Thread by @mcginger22

Thread!
Aguiyi Ironsi was killed today :
This thread is inspired by Mbe Nwaniga on Facebook.

West Africa Frontier Front WAFF( which later became the Nigerian army ) was in charge of British military campaign in West Africa.

Aguiyi Ironsi was born in 1924.
He joined the WAFF army at the age of 18 in 1942 as a Private, rising to a Company Seargent Major in 4 years. He rose through the ranks, became a Major in 1958 and was appointed a member of the British Royal Victorian Order (MVO)

He rose to a Lt Col 2 years later and became commander of the 5th Battalion, Kano.

He was the commandant of "the entire United Nations peace keeping force in the Congo" in 1964 and promoted to a Major General the following year.

Same year in 1965, the last British GOC Major Gen Welby-Everard handed over to Ironsi as the GOC of the same army he joined 23 years earlier, as a Private.

This background notes on the rise of Gen Ironsi is particularly important because it also captured the story of his people.

If there were 30 Majors in the army at the time,20 were Igbo. If there were 30 Lt Cols,12 were Igbo. The entire middle cadre of the Nigerian army was occupied by soldiers from Ironsi's ethnic group.
He was killed 53 years ago today alongside an estimated 219 military officers

Tens of thousands of civilians from his ethnic group (about 3 million people) where also killed.They committed no offence individually.Their offence, according to those who killed the. Was that they were Igbo.

A group of soldiers from mostly their ethnic group killed about 11 military and political leaders of Nigeria in a coup 6 months earlier on 15 January 1966.

Today is the 53rd anniversary of these killings!
Nobody has been questioned for this massacre till date
I'm Igbo