OPERATION 'AURE': The Northern Military Counter-Rebellion of July 1966
By
Nowa Omoigui
BACKGROUND
In the early hours of January 15, 1966, citing a laundry list of complaints against the political class, there was a military rebellion in Nigeria against the first republic. Led by a group of Majors who were predominantly of eastern origin, the Prime Minister, a federal minister, two regional premiers, along with top Army officers were brutally assassinated. A number of civilians were also killed.
The coup succeeded in Kaduna the northern region capital, failed in Lagos the federal capital and Ibadan the western regional capital, but barely took place in Benin the midwestern capital, and Enugu the eastern capital.
The majority of those murdered were northerners, accompanied by some westerners and two Midwesterners. No easterner lost his or her life. On January 16, rather than approve the appointment of Zanna Bukar Dipcharima, a politician of northern origin, as acting Prime Minister, the acting President, Nwafor Orizu, himself of eastern origin, handed over power to Major-General JTU Aguiyi-Ironsi, the GOC of the Nigerian Army, also of eastern origin. This was allegedly at the behest of the rump cabinet, allegedly to enable Ironsi put down the revolt which, as of then, had already failed in southern Nigeria. Until it became apparent recently in separate testimony by Alhaji Shehu Shagari and Chief Richard Akinjide, it had always been publicly assumed in the lay Press that the hand-over was voluntary although unconstitutional - since no such provision existed in the Nigerian constitution. However, it does seem that as far back as 1969, Martin Dent pointed out the involuntary nature of the so-called hand-over in an academic paper, based on an interview with Alhaji Shettima Ali Monguno.
In July 2000, at a public book launching ceremony in Nigeria, Chief Richard Akinjide stated:
"Talking on the first coup, when Balewa got missing, we knew Okotie-Eboh had been held, we knew Akintola had been killed. We, the members of the Balewa cabinet started meeting. But how can you have a cabinet meeting without the Prime Minister acting or Prime Minister presiding. So, unanimously, we nominated acting Prime Minister amongst us. Then we continued holding our meetings. Then we got a message that we should all assemble at the Cabinet office. All the Ministers were requested by the G.O.C. of the Nigerian Army, General Ironsi to assemble. What was amazing at that time was that Ironsi was going all over Lagos unarmed. We assembled there. Having nominated ZANA Diphcharima as our acting Prime Minister in the absence of the Prime Minister, whose whereabout we didn't know, we approached the acting President, Nwafor Orizu to swear him in because he cannot legitimately act as the Prime Minister except he is sworn- in. Nwafor Orizu refused. He said he needed to contact Zik who was then in West Indies.
Under the law, that is, the Interpretation Act, as acting President, Nwazor Orizu had all the powers of the President. The GOC said he wanted to see all the cabinet ministers. And so we assembled at the cabinet office. Well, I have read in many books saying that we handed over to the military. We did not hand-over.
Ironsi told us that "you either hand over as gentlemen or you hand-over by force". Those were his words. Is that voluntary hand-over? So we did not hand-over. We wanted an Acting Prime Minister to be in place but Ironsi forced us, and I use the word force advisedly, to handover to him. He was controlling the soldiers.
The acting President, Nwafor Orizu, who did not cooperate with us, cooperated with the GOC. Dr. Orizu and the GOC prepared speeches which Nwafor Orizu broadcast handing over the government of the country to the army. I here state again categorically as a member of that cabinet that we did not hand-over voluntarily. It was a coup. "
Corroborating Akinjide's account, according to Shehu Shagari, in his Book "Beckoned to Serve",
"…....….At about 7.00 am, I returned to Dipcharima's residence to meet with some NPC ministers who had gathered there. Dipcharima was then the most senior NPC minister available. We received the latest reports on the situation, first from Alhaji Maitama Sule, Minister of Mines and Power, who had visited the PM's residence by bicycle! We then heard from Alhaji Ibrahim Tako Galadima, the acting Minister of Defence, who had brought along with him Chief Fani-Kayode.
Chief Fani-Kayode said he had been fetched from Ibadan early that morning by rebels and locked up at the Federal Guard Officers Mess in Dodan Barracks, where the mutineers initially made their headquarters. Disguised in army uniform, loyal troops handed him over to Alhaji Galadima, who had called in at the barracks, which was a stone's throw of his residence…………….The acting Minister of Defence assured us that Major-General Ironsi was doing his best to arrest the situation.
