spearman:
Johnson Aguiyi Ironsi’s coup

The real coup happened on January 16,1966 by Aguyi Ironsi

The morning after the January coup… Shehu Shagari got news that the Prime minister had been abducted… he tried to reach out to the Sadaurna.... His phone lines were down. He reached out to his neighbour at Ikoyi… minister for Housing and survey, Adeniran Ogunsanya and the minister for transport, Zanna Bukor Dipcharina… the most senior civilian official in rank at the time… Dipcharima summoned a meeting of all ministers to his house…..

It was at Dipcharina’s house that updates of events the previous night came in… about the death of Okotie Eboh and factions of the military responsible for the rebellion….. the updates also came of Akintola and Sadaurna’s death…. With the news coming in… they got into a panick…. Especially when they got rumors that the coup plotters in the North were upset with how events where handed in the south and were organizing to march down south to finish everybody off….

Nzeogwu had put together a force in the North that he divided into three groups.. one group was to head to Kano to stop a resistance from the fifth battalion…. Another was go to the southeast and take Enugu/Benin and a third group led by Chijoke Ojukwu was to march to Lagos and complete the mission…. At this time, Dipcharina, being the most senior NPC politician was in control of the situation. He sent for the British high commissioner Francais Cummings Brusce and Ironsi.

Dipcharina got worried when he learnt that Maimlari had also been killed and that Ironsi was the one in control…. It was very obvious that Ironsi was deliberately stalling to create an atmosphere of panic…. Dipcharima told the British ambassador… Francais Bruce that they were not comfortable with the army in control of Ironsi and that British should provide them with military support to protect the country….. Bruce replied that it had to be in writing because it is a request from one sovereign country to another and must be signed by an appropriate authority.
The NPC ministers nominated Dipcharina as the acting Prime Minister pending the next meeting where he would be officially recognized. senior members of NPC left for the house of the senate president and asked him to officially recognize Dipcharima as the acting prime minister…. Nwafor Orizu refused and said he wanted to consult first with NCNC members…..

Ironsi called a meeting of senior military officers, including Joseph Edet, Colonel Njoku, Colonel Banjo and Colonel Fajuyi and Colonel Yakubu Gowon. He asked for their opinion and cleverly talked them into suggesting him to take over to restore order… everyone agreed… with an exception to Gowon… He stuttered a bit and apologized, saying he wasn’t thinking straight and would wish to take permission to go to the North to mobilize an army from Zaria….

January 16, 1966….. Ironsi called a meeting of both army and senior officers and told them that the only way order can be restored is if he took over as head of state. He claimed he was reluctant to do so but that the soldiers were adamant …He made them aware that if power was not handed over to him, their lives were at risk.

Alhaji Abdulrazak was asked to put together a hand over note and Nwafor Orizu made a broadcast that the council of ministers had unanimously handed over to the GOC…. Thus, the real coup happened on January 16,1966 by Aguyi Ironsi..... Everyone in the military who could have stood up to him had been killed. If Ademulegun and Maimalari were still alive... they would have brought the needed balance the senate needed to preserve the young democracy. Both of them would have taken charge and easily restored order in the North and West.

Please follow the series of events... we are heading somewhere....

Gbonka Ebiri

LaRosa01:

total fact please add the morning before the coup,Nnamdi for no reason boarded a plane to London.that was the president of the country,then lied to the British that the parliament appointed ironsi to lead the country,when in fact only 33 member of parliament all NCNC members and you guessed right all Igbo members sign the letter appointing ironsi,they did this because the parliament head was an Igbo man.only thing the clowns forgot was that the whole army was from the north and like the foolishness till date,Igbos think they can hate and destroy others and it would not be done to them,as ironsi organized the murdering of other peoples leaders,so was he butched like suya

The Igbos wanted to rule. Why they wanted to rule was that (Nnamdi) Azikiwe was the then Governor-General and more or less Head of State. The constitution did not give any power to Azikiwe. So, this annoyed the Igbo people and they used to say: “How can we run a constitution in which the Head of State cannot advise the government, the government cannot contact the Head of State for any advice?” So, the answer was well to take over since they were already leading and yet they had no control over the government. That was why the Igbo soldiers decided to organise a coup.

The civil war was straightforward. the Igbo wanted to take over the ruling of Nigeria . When all these cunny-cunny actions that people who were preventing them from organising a coup had not been killed, that is Gowon and I, the only thing left was to have a civil war. That was why there was a civil war and in the civil war, the first place Ojukwu attacked was the Mid-West. The Igbo tried to rule Nigeria by force, what they cannot do through the ballot box; they tried it through coup. They tried the coup, it failed and now decided to do a civil war. It was a contract. That is the basic thing.

spearman:


https://www.nairaland.com/7842286/igbo-soldiers-plotted-coup-independence#125818602

Major General David Ejoor, Midwest Governor.