Thread by @RemiAdekoya1

Morning All! Day 14 of our 15-day #NigerianPoliticalHistory sessions based on my thesis research.

Today, we'll discuss the October 1965 Western Regional elections which were the final nail in the coffin of the First Republic, the January 1966 coup and its aftermath.

Yesterday, we discussed the rigging, intimidation and ethnic-baiting that characterized Nigeria's 1964 federal elections in which the Bello-Akintola Nigerian National Alliance (NNA), eventually emerged triumphant.

The Western Regional elections of 1965 followed a similar pattern. Western Premier Akintola's NNDP party deployed blatantly ethnic rhetoric, stating on the cover of its election manifesto that if elected, it would make sure "Yorubas shall never be slaves." See poster here:

The "Yorubas shall never be slaves" slogan of course implied that the opposite might be the case if its rival, United Progressives Grand Alliance (UPGA), which had a lot of Igbo politicians, won the regional election.

UPGA's 1965 manifesto decried the "Ibo-hunting brigade of Akintola's tribal army" and accused Akintola of not just spreading anti-Igbo hatred among Yorubas, but of dividing the Yorubas as well.

See UPGA 1965 manifesto here:

Akintola's NNDP intimidated UPGA candidates, doing everything to hinder their registration process. Both sides declared victory after the vote. UPGA leaders were arrested for disregarding the official results. Subsequently, the Western Region became a battle-zone with widespread

riots and clashes with police by supporters of both sides. It is important to understand this was all coming after the sham 1964 federal elections and after months of growing tensions in the country. Through 1965, Nigeria had been ravaged with the tensions that had developed

over years of political conflict. In March that year, a vicious struggle over the Vice-Chancellorship of the University of Lagos provoked a feud over "tribalism in Nigerian universities." It is important to note thus that it was not just politicians playing the ethnic game,

so were some high-placed academics. By the end of 1965, many Nigerians were fed up with the existing system. Intellectuals and other non-political elites started questioning whether Nigeria could afford a system in which the urgent need for economic development was overwhelmed

by the struggle for power and wealth within a narrow political class. By January 1966, even Prime Minister Balewa seemed fed up with the system even though he had the number one
political job in the country.

"I have told people all along that we are not ripe for a system of government in which there is a fully-fledged opposition", said Balewa on January 14, 1966.

The next day, Nigeria's first military coup was launched.

The context and attitudes discussed above led to the January 1966 coup, led by mainly Igbo officers who assassinated those they held primarily responsible for the 1964 and 1965 election debacles: Ahmadu Bello, Tafawa Balewa and Samuel Akintola, Premier of the West, among others.

But the coup was not entirely successful as the plotters failed to seize Lagos. In effect, the highest-ranking military officer at the time, Major-General Aguiyi-Ironsi (an Igbo), took over as head of state. To many Southerners, the coup was a welcome end to Northern domination.

To many Northerners, it seemed a prelude to the Igbo domination they had feared for decades. The major coup leaders were mostly Igbo. No top Igbo politician was killed in the coup; President Azikiwe conveniently happened to be out of the country at the time for "medical reasons".

This made it easy for Northern elites to argue before Northerners that President Azikiwe himself must have known about the coup and let it happen because it was Igbo-led. Meanwhile, the North's two most important leaders, Ahmadu Bello and PM Tafawa Balewa, had been killed.

Further aggravating Northerners was the fact that though the coup plotters were in detention, Ironsi seemed in no hurry to try them. Rumours started to swirl in the North that Ironsi himself had known about the coup beforehand and let it happen as he knew he'd be first in line to

head a military government as the country's most senior military officer. Ironsi then made some political blunders which would provoke catastrophic consequences. By June 1966, Schwarz was warning about how Ironsi's reliance on mostly Igbo advisers was "leading Nigeria back to

tribal strife" as he had come to increasingly rely on "friends he could trust" for political advice. Considering these friends were predominantly Igbo, "this soon began to look like a clique to outsiders. In this atmosphere came the unitary decree of May 24, 1967, abolishing

Nigeria's federal system."

Ironsi's announcement of the decree, officially abolishing the federal structure and replacing it with a unitary system, was for many Northerners, a clear sign Igbos wanted a return to the days when they generally ran the North's bureaucracy.

The reaction revealed just what kind of passions the issue of political structuring could trigger in polarized multi-ethnic Nigeria.

In response to Ironsi's decision, and the urgings of some Northern elites, Igbo lives and property were attacked on a massive scale in May 1966.

It began with a demonstration in the city of Zaria by students of the Institute of Administration and the Ahmadu Bello University against the unification decree which they feared would adversely affect their competition for jobs by throwing open the relatively closed job market

of the North to Southerners. This was followed in July with massacres of Igbo soldiers by their fellow soldiers in the Nigerian army. Northern soldiers were determined to end what they saw as Igbo domination in Nigeria's military and current power structures.

On July 29, 1966, "they descended with ethnic vengeance on the Igbo officers and men, eliminating them in large numbers."

In July 1966, Northern officers organized a counter-coup, killing Ironsi and appointing Lieutenant-General Yakubu Gowon as head of state.

Gowon was from the North, but neither Hausa-Fulani nor Muslim. He was a Christian from one of the North's minority groups and thus presented as a unifier in this period of heightened sectarian tension.

Perhaps we shall stop there for today. Tomorrow will be our 15th and final session, summing up the events of late 1966 and early 1967 leading up to Nigeria's civil war.

Have a good day folks!

As @biodunokeowo_rb kindly pointed out to me, there is a typo in the thread. I wrote that the Unitary decree was announced by Aguiyi-Ironsi in May 1967, it was of course in May 1966. Please note! Thanks for that @biodunokeowo_rb!