Maitama Sule and I were separately detailed to explore with our absent NPC and NCNC colleagues the possibility of naming someone to stand in for the PM. I was consulting with NCNC ministers at Dr. Mbadiwe's residence when we heard that the Northern and Western premiers, Sir Ahmadu Bello and Chief Akintola respectively, had been assassinated. Hence I rushed back to Dipcharima's residence, where I found my colleagues in a state of shock and desperation.
However, we decided to recognize Dipcharima, a Kanuri from Bornu, as our interim leader; and to ask the acting President, Dr. Orizu (President Azikiwe was away on leave), to appoint Dipcharima acting Prime Minister. We also summoned Major General Ironsi and gave him full authority to use every force at his disposal to suppress the rebellion. He moved his headquarters temporarily to the police headquarters at moloney street to facilitate easy communication with army units in the regions.
While at Dipcharima's residence, we contacted the British High Commission and requested for military assistance in the event that our loyal troops should require any. The response was positive, but the British insisted that the request must be written by the PM; or, in his absence, by a properly appointed deputy. We, therefore, drove to the residence of Dr. Orizu, and requested him to appoint Dipcharima acting prime minister. Dr. Orizu requested to see our NCNC colleagues to confirm whether they supported our proposition, and they joined us soon afterwards. They had apparently been caucusing at Dr. Mbadiwe's residence. He (Mbadiwe) was their choice of acting Prime Minister. This was naturally unacceptable to us since the NPC was the major governing party.
While we were at Orizu's residence, Major-General Ironsi, who had seemingly secured Lagos, came in with some armed escorts. He requested for a tete-a-tete with Orizu. The two had a 40 minutes discussion in another room, while we waited anxiously in the sitting room, with the armed soldiers standing and staring at us. When Major-General Ironsi finally emerged, he talked to Dipcharima sotto voce; and then drove off with his troops. Dr. Orizu then joined us, regretted his inability in the circumstances to oblige our request. He suggested we all return to our homes and wait until we were required. All efforts to get any clarification failed, and we left in utter desperation.
I was about to break the Ramadan fast on Sunday 16th January, when all ministers were asked to report to the Cabinet Office at 6.30 pm. The whole premises was surrounded by soldiers in battle order that some of us initially hesitated to enter. In the Cabinet chamber were Major General Ironsi, Bukar Dipcharima and Ibrahim Tako Galadima. There were no officials present.
Major General Ironsi admitted to us that he had been unable to suppress the rebellion, which he said was getting out of hand. He stated that the mutineers were in control of Kaduna, Kano and Ibadan, and had killed two regional premiers, Sir Ahmadu Bello and Chief Akintola. They had also murdered a number of his best officers, including Brigadiers Maimalari and Samuel Adesujo Ademulegun, the Commander 1st Brigade Headquarters in Kaduna. Ironsi was full of emotion and even shed some tears. When we asked him about the whereabouts of Sir ABubakar and Chief Okotie-Eboh, he said he still did not know but averred efforts were being made to locate them. At this stage Mbadiwe broke down and kept crying: "Please where is the Prime Minister?"
When we reminded Major-General Ironsi if he needed to avail himself of the British pledge of assistance, he replied it was too late as the army was pressing him to assume power. Indeed, he confessed his personal reluctance to take over because of his ignorance of government; but insisted the boys were adamant and anxiously waiting outside. He advised it would be in our interest, and that of the country, to temporarily cede power to him to avert disaster. Accordingly, we acceded to his request since we had no better alternative. Ironsi then insisted that the understanding be written.
Surprisingly, there was no stationery to write the agreement; and all the offices were locked while no official was around. Alhaji AGF Abdulrazaq the Minister of State for the Railways (former NPC legal adviser), managed to secure a scrap paper on which he drafted a statement, which we endorsed. That was the so called voluntary hand-over of power by the Balewa Government to Major General Ironsi! It was agreed that the statement would be typed and Dipcharima would sign it on our behalf. We were then advised to return home and await further instructions. I only got to break my Ramadan fast around 9:30 pm.
Later at 11.50 pm, Dr. Orizu made a terse nationwide broadcast, announcing the cabinet's voluntary decision to transfer power to the armed forces. Major General Ironsi then made his own broadcast, accepting the "invitation". He suspended certain parts of the constitution; set up a national military government, with the office of military governors in each region; and briefly outlined the policy intentions of his regime. Nigeria's first democratic experiment was effectively over. And although the mutiny had by then practically collapsed, military rule had arrived. It was a fact.
