a cause of the latent Niger Delta insurgency which rocked Nigeria for several years and severely disrupted its oil industry.
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'Class of 1966'
The January 1966 coup propelled a group of young military officers onto the national stage. Now wealthy septuagenarian grandfathers, they still wield enormous influence in Nigerian politics.
Major General Johnson Aguiyi-Ironsi (1924 - 1966) during a press conference in Nigeria, 24th January 1966


13th July 1977: Nigerian head of state Lt General Olusegun Obasanjo at the summit meeting of African heads of state at Libreville in Gabon
IMAGE COPYRIGHTAFP


image captionOlusegun Obasanjo ruled as a military general and an elected president
Gen Obasanjo is one of these retired military kingmakers. His withdrawal of support for then-President Goodluck Jonathan was one factor in his presidential election defeat last year, and the victory of current President Muhammadu Buhari.
As a young officer, Mr Buhari was among the young northern officers who in July 1966 staged the counter-coup against the Igbo majors.

The influence of retired military officers is so pervasive that Mr Jonathan is the only president in Nigeria's history who had no personal or family involvement in the 1966 crisis and the ensuing civil war.
A vendor sells All Progressives Congress (APC) party flags and a framed photograph of President-elect Mohammadu Buhari ahead of tomorrow's handover ceremony in Abuja, on May 28, 2015
IMAGE COPYRIGHTAFP
image captionMuhammadu Buhari is serving his second stint as head of state
Buhari in profile
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Ghosts of the past
The army's politicised past means that Nigerians live with the (real or imagined) fear that a coup is a possible outcome of any political crisis.
A man walks past a the scene of a bombing after at least 20 people were killed when a young female suicide bomber detonated her explosives at a bus station in Maiduguri, northeast Nigeria, on June 22, 2015 in an attack likely to be blamed on Boko Haram
IMAGE COPYRIGHTAFP


image captionAn insurgency by militant Islamists has devastated north-eastern Nigeria
Last year, Nigeria's then-national security adviser admitted that previous governments' wariness of the coup-prone army made them reluctant to upgrade its weaponry.


Years of strategic military under-investment recently came back to haunt Nigeria when soldiers facing Islamist militant group Boko Haram complained that they were under-equipped to fight the insurgents.
This coup issue also partly explains why Nigerian authorities react with such severity to any disobedience by soldiers.


Nigerian soldiers shoot into the air during a ceremony to mark the release of suspected detainees cleared of being members of Boko Haram Islamists in Maiduguri, Borno State on July 6, 2015
IMAGE COPYRIGHTAFP

image captionTroops have been battling to end Boko Haram's six-year insurgency
Surviving Boko Haram
Inside militant stronghold
Yet, ironically, Nigeria partially owes its continued existence to the near obsessive desire to avoid a repeat of the 1966 bloodshed.
The young military firebrands have mellowed and talk their way out of crisis rather than blasting their way into it.

The elaborate power-sharing arrangements in Nigeria's constitution, and the unwritten rule requiring rotation of political power between the north and south are legacies of the mistrust engendered in 1966.
Nigeria has matured. So have its former coup leaders.
* Max Siollun is a Nigerian historian, writer, and author of the books Oil, Politics and Violence: Nigeria's Military Coup Culture 1966-1976 and Soldiers of Fortune: a History of Nigeria (1983-1993


https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-35312370

Ok... OP sarrki, my brother, biko edit your post make small change make others fit read well..

Meanwhile, Nigerians still owe the Igbos an unreserved apology. That war was needless... That war was avoidable. That war wasn't justifiable! There were options. Certainly not war! But see where we are today.

We may think Nigeria won, but to me, we all lost that war. And we are all casualties...

See where Nigeria is today. Imagine where Nigeria would have been without that useless war! In the end, our competitors are the winners! Selfish interests of a few power-drunk and psychopathic traitors called leaders caused that war.

But e go better. Our generation will correct that mistake and kickstart the healing process...

God bless Nigeria.

trash


fulani are killing us down south and we are not interested in whatever happened in 1966 abeg


zom b

ShackWes:
trash


fulani are killing us down south and we are not interested in whatever happened in 1966 abeg


zom b

So we don’t have any criminal in the south anymore?

Do they all vanished ?

Am not saying there are not bad Fulani herdsmen killing

Generalizing it dangerous coz it makes the bad heads among southern criminals to hide under Fulani


Having said that
History helps to know the genesis of where we are today

War is bad, mostly when it affects the innocent.

BBC!
I wonder when Britain would leave us the Bleep alone!
You idiots separated from fellow whites like civilized human beings,
But when it comes to Nigeria you play your stupid games,
After all you know black would rather kill than think

SilverNorGold:
Ok... OP sarrki, my brother, biko edit your post make small change make others fit read well..

God bless Nigeria.

