Nigerian Civil War

===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>