Nigerian Civil War

==Independence and First Republic==
Nigeria gained independence on 1 October 1960, and the [[First Nigerian Republic|First Republic]] came to be on 1 October 1963. The first prime minister of Nigeria, [[Abubakar Tafawa Balewa]], was a northerner and [[Organizational founder|co-founder]] of the Northern People's Congress. He formed an alliance with the National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons party, and its popular nationalist leader [[Nnamdi Azikiwe|Nnamdi "Zik" Azikiwe]], who became [[List of governors and governors-general of Nigeria|Governor General]] and then President. The Yoruba-aligned Action Group, the third major party, played the opposition role.<ref>Pierri, "A New Entry into the World Oil Market" (2013), p. 109.</ref>

Workers became increasingly aggrieved by low wages and bad conditions, especially when they compared their lot to the lifestyles of [[politician]]s in Lagos. Most wage earners lived in the Lagos area, and many lived in overcrowded dangerous housing. Labour activity including strikes intensified in 1963, culminating in a nationwide general strike in June 1964. Strikers disobeyed an ultimatum to return to work and at one point were dispersed by riot police. Eventually, they did win wage increases. The strike included people from all ethnic groups.<ref>Diamond, ''Class, Ethnicity and Democracy in Nigeria'' (1988), chapter 6: "The 1964 General Strike" (pp. 162–189).</ref> Retired Brigadier General H. M. Njoku later wrote that the general strike heavily exacerbated tensions between the Army and ordinary [[civilian]]s and put pressure on the Army to take action against a government which was widely perceived as corrupt.<ref>Nkoku, ''A Tragedy Without Heroes'' (1987), p. 4. "The general resentment against a corrupt and stagnant regime continued. The Army as part of the population was not sympathetic to the government. Workers were urging the soldiers, whom they saw guarding the strategic places, to overthrow the government. Some angry workers spat on the troops. / Markets close to Army barracks purposely raised prices of foodstuffs in order to infuriate the troops.{{nbsp}}... It was feared that the workers would overthrow the government. They could have very easily done it had they realised their strength and remained united. At the height of the strike, only one platoon – thirty men – was the Army reserve, and it had no transports and no wireless sets. The army was in a state of near mutiny."</ref>

The [[Nigerian parliamentary election, 1964|1964 elections]], which involved heavy campaigning all year, brought ethnic and regional divisions into focus. Resentment of politicians ran high, and many campaigners feared for their safety while touring the country. The Army was repeatedly deployed to [[Benué State|Tiv Division]], killing hundreds and arresting thousands of [[Tiv people]] agitating for self-determination.<ref name="Diamond1988chapter7">Diamond, ''Class, Ethnicity and Democracy in Nigeria'' (1988), chapter 7: "The 1964 Federal Election Crisis" (pp. 190–247).</ref><ref>Ekwe-Ekwe, ''The Biafra War'' (1990), p. 36. "In the middle belt, the Tiv were in open revolt against the NPC government in Kaduna. Well-organised groups of the opposition UMBC attacked opponents, and easily identifiable state officials and institutions, especially those associated with law and order. Scores of police, members of the judiciary and tax officials were killed, while several police posts, courthouses and local government establishments were destroyed during the campaign. Altogether hundreds of civilians died during the emergency, many of whom had been killed by the police during a scorched earth counter-insurgency operation. While the deployment of the military ultimately suppressed the uprising, the political demands for Tiv self-government went unheeded."</ref>

Widespread reports of fraud tarnished the election's legitimacy.<ref name="Diamond1988chapter7"/> [[Western State (Nigeria)|Westerners]] especially resented the political domination of the Northern People's Congress, many of whose candidates ran unopposed in the election. Violence spread throughout the country, and some began to flee the North and West, some to [[Benin|Dahomey]].<ref>Ekwe-Ekwe, ''The Biafra War'' (1990), pp. 36–40. "A virtual state of civil war prevailed as rival political groups attacked each other, killing, maiming and burning. Thousands of people fled to the neighboring Benin Republic (then called Dahomey) into exile."</ref> The apparent domination of the political system by the North, and the chaos breaking out across the country, motivated elements within the military to consider decisive action.<ref>Ekwe-Ekwe, ''The Biafra War'' (1990), p. 40. "There was now a popular and mass opposition to a regime which the majority of the west's electorate felt had been imposed on them by the NPC. / There were also rumblings in the military over the violence in the west, and most importantly the Balwea government's inability to deal with the situation. For quite a while, but particularly since the December 1964 bogus elections, sections of the middle-ranking officer corps had been extremely incensed by the larceny and absolutism of the NPC rule, some of whose features had also affected the military itself in various fundamental ways. The fact that Nigeria appeared to be stuck indefinitely in an NPC, north-dominated political quagmire provided the impetus for the military coup d'état that occurred in the country in January 1966."</ref>

