This was what happened in Nigeria on January 15, 1966, when a group of young impressionable military officers carried out a coup to remove the politicians they deemed corrupt and because of the intractable violence in the Western Region which resulted from the rigged election by the Central Government in favour of Akintola and against Awolowo. As Obasanjo said, “Anybody who remembers the coup of 1966 will associate that coup with the elections of 1965, leading to the killing and murdering of people in the name of politics.”

According to Gen Ibrahim Babangida, in the morning of January 15, 1966, presumably, as the leader of ‘the Supreme Council of the Revolution of the Nigerian Armed Forces,’ Major Nzeogwu addressed all officers in Kaduna at the Brigade Headquarters, where he told them that he and other comrades in the army carried out “Operation Damisa” (Damisa being the Hausa word for the leopard, which never changes its spots), describing the operation as a necessary ‘service to our country’ to rid it of all its filth and corruption.

Speaking about the head of the plotters, Major Kaduna Nzeogwu, Babangida said: “He was only ‘Igbo’ in name. Born and raised in Kaduna, his immigrant parents were from Okpanam in today’s Delta State, which, in 1966, was in the old mid-western region. Nzeogwu spoke fluent Hausa and was as ‘Hausa’ as any! He and his original team probably thought, even if naively, that they could turn things around for the better in the country.” He concluded that “Even his utterances when the coup took place on January 15, 1966, showed that he didn’t mean it to be an Igbo affair.”

This noble objective has been confirmed by other notable citizens of Nigeria. Brig. Gen Ibrahim Sabo, former Director of Military Intelligence from Northern Nigeria, reiterated this position during his presentation before the Oputa Panel that the only military coup in Nigeria that was carried out for national interest was the Kaduna Nzeogwu coup. He added that all other coups after that were carried out for power and money. Major Hamza Al-Mustapha, former CSO to Abacha, also repeated this point during the Oputa Panel. Col Yohanna Madaki, a distinguished military officer from Northern Nigeria, who was a military governor in Babangida’s regime, lost his commission because he insisted that the only coup in Nigeria that was carried out for national interest was the first coup of 1966 by Nzeogwu. The Owa of Ido-Ani, Oba Olufemi Olutoye, who retired as a Major-General in the Nigerian Army, shared his experience as a soldier about the 1966 military coup and maintained that because he happened to have known the whole genesis of the coup, Nigeria would have become a changed place now if the coup had succeeded. He insisted that Nigeria would have been one of the top countries in the world today.

The people involved in that 1966 coup were: Major Chukwuma Kaduna Nzeogwu (Midwest Region Igbo), Major Adewale Ademoyega (Western Region – Yoruba), author of “Why we struck”, Maj. Emmanuel Ifeajuna (Eastern Region – Igbo), Major Chris Anuforo (Eastern Region – Igbo), Major Timothy Onwuatuegwu (Eastern Region – Igbo), Capt. Ganiyu Adeleke (Western Region – Yoruba), Capt. Gibson Jalo (Northern Region – Bachama), Captain Ben Gbulie (Eastern Region – Igbo), Lt. Fola Oyewole (Western Region – Yoruba), author of “The Reluctant Rebel”, Lt. Robert (Bob) Egbiko (Midwestern Region – Ishan), Lt. Tijani Katsina (Northern Region – Hausa/Fulani), Lt. O. Olafemiyan (Western Region – Yoruba), Lt. Hope Harris Eghagha (Midwest – Urhobo), Lt. Dag Warribor (Midwest – Ijaw), 2nd Lt. Saleh Dambo (Northern Nigeria -Hausa), 2nd Lt. John Atom Kpera (Northern Nigeria-Tiv), and many other officers from every part of Nigeria.

The intention of the coup plotters, according to Major-General Olufemi Olutoye, was to bring a civilian who was more knowledgeable than them and who had what it took to make Nigeria great and make the person the Head of State. They decided that Chief Obafemi Awolowo was the politician who could best fit into the narrative. They intended to bring him out from Calabar prison, where he was serving a 10-year jail term for treason for attempting to overthrow the Tafawa Balewa government by force, and make him the Head of State.