The following morning, 17 January, Alhaji Kam Salem, the Deputy Inspector-General of Police (then also doubling for the Inspector-General, Mr. Louis Orok Edet, while on vacation), called at my residence to confide that both the PM and Chief Okotie-Eboh had been confirmed killed. He then hinted that Major General Ironsi was still negotiating with the rebels in Kaduna, led by Major Patrick Chukwuma Kaduna Nzeogwu"
Then Lt. Col. (later General) Gowon, who was not physically present when the rump cabinet was handing over, says he was later told by Ironsi and other officers (who were outside the cabinet office chambers, and thus did not themselves witness the event) that it was voluntary. He recalls asking three separate times to be certain, but now says that had he known it was not, he would have acted differently on that day as the Commander of the 2nd Battalion at Ikeja which supported Ironsi in putting down the Ifeajuna-Nzeogwu revolt.
The substantive President, Nnamdi Azikiwe, also of eastern origin, had left the country in late 1965 first for Europe, then on a health cruise to the caribbean, after allegedly being tipped off by his cousin, Major Ifeajuna, one of the masterminds of the coup and, some say, overall leader. Interestingly, (assuming reports that he had foreknowledge are true) Azikiwe did not notify his alliance partner, the Prime Minister, Alhaji Tafawa Balewa, with whom he had clashed over control of the armed forces during the Constitutional crisis of January 1965, following the controversial December 1964 federal elections. [http://www.gamji.com/nowa11.htm]
In fact President Azikiwe's personal physician, Dr. Humphrey Idemudia Idehen, abandoned him abroad when he got tired of the "health trip", having run out of his personal estacode allowance, unaware that there may have been a good reason why Azikiwe did not want to return to Nigeria, after their original planned return date in December 1965 passed. Not even the Commonwealth Leaders' Conference hosted for the first time by the country in early January was incentive enough for the President to return, for obvious reasons of protocol. However, after the coup, in a statement to the Press in England on January 16, among other things, Azikiwe did not condemn the coup per se, but said:
"Violence has never been an instrument used by us, as founding fathers of the Nigerian Republic, to solve political problems. ….I consider it most unfortunate that our 'Young Turks' decided to introduce the element of violent revolution into Nigerian politics. No matter how they and our general public might have been provoked by obstinate and perhaps grasping politicians, it is an unwise policy……..As far as I am concerned, I regard the killings of our political and military leaders as a national calamity…."
Major Ifeajuna was later to be accused by Major Patrick Nzeogwu, leader of northern operations, of bungling or ignoring an apparent understanding to assassinate General Ironsi in Lagos - an oversight, or "misguided consideration" (to use Nzeogwu's words) that caused the failure of the coup. Indeed, Nzeogwu bluntly declared publicly that the execution of the coup in the South was tribalistic. Captain Emmanuel Nwobosi (rtd), leader of operations in the Western region, has since corroborated the view that operations in Lagos were compromised by nepotism. For this and other reasons, over the years, some analysts have come to view Nzeogwu, who was recruited two full months after the plot was already in progress, as a tool in a plot he never fully understood. Indeed, in offering condolences for the death of the Sardauna of Sokoto, ex-Senate President Nwafor Orizu told Alhaji Shehu Shagari that Major Nzeogwu was "an unknown entity among the Ibos (sic) in the Eastern region."
Those who have defended the January mutiny as being motivated by nationalistic, rather than tribal instincts, say Ironsi escaped because he had gone for a party on a Boat along the Marina that night and was not at home when mutineers allegedly came calling. Tenuous explanations exist for why the Igbo speaking Premiers of the Midwest and Eastern regions were spared and no Igbo commanding or staff officer was specifically targetted. January apologists also say that there were a few non-Igbo officers involved (although none were entrusted with key targets and most were brought in at the last minute). It is argued that the mainly Igbo speaking plotters intended to release Chief Obafemi Awolowo (a westerner) from jail in Calabar to make him leader. Others interpret the same information, combined with the highly specific pattern of killings, to mean that the coup was carried out by officers sympathetic to the United Progressive Grand Alliance (UPGA), although hijacked by the GOC of the Nigerian Army, possibly encouraged by Senate President Nwafor Orizu, and urged on by officers like Lt. Col. Victor Banjo, Lt-Col. Francis Fajuyi, Lt. Col. H. Njoku, Lt. Col. C. O. Ojukwu and Major Patrick Anwunah.