In addition to Shell-BP, the British reaped profits from mining and commerce. The British-owned [[United Africa Company of Nigeria|United Africa Company]] alone controlled 41.3% of all Nigeria's foreign trade.<ref>"Thus northern privilege and political hegemony became the dual ''internal'' lever with which the United Kingdom used in reinforcing its control of Nigeria's economy in the early years of independence. On the eve of the coup, the United Kingdom's success story was phenomenal. Apart from South Africa, Nigeria was the site of the United Kingdom's highest economic and industrial investment in Africa with a total worth of £1.5 billion. The British government controlled a near-50 per cent shares in Shell-BP (the predominant oil prospecting company in Nigeria) and 60 per cent shares in the Amalgamated Tin Mining (Nigeria) Ltd., a major prospecting tin, cobalt and iron ore mining company. In the non-mining sector of the economy, John Holt and Company, Ltd., owned by a British family, was one of the two largest in the country, with branches located in the principal towns and cities. The United Africa Company (UAC), another British enterprise, accounted for about 41.3 per cent of Nigeria's entire import and export trade."</ref> At 516,000 barrels per day, Nigeria had become the tenth-biggest oil exporter in the world.<ref>Pierri, "A New Entry into the World Oil Market" (2013), p. 116.</ref>

Though the [[Nigeria Regiment]] had fought for the United Kingdom in both the [[World War I|First]] and [[Second World War]]s, the army Nigeria inherited upon [[independence]] in 1960 was an internal security force designed and trained to assist the police in putting down challenges to authority rather than to fight a war.<ref name="Barua, Pradeep 2013 p. 20">Barua, Pradeep ''The Military Effectiveness of Post-Colonial States'' (2013) p. 20</ref> The Indian historian Pradeep Barua called the Nigerian Army in 1960 "a glorified police force", and even after independence, the Nigerian military retained the role it held under the British in the 1950s.<ref name="Barua, Pradeep 2013 p. 20"/> The Nigerian Army did not conduct field training, and notably lacked heavy weapons.<ref name="Barua, Pradeep 2013 p. 20"/> Before 1948, Nigerians were not allowed to hold officer's commissions, and only in 1948 were certain promising Nigerian recruits allowed to attend [[Royal Military Academy Sandhurst|Sandhurst]] for officer training while at the same time Nigerian NCOs were allowed to become officers if they completed a course in officer training at [[Mons Officer Cadet School|Mons Hall]] or Eaton Hall in England.<ref name="Barua, Pradeep 2013 p. 22">Barua, Pradeep ''The Military Effectiveness of Post-Colonial States'' (2013) p. 22</ref> Despite the reforms, only an average of two Nigerians per year were awarded officers' commissions between 1948–55 and only seven per year from 1955 to 1960.<ref name="Barua, Pradeep 2013 p. 22"/> At the time of independence in 1960, of the 257 officers commanding the Nigeria Regiment which became the Nigerian Army, only 57 were Nigerians.<ref name="Barua, Pradeep 2013 p. 22"/>

