Northerners Kill Ironsi & Tribal Genocide Follows
In
July 1966, Northern junior army officers led their fellow Northern
rank-and-file in an anti-Ibo military coup. They killed most Ibo
officers in the North and West. Maj-Gen. Ironsi was arrested and then
killed. At least 200 Ibo military men-including some 40 officers-were
slain by the Northerners. The Northern junior officers then chose
Lt-Col. Yakubu Gowon, a fairly suitable compromise, to succeed the
slain Maj-Gen. Ironsi.
General Yakubu Gowon headed the federal military government of Nigeria from 1966 to 1975, when he was overthrown in a bloodless coup led by Brigadier Murtala Ramat Muhammad. The photograph shows Gowon in 1973.
General Yakubu Gowon headed the federal military government of Nigeria from 1966 to 1975, when he was overthrown in a bloodless coup led by Brigadier Murtala Ramat Muhammad. The photograph shows Gowon in 1973.
On assuming power, Lt-Col. (later Gen.) Gowon revoked Ironsi's decree
(which had made Nigeria a unitary state) and restored the federal type
of government. He also released Chief Awolowo and his followers.
To the Northerners, the revenge so far was not enough. Organised
killings of Ibo civilians living in the North started. The Ibos
retaliated by killing many of the Northerners living in the East. The
Northerners stepped up the killing of Ibos who had not yet escaped from
the North. The Ibos living in the West also left for their homeland.
The Military Governor of the Eastern Region was Lt-Col. Chukwuemeka
Odumegwu Ojukwu-an Ibo officer who had graduated with a BA degree in
modern history from Oxford (UK), and son of Sir Odumegwu Ojukwu, who
was one of the wealthiest men in Nigeria. Towards the end of 1966,
Lt-Col. Ojukwu made initial moves towards secession by demanding the
autonomy of the Eastern Region, and by so doing he refused to attend
further national meetings in Lagos, the federal capital city.
The
federal government of Lt-Col. Gowon made many reconciliation attempts,
but Lt-Col. Ojukwu turned a deaf ear.
Of the petroleum yet discovered in the Eastern Region, less than half
of it was in Iboland; and the rest was in the lands of the minority
tribes in the same region. In May 1967, the federal government declared
a state of emergency and issued a decree dividing Nigeria into 12
states.
In so doing, the petroleum-rich non-Ibo lands would be removed
from Ibo influence. Ojukwu himself was named Governor of the small
East-Central State, in the interior of Iboland. It never functioned.
National Movements and New States in Africa