On January 17, Major General Ironsi established the Supreme Military Council in Lagos and announced Decree No. 1, effectively suspending the constitution, although it was not formally promulgated until March. Later that day Major PCK Nzeogwu, the leader of the revolt in the northern region negotiated a conditional surrender in which Ironsi agreed not to bring the mutineers to military trial. The next day, military governors were appointed for each of the four regions (Major Hassan Katsina – North, Lt. Col. Chukwuemeka Ojukwu – East, Lt. Col. Adekunle Fajuyi – West, and Lt. Col. David Ejoor, Midwest).
Colonel Adeyinka Adebayo was briefly summoned back from the Imperial Defence College where he was undergoing a course. Brigadier Babatunde Ogundipe, erstwhile Chief of Staff, Nigerian Defence Forces, was made Chief of Staff, Supreme Headquarters. Lt. Col. Yakubu Chinwa Gowon, the most senior surviving northern officer, who was in the process of assuming command of the 2nd Battalion at Ikeja on January 14/15, a unit which proved critical to restoration of order in Lagos, was made Chief of Staff (Army).
Other early military appointments include:
Chief of Staff (NAF), Lt. Col. George Kurubo (East, non-Igbo)
Commanding Officer, 2 Bde, Lt. Col. H. Njoku (East, Igbo)
Commanding Officer, 2 Bn, Major H. Igboba (Midwest, Igbo)
Commanding Officer, Abeokuta Garrison, Major G. Okonweze (Midwest, Igbo)
Commanding Officer, 4 Bn, Major Nzefili (Midwest, Igbo)
Commanding Officer, Federal Guards, Major Ochei (Midwest, Igbo)
Commanding Officer, 1 Bn, Major D. Ogunewe (East, Igbo)
Commanding Officer, 1 Bde, Lt. Col W. Bassey (East, non-Igbo)
Commanding Officer, 3 Bn, Major Okoro (East, Igbo)
Commanding Officer, Depot, Major F. Akagha (East, Igbo)
Commanding Officer, 5 Bn, Major M. Shuwa (North)
It is said that there was initial euphoria by the public, even in the far north, against old ministers. However, there were some early problems too, which, to discerning eyes, were pregnant with foreboding. In his book "Years of Challenge", Brigadier Samuel Ogbemudia (rtd) recalls:
"Before January 15, 1966, I had thought that the Nigerian soldier was not blood thirsty, thus ruling out the possibility of a bloody coup. Events proved me wrong and forced me to change my opinion about the Nigerian soldier. Although the ordinary man on the street welcomed the change of government, rejoiced and danced away in ecstatic jubilation, the atmosphere was muggy."
For example, in the West, AG/UPGA supporters settled scores against supporters of former Premier Akintola's NNDP, creating a major crisis which evolved into an international refugee problem. It is said that 2000 refugees fled across the border to neighbouring Dahomey before the border was closed from January 16-26. No less than a thousand people were killed in the melee before Lt. Col. FA Fajuyi, the new military governor, detained surviving NNDP supporters allegedly for their own protection. In the North, there were some subdued early signs of a recoil among civilian elite, while unrest simmered in the Army. The net result was that Ironsi quickly felt threatened by Nzeogwu's supporters on one hand, and upset northern troops on the other.
REFLECTIONS OF AN IGBO DIPLOMAT
In his book, "No Place to Hide -
Crises and Conflicts inside Biafra", Bernard Odogwu, then a Nigerian
diplomat, but destined to become Chief of Biafran Intelligence, reveals
that shortly after the coup of January 15, 1966 he and a fellow diplomat
called Adamu Mohammed at the Nigerian mission to the United Nations in
New York had a frank discussion about it. Odogwu wrote that "we were
both in agreement that the so called 'revolutionaries' had performed
very badly, in view of the one sidedness of the operation and the
selectiveness of the killings." Following this discussion Odogwu made an
entry on January 23, 1966 into his personal notebook:
"With all
the returns in, we now seem to have a complete picture of the coup, the
plotters, and the casualties. Reading through the newspapers, one gets
the impression that this national catastrophe which is termed a
"revolution" is being blown greatly out of proportion. It does appear to
me though, that we have all gone wild with jubilation in welcoming the
so-called 'dawn of a new era' without pausing to consider the possible
chain reactions that may soon follow……….I shudder at the possible
aftermath of this this folly committed by our boys in khaki.; and what
has kept coming to my mind since the afternoon is the passage in
Shakespeare's MACBETH - 'And they say blood will have blood'.