Using the "[[martial race]]s" theory first developed under the [[British Raj|Raj]] in 19th-century [[India]], the colonial government had decided that peoples from northern Nigeria such as the Hausa, Kiv, and Kanuri were the hard "[[martial race]]s" whose recruitment was encouraged while the peoples from southern Nigeria such as the Igbos and the Yoruba were viewed as too soft to make for good soldiers and hence their [[recruitment]] was discouraged.<ref name="Barua, Pradeep 2013 p. 21">Barua, Pradeep ''The Military Effectiveness of Post-Colonial States'' (2013) p. 21</ref> As a result, by 1958, men from northern Nigeria made up 62% of the Nigeria Regiment while men from the south and the west made up only 36%.<ref name="Barua, Pradeep 2013 p. 21"/> In 1958, the policy was changed: henceforward men from the north would make up only 50% of the soldiers while men from the southeast and southwest were each to make up 25%. The new policy was retained after independence.<ref name="Barua, Pradeep 2013 p. 21"/> The previously favoured northerners whose egos had been stoked by being told by their officers that they were the tough and hardy "martial races" greatly resented the change in recruitment policies, all the more as after independence in 1960 there were opportunities for Nigerian men to serve as officers that had not existed prior to independence.<ref name="Barua, Pradeep 2013 p. 21"/> As men from the southeast and southwest were generally much better educated than men from the north, they were much more likely to be promoted to officers in the newly founded Nigerian Army, which provoked further resentment from the northerners.<ref name="Barua, Pradeep 2013 p. 22"/> At the same time, as a part of Nigerianisation policy, it was government policy to send home the British officers who had been retained after independence, by promoting as many Nigerians as possible until by 1966 there were no more British officers.<ref>Barua, Pradeep ''The Military Effectiveness of Post-Colonial States'' (2013) p. 23</ref> As part of the Nigerianisation policy, educational standards for officers were drastically lowered with only a high school diploma being necessary for an officer's commission while at the same time Nigerianisation resulted in an extremely youthful officer corps, full of ambitious men who disliked the Sandhurst graduates who served in the high command as blocking further chances for promotion.<ref>Barua, Pradeep ''The Military Effectiveness of Post-Colonial States'' (2013) pp. 22–24</ref> A group of Igbo officers formed a conspiracy to overthrow the government, seeing the northern prime minister, Sir [[Abubakar Tafawa Balewa]], as allegedly plundering the oil wealth of the southeast.<ref name="Barua, Pradeep 2013 p.9">Barua, Pradeep ''The Military Effectiveness of Post-Colonial States'' (2013) p. 9</ref>

===Military coups===
On 15 January 1966, Major [[Chukwuma Kaduna Nzeogwu|Chukuma Kaduna Nzeogwu]], Major [[Emmanuel Ifeajuna]], and other junior Army officers (mostly majors and captains) attempted a [[1966 Nigerian coup d'état|coup d'état]]. The two major political leaders of the north, the Prime Minister, Sir [[Abubakar Tafawa Balewa]] and the Premier of the northern region, Sir [[Ahmadu Bello]] were killed by Major Nzeogwu. Also murdered was Bello's wife and officers of Northern extraction. The President, Sir [[Nnamdi Azikiwe]], an Igbo, was on an extended vacation in the West Indies. He did not return until days after the coup. There was widespread suspicion that the Igbo coup plotters had tipped him and other Igbo leaders off regarding the pending coup. In addition to the killings of the Northern political leaders, the Premier of the Western region, Ladoke Akintola and Yoruba senior military officers were also killed. This "Coup of the Five Majors" has been described in some quarters as Nigeria's only revolutionary coup.<ref>Alexander Madiebo (1980) ''The Nigerian Revolution and the Nigerian Civil War''; Fourth Dimension Publishers, Enugu.</ref> This was the first coup in the short life of Nigeria's nascent second democracy. Claims of electoral fraud were one of the reasons given by the coup plotters. Besides killing much of Nigeria's elite, the Coup also saw much of the leadership of the Nigerian Federal Army killed with seven officers holding the rank above colonel killed.<ref name="Barua, Pradeep 2013 p.9"/> Of the seven officers killed, four were northerners, two were from the southeast and one was from the Midwest. Only one was an Igbo.<ref name="Barua, Pradeep 2013 p.9"/>

This coup was, however, not seen as a revolutionary coup by other sections of Nigerians, especially in the Northern and Western sections and by later revisionists of Nigerian coups. Some alleged, mostly from Eastern part of Nigeria, that the majors sought to spring Action Group leader [[Obafemi Awolowo]] out of jail and make him head of the new government. Their intention was to dismantle the Northern-dominated power structure but their efforts to take power were unsuccessful. [[Johnson Aguiyi-Ironsi]], an Igbo and loyalist head of the [[Nigerian Army]], suppressed coup operations in the South and he was declared head of state on 16 January after the surrender of the majors.<ref name="Britannica"/>

<blockquote>In the end though, the majors were not in the position to embark on this political goal. While their 15th January coup succeeded in seizing political control in the north, it failed in the south, especially in the Lagos-Ibadan-Abeokuta military district where loyalist troops led by army commander Johnson Aguyi-Ironsi succeeded in crushing the revolt. Apart from Ifeajuna who fled the country after the collapse of their coup, the other two January Majors, and the rest of the military officers involved in the revolt, later surrendered to the loyalist High Command and were subsequently detained as a federal investigation of the event began.<ref>Ekwe-Ekwe, ''The Biafra War'' (1990), pp. 52–55.</ref><ref>''Nigerian Civil War''; Fourth Dimension Publishers, Enugu.</ref></blockquote>

