₦airaland Forum

For there not to be war (at least from my perspective).

OP,

Here is what you need to do first before coming here to deny being a northerner.

(1) Get your leaders in Benue to chide, repudiate and chastise your statesmen who participated in the murder of Eastern Nigerians between 1966 and 1970.

(2) Tender a heartfelt apology to Easterners about your evil actions during that crisis, bearing in mind that the plotters of January 1966 coup cited the mass murder of Tivs by the Balewa government as part of the reasons for their actions. The coup failed, you sided with the so called "Almajiris" to crush Easterners, with attendant consequences including the stealing of oil wells.

(3) Support/initiate efforts at the national assembly to redraw the geopolitical map of Nigeria clearly with the aim of moving Benue into southern zones - SS or SE because of its location.


Until you do these, please spare us the hogwash of not being a northerner.  

^^
What a turn of events! 

From merit based recruitment to quota system ceding 50% to the North.

I have always said that the surest way to destroy a family is to hand over the leadership of the family to the least talented or the least able. 

This book didn't talk about how we shifted from merit based recruitment to quota system in the armed forces.
Methinks that it weakens a nation. Because of this quota system, I am not sure that Nigeria has the toughest soldiers.

7 contd.


In the heat of all these, General Ironsi carried out a promotion exercise in the armed
forces. Again a number of complaints were raised against this. First there was a complaint
that some of the January 1966 coup plotters were promoted. This turned out to be untrue. . .

Between 1955 and 1961 when there was no recruitment quota in the armed forces, the bulk of
the recruits were Igbo or Igbo speaking officers. This trend was checked when the quota
system was put in place which reserved fifty percent  of the recruitment quota to the
Northern region and fifty percent to be shared by the Eastern, Western and Mid-Western
Regions.

Chapter 7

We remained in prison, while Ironsi wondered what to do with us the plotters of the January 1966 coup. This was largely because he was not sure exactly how to portray us to the nation and the international community. Was he to present us as rebels and severely court martial us? But he was still riding upon the throes of public acclaim of our success in ousting an unpopular government and bringing a sign of relief to the Nigerian populace.

Was he then to portray us as heroes and involve us in his government? That did not seem like a plausible option either. He had settled down to a table that was set before him on a platter of gold and would not throw the doors so widely open especially to let in the daredevil revolutionaries.

In a way, Igbo presence in Nigeria has led to many changes whether good or bad (unintended); all because we are pursuing progress.
We should just chill and plunder the country like everybody else.

I'm only afraid of the "Somalianisation" of Nigeria.

^^

Take a close look at Nigeria and tell me which section is interested in progress the way Igbo are.

If the January 1966 coupists never operated, Nigeria would have continued a path of steady "northernisation" and oligarchy, leading to many Igbo alhajis and oil shieks. The result? Boko Haram all over Nigeria including the East.
Is that not Somalia?

Posted by: alex101

For me I think the most important lesson of this thread is "ignore tribalism at your own peril". I have decided to look beyond the main cause of the jan 15 coup, for  it will lead to another arguement about cvil war bla,,,bla,,bla. I think this thread should serve as an "eye-opener" as to not trying to save outsiders in the dungeon called nigeria. The so called Igbo "nationalism" and "efulefuism" needs to be curbed as history has a way of repeating itself.

Seconded powerfully.

Everything else is really mute. Folks can choose to believe whatever they want. Mine is to warn Ndigbo to stay away from unbridled "fairness", "patriotism" and "nationalism".

If we focused only on our interest, we would be ruling all facets of Nigeria today. Though I don't know whether I would like to rule Somalia.    But God dey sha.

The coup plotters were tough because it took a lot of courage to go against the corrupt monster that Nigeria was.
Every top official was corrupt as Ironsi. The fastest way to die in a country like Nigeria is to wage war against corruption as a junior army officer. If you doubt me, ask Gideon Orkar, and the junior officers who died in the spurious plane crash.

If they were generals or men in high command, then you would have a point.  

A coup is either successful or unsuccessful. Ironsi somehow couldn't guarantee either. And that led to the pogrom and his eventual death.

Posted by: EzeUche!

Damn you Ironsi! The coupist failed woefully when they didn't get him. It was almost successful. The North was lost without their leader, but they regrouped when Ironsi was given power!
The Igbo leaders of the past were truly strong men.

Believe me this book says a lot about those boys. They were tough and ready to do a lot of things if Ironsi didn't stand in the way. If they had succeeded in arresting him alongside others, the coup would have succeeded.