Noted

sarrki:


So we don’t have any criminal in the south anymore?

Do they all vanished ?

Am not saying there are not bad Fulani herdsmen killing

Generalizing it dangerous coz it makes the bad heads among southern criminals to hide under Fulani


Having said that
History helps to know the genesis of where we are today

Hypocrites.


Generalizing is dangerous but you people tag 1966 coup as Igbo coup and started killing innocent
Igbos in north and west.

sarrki:


So we don’t have any criminal in the south anymore?

Do they all vanished ?

Am not saying there are not bad Fulani herdsmen killing

Generalizing it dangerous coz it makes the bad heads among southern criminals to hide under Fulani


Having said that
History helps to know the genesis of where we are today

So 1966 coup are the reason Fulani's are busy turning once great Oyo empire to fulani caliphate !

sarrki:


So we don’t have any criminal in the south anymore?

Do they all vanished ?

Am not saying there are not bad Fulani herdsmen killing

Generalizing it dangerous coz it makes the bad heads among southern criminals to hide under Fulani


Having said that
History helps to know the genesis of where we are today

Baba.... Why are you always quick to defending your paymasters?

Almost every country in Africa experienced military coup in the 60's and 70's. Why is Nigerias first coup still hunting Nigeria?

. . . OP. is a northern element just attempting to ignite a distraction thread to all the realities under bubu.

sarrki:


So we don’t have any criminal in the south anymore?

Do they all vanished ?

Am not saying there are not bad Fulani herdsmen killing

Generalizing it dangerous coz it makes the bad heads among southern criminals to hide under Fulani


Having said that
History helps to know the genesis of where we are today

ain't u folks, tired of these narratives. how is this related to BH, banditary, herdsmen attack

Aguiyi ironsi coup?

It's weird how no other coup has an ethnic coloration.

The average igbo hate the north and vis versa.

this is our problem.

I still say fulani herdmen
ipob
boko haram

are all terror groups because they are born from hate.

ShackWes:
trash


fulani are killing us down south and we are not interested in whatever happened in 1966 abeg


zom b

Hehehehehe

"Ironsi Coup"? Ironsi never organized or partake in any coup instead he rallied others including Igbo officers to quash the coup by the famed "Five Majors".

The British will never tell us how they merge two incongruent regions together for their political benefit.The outcome is the banditry and terrorism we are suffering today.

Years of strategic military under-investment recently came back to haunt Nigeria when soldiers facing Islamist militant group Boko Haram complained that they were under-equipped to fight the insurgents.This coup issue also partly explains why Nigerian authorities react with such severity to any disobedience by soldiers.

Seems the publishers of this article & the OP thinks this is the Nigeria of 1966 where any lies told fly as truth. Meanwhile

This is what those minions don't want to hear

The shameless backstabbing rat poison drinker Awolowo thought that by selling out the SE he would find favour with his masters, no wonder he cowardly ended his life. The same line the Iragbiji thief is towing, he will probably end the same way this time from the Ammonium Nitrate oozing out from the mouth he doesn't brush.

Aguiyi Ironsi kee u dia..
If it wasn't for that man, that coup would have achieved all it's objectives which means you would have been living a better life today under the guidance of honourable men, not your wasted existence today in the hands of a retrogressive fulani oligarchy.

No matter how long you lie the truth must come out one day


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0S0F_5ma4lM

Do your research well before posting online. Sorry to post, you know nothing about the coup.

Do your research well. I mean, an extensive research.

a Fulani sponsored agent with a useless thread to divert attention and cause a blame war BTW Igbos and Yorubas.
Sorry we are wiser now.
Fulani herdsmen must leave

sarrki:
So we don’t have any criminal in the south anymore? Do they all vanished ?
Am not saying there are not bad Fulani herdsmen killing
Generalizing it dangerous coz it makes the bad heads among southern criminals to hide under Fulani.Having said that History helps to know the genesis of where we are today

What is ever wrong with you.After allegedly repenting from sai baba zombiesm? Are southerners involved in terrorism? So the alleged non-existent "Ironsi Coup" is responsible for actively ongoing banditry, BH terrorism that have turned the north into a theatre of senseless maiming, bloodshedding and killings right?

The same issue is causing the Fulani onslaught to annihilate your brethren in the SW today? My friend think about your life because these killers are hell been on wiping off everyone & stop defending evil.

South is on fire and this osun boy is here talking nonsense

If people really know how painful the assassination of our people is in the mind of even little children talkless of those who were alive then they'll know that the killing is unforgivable. We'll neither forget nor forgive that coup stationed by cowards. Only time will tell how agonised we still are.

gidgiddy:
Almost every country in Africa experienced military coup in the 60's and 70's. Why is Nigerias first coup still hunting Nigeria?

Because it was ethno-religious coup.

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