Aguyi-Ironsi suspended the constitution and dissolved parliament. He abolished the regional confederated form of government and pursued unitary policies favoured by the NCNC, having apparently been influenced by NCNC political philosophy. He, however, appointed Colonel [[Hassan Katsina]], son of [[Katsina]] emir [[Usman Nagogo]], to govern the Northern Region, indicating some willingness to maintain cooperation with this bloc.<ref>Ekwe-Ekwe, ''The Biafra War'' (1990), p. 55. "But perhaps, most importantly, Aguyi-Ironsi's choice of Colonel Hassan Usman Katsina, the son of the powerful emir of Katsina as the governor of the north, was the clearest signal to the north, and the rest of the country, that his government would not undermine the north's two decades of political hegemony in the federation. Aguyi-Ironsi had already said as much in a number of contacts he made with northern leaders, including the Sultan of Sokoto, soon after the failed majors' coup. Although he had no qualms regarding ignoring the West and leaving in jail the leader of the AG (Obafemi Awolowo), he was anxious to reassure the north of the good intentions of his regime, especially in the light of the deaths of Bello and Balewa during the coup attempt."</ref> He also preferentially released northern politicians from jail (enabling them to plan his forthcoming overthrow).<ref>Ekwe-Ekwe, ''The Biafra War'' (1990), pp. 55–56. "In fact to underscore Ironsi's goodwill to the north, the new head of state ordered the release of most northern politicians from detention by February (1966), without a reciprocal gesture to their southern counterparts. The released northerners took up positions in the various local government administration in the emirats and, ironically, had ample opportunity to plan and execute the massacre of Igbo civilians living in the north, first in May, 1966, and later in July 1966, which were coupled with the overthrow and murder of Aguyi-Ironsi himself (ironically enough, soon after Aguyi-Ironsi completed a conference with northern emirs), and scores of Igbo military personnel, and the September–October 1966 phase of the pogrom which brought the grisly tally of Igbo killed to 80,000 – 100,000 and the expulsion of 2 million others from the north and elsewhere in the federation."</ref> Aguyi-Ironsi rejected a British offer of military support but promised to protect British interests.<ref>Ekwe-Ekwe, ''The Biafra War'' (1990), p. 56. "Britain had offered to send in troops to support Aguyi-Ironsi and his loyalist forces, after Nzeogwu threatened (on January 16) to march on Lagos and the south, from his Kaduna base, to enforce the control of the January Majors nationwide. While Aguyi-Ironsi discreetly turned down the British offer, he however informed London that its interests in Nigeria, the primary British pre-occupation, would be preserved by his government. This meant that the radical reforms of the Nigerian economy envisaged by the revolting majors, now known by Aguyi-Ironsi and in diplomatic circles in Lagos, would not be implemented. But for the British, the very presence of the Aguyi-Ironsi administration, the fastidious circumstances of its origins notwithstanding, had already breached a cardinal tenet of the post-colonial political order in Nigeria which they had worked so assiduously between 1952–1960 to construct: that political leadership within the country to oversee these enormous British interests should come from the north."</ref>

Ironsi fatally did not bring the failed plotters to trial as required by then-military law and as advised by most northern and western officers, rather, coup plotters were maintained in the military on full pay, and some were even promoted while awaiting trial. The coup, despite its failures, was seen by many as primarily benefiting the Igbo peoples, as the plotters received no repercussions for their actions and no significant Igbo political leaders were affected. While those that executed the coup were mostly Northern, most of the known plotters were Igbo and the military and political leadership of Western and Northern regions had been largely bloodily eliminated while the Eastern military/political leadership was largely untouched. However, Ironsi, himself an Igbo, was thought to have made numerous attempts to please Northerners. The other events that also fuelled suspicions of a so-called "Igbo conspiracy" were the killing of Northern leaders, and the killing of the Brigadier-General [[Samuel Ademulegun|Ademulegun's]] pregnant wife by the coup executioners.<ref name="Britannica"/> Among the Igbo people, reaction to the coup was mixed.<ref name=Anwunah>{{Cite book |last=Anwunah |first=Patrick A. |date=2007 |title=The Nigeria-Biafra War (1967–1970): my memoirs |location=Ibadan |publisher=Spectrum |isbn=978-978-029-651-3 |page=328 |quote=The Igbos failed as a people to disassociate themselves from the bloody killings of 15 January 1966. What the Igbos did or failed to do, fuelled the fears and suspicions that all Igbos supported the Coup of 15 January 1966. In actual fact, some Igbos liked the coup whilst others did not.}}</ref>

