Nigeria’s Whitewashed Heads of State — Murtala Muhammed

On January 15 1966, Nigeria suffered its first military coup.

On January 15 1966, Nigeria suffered its first military coup. The military coup was erroneously tagged an Igbo coup because most of the coup plotters were Majors from the East (even though most grew up in the north and spoke Hausa better than Igbo), and in July 1966, there was a ‘rematch’. Aggrieved northern soldiers who felt they needed to avenge the death of their top soldiers and politicians killed in the January coup started to threaten mutiny.

The suspicion was aggravated by the infamous Unification Decree; Decree 34 announced by Nigeria’s Head of State (HOS) Aguiyi Ironsi, an Igbo man. The decree aimed to eliminate regionalism in Nigeria, by enforcing a strong central government. Decree 34 came at the wrong time, from the wrong person. Northerners thought it was an attempt to take regional power from them and give it to an Igbo man, and that the January coup was all along an Igbo plan to take over Nigeria. Fresh from the wounds of their slain leaders, all Northerners regardless of ethnicity or religion united for vendetta.

Despite being warned of an impending counter-coup, Ironsi paid lip service to it. Why not? He was surrounded by Northern officers in his military council, and he had been more Northern than he was an Eastern man. Ironsi showed loyalty to Tafawa Balewa (to the detriment of Nnamdi Azikiwe) and Ahmadu Bello while they were alive, and continued to display loyalty to the North. But it was not enough; to the angry Northern soldiers, a baby crocodile was still a crocodile, and as long as it was from the East, they were not safe.

Northern Nigeria Lieutenants like Abacha, Shelleng, Dambo, Wali, Jega, were on the neck of the most senior Northern officer, Lt-Colonel Gowon that unless the top officers took action to revenge their slain politicians and soldiers, they would. When Gowon took no step towards avenging them, the soldiers turned to Inspector of Signals, Lt-Colonel Murtala Muhammed, who became the de-facto leader of the revenge action. He was aided by   and Theophilus Danjuma.

It is from here that the first Kano emperor entered the stage. 

Meet Murtala R. Muhammed