(Culled from the book Elephants, The Grass and a Teacher… By Chinyere E. Egbe, 2022)
There is a false impression that the most proximate event was what led the country to civil war: the military coup of January 1966. The coup was interpreted as a sectional coup, which led to a countercoup that was sectional and to widespread riots in Northern Nigeria that were focused on the citizens of one section of the country. There were unsuccessful efforts to find a political solution; these were characterized by a mix of insincerity, insensitivities, obstinacy, hidden agendas, mutual duplicities, and false promises. But, before the coup of January 1966, Nigerian leaders failed woefully because of their greed and their incompetence to forge alliances and conduct simple elections that could have kept the country together.
Nigeria was indeed created for the convenience of a colonial master who brought together peoples from disparate cultures, languages, histories, customs, and perspectives. However, by the time of independence, sixty years after the amalgamation of the Northern and Southern protectorates, Nigerians had begun to get used to each other. We had begun to savor each other’s food and even adopted the names of our foods and widely began to speak each other’s language and wear each other’s clothing. We even began to adopt some clothing across ethnic boundaries as national attires. Intermarriage was beginning to become commonplace. I would guess that a good deal of intermarriage began to happen because we began to sample each other’s women and found that if the stuff was good, it did not matter what language it spoke. Before the war, Yakubu Gowon, the Nigerian head of state during the war, had an Igbo girlfriend but had to give up his delicacy because of the conflict and to keep his position without suspicion. Gen. Babangida fulfilled his dream during the war when an Igbo woman from Asaba captured his heart as the Nigerian Army invaded Asaba. Consciously or otherwise, Lt. Col. Bamigboye, the governor of Kwara State in Northern Nigeria was captured by an Igbo woman as a husband. Evidently, he did not regret it. Even, Lt. Col. Olusegun Obasanjo, the hero that led the Nigerian aggressors to defeat the Biafran rebels, grabbed a prize of an Igbo woman as one of his wives. Chances are that he had had a sample as he advanced against the rebels and decided to take one home. When the Nigerians were about to complete their capture of Umuahia in April 1969, they entered one of the villages at Olokoro, Umuahia, and found two Hausa women who had fled from the North in 1966 with their Olokoro husbands (I guess to keep the good Igbo stuff that was just as delicious as Hausa goods). The Nigerians were so impressed that they treated Olokoro people very well, though they were captives. In my hometown of Ovim, there were at least two people who returned with Yoruba women as wives.
Odogwu relates an interesting example. There was a Yoruba man (Western Nigeria) who had resided in Onitsha for about forty years as of 1967. When Ojukwu issued the quit order that all non–Eastern Nigerians should leave the East, this man stayed put. He had been married to three Igbo women who, between them, had borne him eleven children. In early 1967, vigilantes brought him to Enugu for disobeying the quit order. This Yoruba man spoke Igbo better than most Igbos and had not visited Yoruba land since he arrived in Onitsha with his Yoruba blacksmith father in the 1920s as a boy. According to Odogwu, besides his obvious tribal marks, he was not distinguishable from an Igbo man. This Yoruba man argued, apparently successfully, that he would not return to Yorubaland because he would become a stranger in his region of the country.
When Nigeria gained independence in 1960, its leaders had worked on and pressured the colonial mother country, Britain, for more than twelve years to achieve independence. Several constitutional conferences and caucuses and meetings were held to prepare for the outcome. During this period, true national leaders would have been able to forge alliances across ethnic groups based more on ideology than on ethnic and tribal demagoguery. The main political parties that sought to lead the nation, were made up of people from numerous ethnic groups; and though some were large, the major parties ended up becoming ethnically based. Each of the ethnically-based parties dominated their regions of origin and could not form a majority in parliament that cut across ethnic boundaries at the Federal House of Parliament.
On the eve of independence, there were three main political parties: The National Council of Nigerian Citizens (NCNC), the Northern People’s Congress (NPC), and the Action Group (AG)—though it bears noting that the Nigerian National Democratic Party (NNDP) formed after a split with AG. Minor parties that had a significant following include Northern Elements Progressive Union (NEPU), the United Middle Belt Congress (UMBC), and the Dynamic Party (DP). There were minor movements, such as the Kano People’s Party, Igbira Tribal Union (ITU), the Niger Delta Congress (NDC), and the Borno Youth Movement (BYM) to name a few.