First
I ask myself this question; 'What will be the position as soon as the
present mass euphoria in welcoming the 'revolution' in the country fades
away?' There is already some rumour here within diplomatic circles that
January 15 was a grand Igbo design to liquidate all opposition in order
to make way for Igbo domination of the whole country. What then is the
Igbo man's defence to this allegation in light of the sectional and
selective method adopted by the coup plotters?
Although, sitting
here alone as I write this, I am tempted to say that there was no such
Igbo grand design, yet the inescapable fact is that the Igbos are
already as a group being condemned by the rest for the activities of a
handful of ambitious Igbo army officers; for here I am, with the rest of
my Igbo colleagues, some thousands of miles away from home, yet being
put on the defensive for such actions that we were neither consulted
about, nor approved of. Our Northern colleagues and friends now look on
us Igbos here as strangers and potential enemies. They are now more
isolated than ever before. Their pride is hurt; and who would blame
them?
Secondly, I ask myself the questions posed to me this
afternoon by my colleague; What would I do if I were placed in the
position of the Northerner? What do I do? How do I react to the
situation? Do I just deplore and condemn those atrocities or do I plan a
revenge? I do not blame the Northern chaps for feeling so sore since
the events of the last few days. They definitely have my sympathy, for
it must have been shocking to say the least, for one to wake up one fine
morning to find nearly all one's revered leaders gone overnight. But
they were not only Northern leaders as such, and I am as much aggrieved
at their loss as any other Nigerian, Northern or otherwise. I am
particularly shocked at the news that Major Ifeajuna personally shot and
killed his mentor, Brigadier Maimalari. My God! That must have been
Caesar and Brutus come alive, with the Brigadier definitely saying 'Et
tu Emma' before collapsing………"
"…….As for the new man at the helm
of affairs, Major General Aguiyi-Ironsi, he too like the majority of
the Majors is an Igbo, and that has not helped matters either. ….."
"…….Granted
that he is such a good soldier as he is reputed to be, the question is:
'Are all good soldiers necessarily good statesmen? Again how well
prepared is he for the task he has just inherited?' I do hope that he is
also as wise as he is reputed to be bold, because if you ask me, I
think the General is sitting on a time bomb, with the fuse almost burnt
out. We shall wait and see what happens next, but from my observations, I
know the present state of affairs will not last long. A northern
counter-action is definitely around the corner, and God save us all when
it explodes."
MISUNDERSTANDING AND SUSPICION
Indeed,
misunderstandings and suspicions in Ibadan and Kaduna led to the deaths
of Major S. A. Adegoke (who was accused of running a checkpoint but was
actually killed on suspicion of cooperating with the mutineers) and
2/Lt. James Odu respectively, several days after the Nzeogwu-Ifeajuna
January mutiny had already been put down. In the 4th Battalion at
Ibadan, northern troops drove Igbo officers out of the barracks and
refused to cooperate with Major Nzefili, a midwesterner from Ukwuani and
the 2ic to late Lt. Col Largema, for no other reason than he was 'Igbo
speaking'. Nzefili had absolutely nothing to do with the January coup
and, paradoxically, first heard of it via early morning phone calls to
the barracks from the American and British embassies in Lagos looking
for information. Nevertheless, four weeks later, he had to be replaced
by Lt. Col Joe Akahan, a Tiv officer from the North, just to placate the
soldiers. In exchange, Nzefili was made the General Manager of the
Nigerian Railway Corporation, where had previously worked in the days
prior to joining the Army.