Despite the overwhelming contradictions of the coup being executed by mostly Northern soldiers (such as John Atom Kpera, later military governor of [[Benue State]]), the killing of Igbo soldier Lieutenant-Colonel Arthur Unegbe by coup executioners, and Ironsi's termination of an Igbo-led coup, the ease by which Ironsi stopped the coup led to suspicion that the Igbo coup plotters planned all along to pave the way for Ironsi to take the reins of power in Nigeria.<!-- Apparently, Ironsi did succeed in quieting the Western Region, and in the first part of 1966 there were a few months of relatively less violence.<ref>Ekwe-Ekwe, ''The Biafra War'' (1990), pp. 58.</ref> Commenting this out for now pending verification in another source. -->

Colonel [[Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu|Odumegwu Ojukwu]] became military governor of the Eastern Region at this time.<ref>Pierri, "A New Entry into the World Oil Market" (2013), p. 115.</ref><ref name="Britannica"/> On 24 May 1966, the military government issued Unification Decree #34, which would have replaced the federation with a more centralised system. The Northern bloc found this decree intolerable.<ref>Pierri, "A New Entry into the World Oil Market" (2013), p. 115. "Instead, many Northerners were alarmed that the military era would lead to an Igbo domination, especially when on May 24, 1966, the government issued Unification Decree No. 34, through which the federation was abolished and replaced with a unitary system. To Northerners this meant nothing but Igbo domination, facing the prospect of being occupied and ruled by Southern military and civil servants and lacking the safeguard of being involved in the government according to ethnic group divisions."</ref>

In the face of provocation from the Eastern media which repeatedly showed humiliating posters and cartoons of the slain northern politicians, on the night of 29 July 1966, northern soldiers at Abeokuta barracks mutinied, thus precipitating [[1966 Nigerian counter-coup|a counter-coup]], which had already been in the planning stages. Ironsi was on a visit to [[Ibadan]] during their mutiny and there he was killed (along with his host, [[Adekunle Fajuyi]]). The counter-coup led to the installation of Lieutenant-Colonel Yakubu Gowon as Supreme Commander of the Nigerian Armed Forces. Gowon was chosen as a compromise candidate. He was a Northerner, a Christian, from a minority tribe, and had a good reputation within the army.<ref name="Britannica"/>

It seems that Gowon immediately faced not only a potential standoff with the East, but secession threats from the Northern and even the Western region.<ref>Stevenson, "Capitol Gains" (2014), pp. 318–319.</ref> The counter-coup plotters had considered using the opportunity to withdraw from the federation themselves. Ambassadors from the United Kingdom and the United States, however, urged Gowon to maintain control over the whole country. Gowon followed this plan, repealing the Unification Decree, announcing a return to the federal system.<ref>Pierri, "A New Entry into the World Oil Market" (2013), pp. 115–116.</ref>

===Persecution of Igbo===
After the January coup, Igbos in the North were accused of taunting their hosts on the loss of their leaders. A popular example was Celestine Ukwu, a popular Igbo musician, who released a song titled "Ewu Ne Ba Akwa" (Goats Are Crying) apparently mocking the late [[Ahmadu Bello]]. These provocations were so pervasive that they warranted the promulgation of Decree 44 of 1966 banning them by the military government.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Uko |first=Ndaeyo |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Abm-v6wGWOQC&q=aguiyi+ironsi&pg=PA75 |title=Romancing the Gun: The Press as Promoter of Military Rule |date=2004 |publisher=Africa World Press |isbn=978-1-59221-189-0 |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |date=2020-04-02 |title=DEFAMATORY AND OFFENSIVE PUBLICATIONS ACT 1966 |url=https://lawcarenigeria.com/defamatory-and-offensive-publications-act-1966/ |access-date=2023-10-09 |website=LawCareNigeria |language=en-US}}</ref>