What is clear is that all these parties were ethnically based. Had any of them hoped to command a national majority to win an election to govern the country of numerous ethnic groups? The answer is simply no! The leaders knew it but did not make any sincere or serious effort to create coalitions or integrations that would present a national character. With the constellation of parties, the major leaders had an opportunity to forge alliances and coalitions that would erase the ethnic connotations of the parties and win elections that could have cut across the country to truly govern. Sometimes, there were halfhearted attempts to form alliances across ethnic boundaries, but they were either crushed 62 or could not get off the ground probably because of greed or hardened parochial thinking, and a lack of political skill. For example, the alliance between the NCNC, an Igbo- or Eastern Nigerian–based party with substantial power in parliament, formed an alliance with the NPC in the Northern Nigerian parliament but never took such an alliance to the extent of forming a national movement that presented a national front all over Nigeria or even to conduct an election in Northern and Eastern Nigerian with a common name. The NPC and the DP, an Eastern Nigerian party led by the Igbo-born Chike Obi, the famous mathematician, could have formed an alliance that would have erased their ethnic outlooks and presented a common front in elections in their respective regions or even across the country.
The NCNC and the AG had, by their names, at least a façade of intention to be national parties. The NPC did not pretend for a moment to seek to represent Nigerians broadly. Even by their very name, the ethnic populations of the East (Igbos and their neighbors) and the West (Yoruba) would not have been motivated to vote for them in a national election or agree to represent them in their regions. On the other hand, the generic names of NCNC and AG could have been presented in a façade of national agenda to seek support in all parts of Nigeria. In this regard, the NCNC had significant support in Northern Nigeria, though it never gained traction. The NCNC also attempted to build coalitions with the UMBC of Joseph Tarka of the Tiv ethnic group and with the NEPU, though without much success. Similarly, the AG attempted a coalition with the NEPU and the BYM. The latter appeared to have gained some traction, however, the NPC suppressed it with ruthless force (see also Ajiroba). The BYM was founded around 1954 by young radicals of Borno origin in Northeastern Nigeria. One of their early leaders was a man called Ibrahim. Ibrahim Imam had earlier resigned his position as secretary general of NPC and had joined NEPU. He merged NEPU activities in Borno with that of the youth movement. However, the alliance with NEPU did not last long, so BYM forged a new alliance with the AG.
The BYM also had strong ties with the UMBC, which had also allied with the AG. If these three had formed a strong union, the NPC would have made a strong showing in Northern Nigeria and the power of the NPC would have been attenuated. However, Mr. Imam was accused of embezzlement and almost went to jail. Though he was released in 1959, through the efforts of the supporters of the NPC, Ibrahim Imam’s house was attacked and burned, causing Imam to flee from Borno land. About 1961, Ibrahim Imam, it was alleged, was offered, and awarded a non-negotiable, mouth-watering, multi-million-pound contract only after Imam had promised to turn against Awolowo, the leader of the AG, who was later jailed in 1962 on charges of treason. This, in a nutshell, describes the ruthless suppression of any political opposition against the NPC in Northern Nigeria.
It was against this background of disarticulated political structures, with barely a pretense of ideological agendas, that Nigeria conducted elections in 1959 in preparation for independence in October 1960. The NPC won a majority of the seats in the Northern Nigerian Legislature. The AG won a majority of the seats in Western Nigeria, and NCNC won a majority of the seats in Eastern Nigeria. At the federal level, the NPC won a majority of the seats, followed by the NCNC and the AG, being the third-largest party. The NPC and NCNC (Dr. Nnamdi Azikwe’s party) formed a coalition to create the first government of the newly independent Nigerian government, with Alhaji Abubakar Tafawa Balewa (the deputy leader of the NCP) as the Nigerian prime minister. Awolowo left his position as premier of Western Nigeria to form the opposition in the Federal Parliament. Chief Akintola, his deputy in the AG party became premier of Western Nigeria. Nnamdi Azikiwe left his position as premier of Eastern Nigeria to become the first indigenous governor-general of Nigeria. Dr. Michael Okpara became premier of Eastern Nigeria.