In Kaduna, when Odu was
killed by soldiers, several northern officers actually ran away from the
barracks, fearful for their lives. In the Federal Guards Company in
Lagos, northern rank and file fuming over the role of their commander,
Major Donatus Okafor, in the coup, refused to accept Major Ochei as
their new commanding officer unless Captain Joseph Nanven Garba was
redeployed from Brigade HQ and appointed his second in command. While
all this was going on, about 32 officers and 100 other ranks were
initially detained at KiriKiri prison on suspicion of complicity in the
coup. Captain Baba Usman, General Staff Officer (II) Intelligence, was
appointed military liaison to the Police and was responsible for
transporting them daily to Force Headquarters Moloney where most were
interrogated by a Police team on their part in the coup. This team
included Isa Adejo, MD Yusuf, and Mr. Trout, an expatriate who was then
Head of Special Branch. When the interrogations were completed in March
the detainees were distributed away from each other to other prisons,
all of which were in the South, but predominantly in the East - which
proved to be another source of suspicion. The report was then submitted
to the government and a panel nominated to court-martial the detainees,
chaired by Lt. Col Conrad Nwawo, the midwestern Igbo speaking officer
and personal friend of Nzeogwu who had negotiated Nzeogwu's surrender in
January. However, even this panel found that every time it wanted to
sit, the date was postponed by directives from Supreme HeadQuarters, a
process that repeated itself again and again until overtaken by events
in July.
On Friday January 21, acting on a tip off, the
decomposing corpse of the slain Prime Minster, Sir Abubakar Tafawa
Balewa, and others were discovered by Police at Mile 27 on the
Lagos-Abeokuta road. The only hint that gave away the identity of the
late Prime Minister's body was the 'frog and bridle pattern' of the
white gown he had worn when arrested by Major Ifeajuna. The next day,
coinciding with the moslem festival of Id-el-fitr, the Prime Minister's
death was officially announced and he was buried in Bauchi. However, the
Ironsi government decided not to publicly announce the deaths of others
who had been killed in the coup, including all the top military
officers, leaving room for rumors and innuendos. Indeed their deaths
were not officially publicly announced until Ironsi was overthrown.
The
shape of Ironsi's advisory team became clear as time went on. Chief
among them was Francis Nwokedi, former permanent secretary in the
ministry of external affairs, who had become close to him during his
days in the Congo. Others were Pius Okigbo (economic adviser) and Lt.
Col Patrick Anwunah who was later Chairman of the National Orientation
Committee. However, most of General Ironsi's advisers were faceless
civilians. The most common complaint was that, although highly qualified
and distinguished, they were either all Igbos or Igbo speaking. I have
no way of verifying or refuting this allegation. Knowing how other
governments in Nigeria have behaved (and continue to behave), it is hard
to know what to make of these observations, but they were recorded by
observers across ethnic and regional boundaries.
On
February 12, Ironsi took his most sensitive decision to date when he
made Nwokedi the sole commissioner for the establishment of an
administrative machinery for a unified Nigeria - even though he already
appointed a separate Constitutional Review Panel under Rotimi Williams
which had not submitted a report. Four days later he promulgated the
Suppression of Disorder Decree making allowance for military tribunals
and martial law. About this time too, he abolished the compulsory Hausa
language test for entry into the northern civil service - a decision
which appealed not just to non-Hausa speaking northerners but also to
southerners eyeing northern public service careers as well. Ironsi also
authorized a counter-insurgency campaign against Isaac Boro's "Peoples
Republic of the Niger Delta". The internal security operation in the
Kaiama area of present day Bayelsa state that captured Boro was led by
Major John Obienu of the Recce regiment supported by infantry elements
of the 1st battalion in Enugu, prominent among whom was then Lt. YY
Kure. Boro, (along with Samuel Owonaru, Nottingham Dick and Benneth
Mendi) was eventually convicted of treason and sentenced to death only
to be released by the subsequent Gowon regime and die fighting during
the civil war.
The fissures in the polity were becoming
increasingly glaring. For example, on the one hand, Peter Enahoro (Peter
Pan) criticized Ironsi's indecisiveness with national issues. On the
other, the murder of northerners in January and lack of prosecution of
those responsible was the focus of increasingly strident write-ups in
Gaskiya Ta Fi Kwabo, a Hausa newspaper. In the background, increasing
food prices as a result of the delayed effect of 1965 crises in the west
on planting was beginning to affect the prices of food stuffs
everywhere.
Anyway, on February 21st, General Ironsi
announced a bold reform policy. A few days later on the 25th the former
President, Nnamdi Azikiwe, quietly returned to the country, only to
become the focus of controversy when subsequently dismissed by Lt. Col
Ojukwu as Chancellor of the University of Nigeria, Nsukka.
On
March 7, sensing some heat, former leading politicians in the Western
and Eastern regions were detained, but those of the northern region were
left alone because of political sensitivities resulting from the coup.
