Major General Aguiyi Ironsi

Well, vengeance was wreaked to the extreme, majority of the victims being clearly innocent of any crimes or offences. According to the Onyiuke Report (page 103), The May (1966) riots affected mainly the Hausa/Fulani areas of Northern Nigeria. It did not affect the Bornu Emirate to the North-East, the area commonly called the Middle Belt (comprising Benue province with Makurdi as its principal town, Plateau province with Jos as its principal town, Ilorin, and Kabba provinces. The Ilorin and Kabba provinces are mainly inhabited by the Yoruba, the Benue Province by the Tiv and Idomas and other tribes. The Bornu Emirate is mainly dominated by the Kanuri whose head Chief, the Shehu of Bornu is based in Bornu…

“The pogrom spread to all parts of northern Nigeria between September and October 1966. The main instrument of spreading the pogrom was the Federal Army and Police and thugs organized on a fairly high level to smother the susceptibilities of some of the local chiefs who opposed it. The local inhabitants especially the ex-politicians caught the fever, and horror and disaster spread. The rot was complete.”

After Ironsi was toppled and assassinated, and after “God in his power (had) entrusted the responsibility of this great country of ours into the hands of yet another Northerner,” the Republic of Northern Nigeria was not declared. Why? Despite Gowon’s curious denial to this day that he was going to announce secession on August 1, 1966, the fact is that the move to secede was thwarted by Western powers. According to the minutes of the Cabinet meeting of August 2, 1966 released by the British Government after the mandatory 35-year period of moratorium, and deposited and marked as CAB/128/41 kept at the British Public Records Office at Kew Gardens, London, “The Commonwealth Secretary (The Rt. Hon. Arthur Bottomley, MP) said that there had been a further mutiny in Nigeria and that Major General Ironsi, the Head of State, had been kidnapped and possibly killed. A L-Col Yakubu Gowon, who was Hausa from the Northern Region, had assumed charge of the Government with the support of the Supreme Council. He had been strongly advised by our own High Commissioner and the United States Ambassador against promoting the secession of the North from the Federation.”

The fact that the counter-coup makers did not sunder Nigeria in 1966 is the reason Nigeria remains where it is today. Max Suillon, in his 1990s essay already cited put things in perspective thus: “Now firmly in control of the army, northern officers distributed senior military postings among themselves and created a northern military dynasty. Since the counter-coup, 17 officers have occupied the post of Chief of Army Staff. Of these 17, 15 have been northerners (the only two southerners to occupy the post during that time; Lt-Generals AlaniAkinrinade and Alexander Ogomudia, were appointed by General Obasanjo in 1979, and 2001 respectively). The northern soldiers who carried out the counter-coup have constituted themselves into Nigeria’s de facto ruling class. Of the soldiers who took part in the counter-coup, four (Murtala, Buhari, Babangida, Abacha) became Head of State. Several of them held prominent government and security positions throughout the last three decades. For example, Lieutenants Walbe, Duba, and Shelleng were among the party that murdered Maj-Gen Ironsi and Lt-Col Fajuyi. Walbe was rewarded by being appointed as Gowon’s personal bodyguard, and today Duba and Shelleng are members of the millionaire Generals club, sitting atop massive fortunes and business empires acquired after years of participation in military regimes. MammanVatsa was the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory until he tried one coup too many. Abba Kyari and Baba Usman served as military governors under Gowon for eight years. GadoNasko became a Major-General and was the Minister of the Federal Capital territory during the regime of Ibrahim Babangida. Some of the mutineers occupy prominent government positions till today; Lt-Gen Danjuma (who led the arrest party that abducted Ironsi and Fajuyi) is the current Defence Secretary, and Maj-Gen Abdullahi Mohammed is the current Chief of Staff at the presidency).”

In reverse, July 29 destroyed Igbo relevance in Nigerian politics. Ndigbo became something like fourth-class citizens, to be seen and rarely heard; to be killed at random without consequence; to be told to their faces that Nigerian leadership was outside their tiny scope of entitlements. They may stray into the Armed Forces but could never aspire to ranks above Colonel, except they were in the Medical or Education Corps. They may excel in academics or soccer or the sciences. Their entrepreneurial skills may match the best anywhere in the world. But in the scheme of national affairs, they must stand back.

Things have now gone full cycle. After five decades, the architects of July 29, 1966 have, aided by accessories to political change, assumed power yet again, cloaked like democrats.
But the leopard never changes its spots. Which is why, in informed circles, their mantra of change elicits anything between skeptical smiles and outright indignation.

Chuks Iloegbunam ([email protected]),is the author of Ironside, the biography of General Aguiyi-Ironsi.