Shortly after independence in October 1960, Chief Akintola, Deputy to Chief Awolowo in the AG Party, fell out, and there was turmoil in the AG. Sometime in 1962 , the Western House of Assembly passed a vote of no confidence on Premier Akintola and expelled him from the party. The then-governor of the Western Region, the Ooni of Ife, Sir Adesoji Aderemi, demanded Chief Akintola’s resignation as premier and named Alhaji Dauda Adegbenro as his successor. Akintola’s expulsion from the party and his replacement as premier precipitated a bloody crisis in Western Nigeria. The Federal Prime Minister Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa–led federal government intervened by imposing a state of emergency and appointed an interim premier of the Western Region in June 1962. However, Akintola formed the NNDP—essentially adopting the name of a party that had its origins in 1922—allied with the NPC to form the NNA (Nigerian National Alliance) and returned Akintola to become premier in December 1962. In 1963, Chief Ladoke Akintola, Alhaji Tafawa Balewa, and Alhaji Ahmadu Bello plotted to have Chief Obafemi Awolowo arrested for treason. Awolowo was tried and jailed for ten years.A good deal of what happened could be explained as part of the strategic machinations of the NPC to dominate the federal government of Nigeria, using the NNDP and working better with the Western Nigerians than with the Eastern Nigerians. Some have opined that Awolowo was meddling too closely with the government of Western Nigeria because of personal interest in the privileges of office. Several theories explain the split within the AG. According to Francis Famoroti October 2012, “Various historical accounts abound on the circumstances that led to the rift between the two political leaders. While some historians claimed that the genesis of the political crisis in Western Nigeria began with the sacking of Chief J.F Odunjo as the Chairman of the Western Region Marketing Board by Akintola over interfamily squabbles. Others attributed the offshoot of the crisis to the hardline stance of the AG leaders over differences that could have been amicably resolved within the party.” Some have even opined that there was a rivalry between Akintola’s wife and Awolowo’s wife.
However, there were also strong ideological differences between Awolowo and Akintola. Akintola is said to have preferred a more conservative approach to government and society. Awolowo was more of a social democrat, favoring public support for ordinary citizens, such as free education. One way or another, the NPC through the Sardauna of Sokoto (Ahmadu Bello) could easily have taken advantage of the rift between Awolowo and Akintola to consolidate their grip on power and control that the NPC and the Northern (Hausa-Fulani) power superstructure had sought all along.
The proximate events that precipitated the civil war began with the Western Nigerian elections in 1962. These elections were the crucible within which the cataclysm was hatched. All the principal players—Azikiwe, Awolowo, Ahmadou Bello, and Abubaker—were invested in the outcomes of the elections because whatever happened in those elections had implications for the federal elections that were to be held in 1964. As a ten-year-old child, the turbulence in Western Nigeria came across to us as a confrontation between the NCNC and the NPC. The events were so rancorous and the drumbeats so loud as to raise the consciousness of even the children. As a precocious child, I followed the events closely and analyzed them, along with my elders—and of course, they influenced me. Therefore, as an Igbo, and considering that our leaders were parochial and not ideological, we were influenced to side with the NCNC as an Igbo based party. During this period, the United Progressive Grand Alliance (UPGA) was formed. The older youth understood the meaning of UPGA. As a younger youth, I did not understand what it meant but I supported them because the older ones did. Indeed, one of the older youths in our village, who was called Chigbu Ocha (light-skinned Chigbu), adopted the name “UPGA” as his new nickname.
My ten-year-old mind during that time only remembered that there was tremendous trouble in Western Nigeria. Being an educator, my dad made me read newspapers so I could follow the events too. I recollect on one day, at Umudike in Umuahia, my dad ordered me to go to the library of the Rural Education Center—where he taught—and read the news of the day and to report back to him what I read. Along the way, I veered off and went to play soccer (football). When I was done playing football, I began to walk towards the library, only to encounter my dad walking down the slope of the hill from our house. He asked what I was doing on the road. I responded that I was on the way to the library, as he had instructed me. He was livid and reminded me that it was at least two hours earlier that he told me that. My dad had a signature walking stick that he made by himself and proceeded to whack my bottom with his walking stick. I ran off and then did what I was asked to do. I understood little of the analytics, or at least, I did not read the news with a critical mind. Much of what I read, in hindsight, was more like propaganda from each of the parties. In Eastern Nigeria, we read the Nigerian Outlook and the Daily Times. My recollection of events was that we thought that the conflict in the West was a struggle between Awolowo and Akintola, especially since Akintola had sided with the Sultan of Sokoto. In all honesty, it was whether we would support “Awusa” people or not.