I will scan pages showing where Nigerians were cerebrating the coup until Ironsi f%%cked up.

PH, an Igbo town.

The most important information from this report is that Port Harcourt is an Igbo town. It was founded on Igbo land and the early inhabitants were Igbo. The doubt started after the war I guess, and this makes me very angry with whoever tried to change these facts.

I will only scan and post few relevant pages of this book in order to allow the author make some money from his book.

If you want to read all of it, buy your own copy.

How Nzeogwu walked into a planned arrest by Ironsi.

I personally think that Nzeogwu should have stayed in the North and worked with some Northerners to secure the North first, after which he would have invaded Lagos.
Ironsi was clueless and power hungry and needed to be killed.

@Katsumoto

You still don't explain why Ironsi did not cooperate to complete this "Igbo agenda". He could have played dead until the coup succeeded. If he had fled and left the country, the coup could have succeeded. If there was no conditional agreement to surrender, Nzeogwu would have invaded Lagos from the North.
Think for once.

Even after crushing the coup, Ironsi could have handed back power to Dipcharima who would have emerged the prime minister. He did not.

Ironsi was corrupt and power hungry.

The military was as corrupt as the civilians!

Ironsi took the coup personally.

Notice that it is the same conditions of surrender which Ironsi guaranteed Nzeogwu, which avoided the civil war between both camps, that was the reason Murtala Muhammad, Gowon and his northern troops gave for the eventual killing of Ironsi in July 1966.
So, Ironsi never understood even what a junior officer such as Nzeogwu was trying to do in the first place.

As far as the coup plotters were concerned, Ironsi was part the the corrupt rulling elite which needed to be killed for the nation to move forward.

So, this is how the coup did not end up in immediate civil war between Ironsi and Nzeogwu.

The failure.

It is my candid opinion that this thread is not intended for a debate between Ndigbo and others about the motives of the January 1966 coup plotters. It is really to advise Ndigbo to mind their business in Nigeria and not try to be more nationalistic or patriotic than others.

As far as I'm concerned, some Nigerians are incapable of thinking.

Imagine going to rescue a buffalo from the mouth of a lion when there are thousands of other buffaloes running for their lives. You can be stampeded to death because buffaloes can't understand what you are trying to do.

So, the wisest thing is to allow nature to take its course. 

I actually think that the coup plotters underestimated the importance of capturing Ironsi. If he had died in that coup, it would have succeeded. 

I'll be back with more later.

Ironsi's escape actually led to the collapse of the coup.

The Collapse of the Coup


It was striking, splendid and indicative of rare art that within two hours from H-hour which was 0200 hours, ninety-five percent of the targeted first phase of the operation had been neatly accomplished. By 0400 hours almost all key personnel detailed for arrest had been neatly arrested and were in custody. And some were alive and well as really desired by the operators of the coup. As at this time, only about six of the targeted persons who had put up resistance  had been killed. All the others were alive and well and were well kept.The Enugu-Benin axis was a non-starter. But that had not been much of a problem because if a change of government  had been announced, the Premiers of the East and Mid-West would have had no option than to comply with directives,  . . .


Simply put, the coup failed in Lagos. It failed, not because all the strategic locations were not fully manned. Indeed, two hours from H-hour all the major strategic locations were fully manned. But the operators of the coup in Lagos panicked and rather than put heads together to decide on the next line of action after a bit of their first expectations failed, the key operators were mainly concerned for their individual safety and in the process, they abandoned their loyal junior officers at the specific locations which they had instructed them to guard while waiting for further instruction. Major Obienu had reneged on the agreements and did not show up for the operations at all neither did he turn in the troops that he had pledged.

The Execution of the Coup

By 2200 hours on 14th January 1966 a number of junior officers had been assembled at the agreed meeting points for the start of the operation. By this time a major flaw had already struck at the Enugu axis. Lieutenant Oguchi, the officer who was now to carry out the operation in the Enugu-Benin axis was to leave Lagos on January 13th and was to wait for the final notification to carry out the agreed operation. The notification was to come in the early hours of January 15th. It was to be learnt later that Lieutenant Oguchi could not leave Lagos for Enugu on the 13th January as porposed because his vehicle in which to travel was not ready. He now left Lagos for Enugu on the 14th and so was not on ground to receive the final order. By the time he arrived Enugu and got the information through army signals, he was already quite late. The attempts he made was rather belated.

This is how they thought to solve the problem, but they failed even before they could execute it.

Motive contd.

The main motive.