The first president of Nigeria [[Nnamdi Azikiwe]] who was away during the first coup noted:<blockquote>Some Ibo elements, who were domiciled in Northern Nigeria taunted northerners by defaming their leaders through means of records or songs or pictures. They also published pamphlets and postcards, which displayed a peculiar representation of certain northerners, living or dead, in a manner likely to provoke disaffection.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Azikiwe |first=Nnamdi |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lq4MAQAAIAAJ |title=Origins of the Nigerian Civil War |date=1969 |publisher=Nigerian National Press |language=en}}</ref></blockquote>From June through October 1966, [[1966 anti-Igbo pogrom|pogroms in the North]] killed an estimated 10,000 to 30,000 Igbo, half of them children, and caused more than a million to two million to flee to the Eastern Region.<ref>Heerten & Moses, ''The Nigeria–Biafra War'' (2014), p. 173. "Repeated outbursts of violence between June and October 1966 peaked in massacres against Igbos living in the ''Sabon Gari'', the 'foreigners' quarters' of northern Nigerian towns. According to estimates, these riots claimed the lives of tens of thousands. This violence drove a stream of more than a million refugees to the Eastern Region, the 'homeland' of the Igbos' diasporic community."</ref> 29 September 1966 became known as 'Black Thursday', as it was considered the worst day of the massacres.<ref>Levey, "Israel, Nigeria and the Biafra Civil War" (2014), p. 266. "Between May and September 1966, northerners murdered between 80,000 and 100,000 Igbos and other easterners resident in the Northern Region. The violence reached a climax with the massacres of 29 September 1966 ('Black Thursday'). Ojukwu had to deal with an influx to the east of between 700,000 and two million refugees. He responded by expelling thousands of non-easterners from the Eastern Region."</ref><ref>Chinua Achebe. ''There Was a Country'' (2012). New York: The Penguin Press. pp. 80–83, 122</ref>

Ethnomusicologist Charles Keil, who was visiting Nigeria in 1966, recounted:

<blockquote>The pogroms I witnessed in [[Makurdi]], Nigeria (late Sept. 1966) were foreshadowed by months of intensive anti-Igbo and anti-Eastern conversations among Tiv, Idoma, Hausa and other Northerners resident in Makurdi, and, fitting a pattern replicated in city after city, the massacres were led by the Nigerian army. Before, during and after the slaughter, Col. Gowon could be heard over the radio issuing 'guarantees of safety' to all Easterners, all citizens of Nigeria, but the intent of the soldiers, the only power that counts in Nigeria now or then, was painfully clear. After counting the disemboweled bodies along the Makurdi road I was escorted back to the city by soldiers who apologised for the stench and explained politely that they were doing me and the world a great favor by eliminating Igbos.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Postcolonial Conflict and the Question of Genocide: The Nigeria-Biafra War 1967 – 1970|last1=Moses|first1=A. Dirk|last2=Heerten|first2=Lasse|publisher=[[Routledge]]|year=2018|isbn=9780415347587|location=New York|pages=25}}</ref></blockquote>Professor of History [[Murray Last]], who was in Zaria city on the day after the first coup, describes his experience on that day: <blockquote>And the day after the coup – January 16th 1966 – there was initially so much open relief on the ABU campus that it shocked me. It was only later, when I was living within Zaria city (at Babban Dodo), that I encountered the anger at the way Igbo traders (and journalists) were mocking their Hausa fellow traders in Zaria’s Sabon Gari over the death of their ‘father’, and were pushing aside various motorpark workers elsewhere, telling the Hausa that the rules had now all changed and it was the Hausa who were now the underlings in market or motorpark.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Olorunyomi |first=Ladi |date=November 22, 2021 |title=INTERVIEW: Why every Nigerian should be proud of the Sokoto Caliphate — Prof Murray Last |url=https://www.premiumtimesng.com/features-and-interviews/496263-interview-why-every-nigerian-should-be-proud-of-the-sokoto-caliphate-prof-murray-last.html?tztc=1 |access-date=2023-03-31 |website=www.premiumtimesng.com}}</ref></blockquote>The Federal Military Government also laid the groundwork for the economic blockade of the Eastern Region which went into full effect in 1967.<ref name="Stevenson2014pages314to315">Stevenson, ''Capitol Gains'' (2014), pp. 314–315. "In fact, the Federation's first response to Biafran secession was to deepen the blockade to include 'a blockade of the East's air and sea ports, a ban on foreign currency transactions, and a halt to all incoming post and telecommunications.' The Federation implemented its blockade so quickly during the war because it was a continuation of the policy from the year before."</ref>