This was why Babangida was surprised that some misinformed persons erroneously referred to the coup as Igbo coup. Hear Babangida, “the original intention of the coup plotters was anything but ethnic.” He referred to the fact that “the initial purpose of the plotters was to release Chief Obafemi Awolowo from prison immediately after the coup and make him the executive provisional president of Nigeria. The fact that these ‘Igbo’ officers would do this to a man not known to be a great ‘lover’ of the Igbos may have given the coup a different ethnic colouration.” He concluded by saying: “As a young officer who saw all of this from a distance, probably, ethnic sentiments did not drive the original objective of the coup plotters.”

Babangida reached this conclusion by observing that non-Igbo officers participated in the coup and the coup plotters also killed Igbo officers. Hear him: “It should, however, be borne in mind that some senior officers of Igbo extraction were also victims of the January coup. For instance, my erstwhile Commander at the Reconnaissance Squadron in Kaduna, Lt-Col. Arthur Chinyelu Unegbe, was brutally gunned down by his own ‘brother,’ Major Chris Anuforo, in the presence of his pregnant wife, at his 7 Point Road residence in Apapa, for merely being ‘a threat to the revolution’. As a disciplined and strict officer who, as the Quartermaster-General of the Army, was also in charge of ammunition, weapons, equipment, vehicles, and other vital items for the Army, the coup plotters feared that he might not cooperate with them.” Babangida also recognised that it was Igbo officers like Major John Obienu that crushed the coup.

There were two reasons that some mischievous persons adduced that the coup was Igbo coup. They claimed that Gen Johnson Thomas Umunnakwe Aguiyi-Ironsi, who was Igbo, became Head of State after the coup, and the coup didn’t take place in Igboland. This is simply misleading. Aguiyi-Ironsi became Head of State because he was the highest ranking military officer not because he was Igbo. The same with Gen Murtala Mohammed, Gen Olusegun Obasanjo, Gen Muhammadu Buhari, and Gen Ibrahim Babangida, who became Heads of State after military coups that toppled or killed the previous Heads of State, because they were the highest ranking military officers at the time of change of government. The only coup that produced a junior officer as Head of State was the revenge coup of July 1966 which produced Lt Col Yakubu Gowon as Head of State. Ojukwu refused to accept Gowon as Head of State and insisted that Brigadier Babafemi Ogundipe, a Yoruba man, should take over as Head of State to maintain the military tradition. The young Northern soldiers insisted it must be a northerner and this contributed to the buildup of the war.

The coup didn’t take place in the Eastern Region because the east was not the host of the country’s capital which was located in Lagos, Western Region. The military stronghold of Nigeria is Kaduna State. Every coup plotter in Nigeria targets to capture Kaduna and Lagos to ensure the success of the coup. Ibadan was the location that reinforces and protects Lagos and this makes it a legitimate target. Note that every other coup after the January 1966 coup took place majorly in Lagos, no matter who planned it and who was killed in the process.

It is regrettable and very heinous for the coup plotters to have killed prominent citizens like Sir Ahmadu Bello, Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, Chief Festus Okotie-Eboh, Chief Samuel Ladoke Akintola, Brigadier Samuel Ademulegun, Brigadier Zakariya Maimalari, Lt-Col. Arthur Chinyelu Unegbe, and others from all parts of Nigeria, just as it was heinous for some people to attribute such actions to the Igbo people who were as innocent as other tribes in the uprising of some restless military officers from all over the country who believed that Nigeria needed a new leader. This grave error of tagging that military coup as Igbo coup led to the genocide of Ndigbo from all over Nigeria, led to the civil war that claimed about one million Igbo lives, who faced unjustifiable blockade for three years.

Now that the verdict is out that it wasn’t an Igbo coup and couldn’t have ever been, it accords to common sense that anybody who refers to that coup as Igbo coup should be arrested for inciting hatred and genocide against Nigerians, should be prosecuted and sent to jail. The person also risks being sued for defamation and appropriate damages demanded from him. The Federal Government, under Tinubu, should use this opportunity to apologise to Ndigbo for the genocide and civil war against Ndigbo as a result of the mischaracterization of that coup and pay adequate reparations to fulfill Gowon’s unfulfilled promise of reconciliation, reconstruction, and rehabilitation of Ndigbo after the war. Nigerians must learn to forgive each other for the mistakes of the past and decide to live in peace and togetherness henceforth.