Though the crisis continued, I do not recollect any personal experiences at the village level until 1964 or 1965. Of course, the federal elections were held at the end of 1964 and all hell broke loose again. The political alliances formed during this period included Chike Obi’s DP and the NPC. One remarkable feature of political rhetoric in my childhood was the politics of bombast. Our people, especially the Igbos, were impressed with bombastic English words that ended with ‘isms’ and the like. These were the days of Zikisms, in honor of Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, the first President of an independent Nigeria. He also set the tone for these bombastic usages and produced the likes of Ogali A Ogali, a journalist that wrote the popular marketplace or street drama book, “Veronica My Daughter”. In Veronica My Daughter, the character of “Bomber Billy” was riding his bicycle “and was descending the declivity … at…such an excessive velocity … and precipitated on the Macadamized thoroughfare…”. Bomber Billy also admonished another character to “…beware of ponderosity, … pomposity, proticity, verbosity, and rapacity and to learn to respect my integrity…”
True to form, one of the newspapers had accused Chike Obi of irresponsibility and hooliganism. Many of us tried to mimic the role models. I can recall playing soccer with my agemates at one of the soccer fields of the Government College Umuahia in 1963/1964 and during a soccer game, an agemate (Gabriel) tackled me hard. In return, I chastised him for irresponsibility and hooliganism. He took great offense at the appellation and protested. I promptly dismissed him for excessive loquacity and then called him a stupendous ignoramus. He then complained to another person that the tackle that he made did not rise to the level of cursing him out with such big words. When I reflect on it, I don’t even believe that I knew the exact meaning of the words that I used. But I knew them very well. One might wonder how I came about these big words. First, it was just the vogue, as I explained earlier. Knowing the big words was a sign of great facility with the white man’s language and those who had such facility were considered the best qualified to represent us when dealing with our colonial masters. I was in elementary school Standard Six (American 7th Grade) in 1963/64. From the 5th Grade, those of us whose parents could afford it bought and walked around with a book – red in color or similar color – called the “Student’s Companion”. It had in it as many big English words as one could imagine. We used to, more or less, learn and memorize as many big English words as we could. I certainly owned one.
In preparation for the 1964 federal elections, Chief Akintola (with the NNDP) and the NPC allied as the NNA. As a counterweight, the NCNC joined with the AG, the Northern Progressive Front, the Kano People’s Party, the NEPU, the UMBC, and the Zamfara Commoners Party to form the UPGA. Despite their best efforts and partial boycott of the federal elections, the UPGA lost the election at the federal level in 1964 and at the Western regional elections in November 1965. There were allegations of widespread vote-rigging as some alleged that the NNA bragged that it would not matter whether the people voted for the NNA or not—they posited that the NNA would win the election anyway. Several months after the federal elections, an estimated 2,000 people died in violence that erupted in the Western Region.
By January 1965, I was at the government secondary school (Government College) in Owerri. The elections had led to political mayhem. In general, we had heard about the conflicts in Western Nigeria and at the federal level, with accusations and counter-accusations of corruption and election malpractice tossed back and forth. My classmates were mostly precocious twelve- to fourteen-year-old brats—very noisy but mostly bright.
We followed the political developments very closely and discussed them practically daily like we had any real clues or solutions. Essentially, we recited what our parents and elders said. One big real difference, though, was that we were more actively involved and knew a lot more details than most people our age. One remarkable thing that we did regularly was read the newspapers that most people our age would not do or had no access to. We also pursued information on subjects that were of interest to us and for each person on our free (Wednesday) nights to come in front of the class and brag about some new knowledge that they had gained. My special area of curiosity was history, wars, and mythology. On Wednesday nights or over the weekend, I would go to the library and explore my interest in these subjects. Every two weeks, I read this pamphlet titled, “Legendary Beasts.” In this pamphlet, the legendary beasts of different cultures over time were portrayed. It was here that I learned about the griffin, gnomes, tokoloshe (South African), and a lazy Russian man-like beast that is greenish or dark with grass on its head instead of hair.
I do not recollect any public presentation of my explorations. However, there was one particularly boisterous member of the class, Eugene, who was exuberant about his stories. Eugene specialized in updating us about the latest political news. It is conceivable that the ongoing political crisis motivated Eugene to become so boisterous about broadcasting the news. Because he was so enthusiastic about sharing his explorations, we nicknamed him the Journalist—a nickname that he carried throughout our school days. He loved it and probably hoped to be a journalist someday. Eugene did eventually study political science and earned a master’s degree in the United States. At the end of that year, 1965, my dad was transferred from Umuahia, where he was principal of the teacher’s college, to an administrative position as senior inspector of education in Owerri. I was not aware of it until the close of school. Federal elections were held in October 1965 and the results led to more mayhem. It did not appear that there was any hope for a calm settlement. Still, my classmates and I followed the events with keen interest. It was amid the irresponsibility of our leaders, their mutual intransigence, personal interests, and the attendant violence following the federal elections that a group of army officers struck and overthrew the federal and regional governments in a military coup. The military coup took place on the morning of January 15, 1966. This military coup gave rise to a counter-coup, and the events that followed spiraled out of control and precipitated the civil war.
Civil War Reflections continues….