Indeed, Ironsi made an effort - ultimately insufficient - to walk on
eggs with the North. The way his advisers saw it, he had appointed and
promoted the son of the Emir of Katsina as the new military Governor,
released NPC ministers who were detained by Nzeogwu in Kaduna,
reappointed Sule Katagum to the Public Service Commission and placed
Malam Howeidy in charge of the Electricity Corporation of Nigeria. In
May, among other promotions, he promoted three substantive northern
Captains (Ibrahim Haruna of Ordnance, Murtala Muhammed of Signals and
Mohammed Shuwa of Infantry) who were then acting Majors to the ranks of
temporary Lt. Cols. But he fell short on more culturally sensitive
matters. For example, the military governor of the northern region, then
Major Hassan Katsina, was discouraged by the Ironsi government from
attending the funeral of the late Prime Minister Balewa in Bauchi.
Proper funerals were not allowed for the other victims of the January
coup.
On March 31st, military governors were asked to
join the federal executive council, thus enlarging its membership. On
April 14, native authority councils and local government entities in the
North were dissolved. By then the concept of unification was garnering
controversial attention. Mustafa Danbatta and Suleiman Takuma wrote
strong public letters against unification in April 7 and 19
respectively. Takuma was arrested, in part because he raised the
sensitive issue of trying the January plotters.
On 12
May, proposed Decrees 33 and 34 were discussed by the SMC. Decree No. 33
was a list of 81 political societies and 26 tribal and cultural
associations that were to be dissolved. Decree No. 34 divided Nigeria
into 35 provinces and made all civil servants part of a unified civil
service. It is said that there was opposition and that the final version
was watered down. Even then, although Ironsi did not legally require
approval of the SMC for decisions, there continues to be doubt about
whether Ironsi fully appreciated the depths of opposition which Decree
34 would create in the North. How vigorously did Katsina, Kam Salem, and
Gowon, for example, forewarn him of consequences? Had he by then become
hostage to a kitchen cabinet outside government?
The
answer may have been provided by two sources. According to Brigadier
Ogbemudia (rtd) who was then Brigade Major at the 1st Brigade, during a
visit to Kaduna, 1st Brigade Commander Lt. Col Bassey tried to advise
General Ironsi to back off from the controversial decree, but a civilian
adviser who came along with the General retorted saying: "Colonel, the
General understands Nigerians more than you here. You will find that the
people will soon see him as the much sought redeemer of our dreams. Do
not worry. Everything is under control." It was claimed that national
surveys had been done to show that the decree was welcome all over the
country. More recently General Gowon has said the matter was still being
discussed in the SMC when the government suddenly promulgated the
decree. That said, Eastern region Governor Lt. Col. Ojukwu did not help
matters for the General when, the next day after promulgation on May 24,
he publicly announced in Enugu that on the basis of seniority, Igbo
civil servants would be transferred to other regions and Lagos. Needless
to say, he unintentionally sent shivers through the northern civil
service because that region was not only educationally disadvantaged but
traditionally paid the lowest salaries in the federation, automatically
relegating northerners to the bottom of any unified civil service.
Caught
between radical (pro January 15) and conservative (anti January 15)
polarities, Ironsi could be said to have promulgated the 24th May
decrees to satisfy the radical intelligentsia in the southern press
while projecting vision, authority and control. But funny enough the
leading spokesman for the January coup, Major Nzeogwu, was later quoted
during his last interview in April 1967 (with Ejindu) as saying the
Unification decree was "unnecessary, even silly". It is also on record
that a group of lecturers at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka opposed
unification. So it would seem Ironsi was responding to other impulses.
According
to Norman Miners, the unitary concept advanced by Ironsi's advisers was
more likely motivated by ideological, personal and economic agendas. In
the book "The Nigerian Army 1956-66", he expresses the opinion that the
theoretical foundations date back to the 1951 party congress of the
NCNC. Indeed, the concept of federalism which we now all sing about, was
regarded by columnists in the West African Pilot in the fifties as a
colonial "divide and rule" contraption cooked up by Britain as a
concession to the North after the April 1953 riots in Kano. The second
plank upon which unification was built was the cost argument.
Unification was economically cheaper than multiple layers of
administration in the country - a position that was argued by Dr. Sam
Aluko, a notable economist. The third plank was the personal motive
factor. Unification offered southerners (including Igbos) vast new
employment opportunities in the "northern frontier". The flip side of
this was the provocation of morbid fear of domination in the North, fear
which united hitherto antagonistic northern political constituencies.