CONFLICT IMAGES: COLONIAL' LEGACY, ETHNICITY, AND CORRUPTION IN NIGERIAN POLITICS, 1960-1966 OYE OGUNBADEJO* INTRODUCTION Before the first military coup took place in Nigeria, in January ]966, many outside observers thought that the country epitomised the success of the Westminster model of parliamentary democracy in black Africa. There was a government at the centre and an opposition. Yet, when viewed froin close quarters, the government was nothing more than an alliance between tribally based parties in the East and the North on the one hand, and a tribally based opposition party in the West, on the other Later this 'marriage of convenience gave way to an alliance between the North and a doubtfully valid government in the West against the East. The major weakness in both situations was the degree of alienation involved,since large sections of the country were virtually excluded from participation in the process of govern... ment. Principles, issues, and national interests were usually subordinated to sectional imperatives in specific situations. Despite these centrifugal tendencies, the urge to surmOunt regional interests and to construct a national consensus persisted. And although the use of the Federal constitution was abused on some occasions, to aid and abet sectionalism, recourse to it, at crucial moments in Nigeria's turbulent life, normally ensured reluctant retreat from major catastrophes. However, when the young Majors struck in January' 1966, they destroyed the existing instrument for achieving a national consensus. Ethnicity assumed an added dimension; and the forces that it generated plunged the country, first. to the secession of the East, and; then, to a bitter civil war. Would the disaster have been averted It Britain, lilt: colonial power, had set. about building a nation-state instead of furthering separatist propensities in the country? Or, put in another form, to what extent can Nigeria's post-independence problems be attributed to the political system bequeathed by the British? In this paper, an attempt is made to answer this question and to show the interaction between coloniaiism, ethnicity, and corruption in Nigerian'politics during the period under consideration, that is,1960 to 1966. THE COLONIAL LEGACY Most African states are socially and politically fragile in the sense that their frontiers, which were the arbitrary products of the colonial scnl.mble for Africa, enclose various ethnic groups, the. bonds between which at~ sometimes tenuous. The most significant ofthese bonds, as far as the preservation of the state is.concerned, is the fact, of having undergone the same colonial experience. Historically, Great Britain, the colonial power pursued two different policies. The nature of the colonial "Dr. Ogunbadejo is a Lecturer in the DepartHent of Polilical Science at the Universily of Ife, lle-Ife, Nigeria: 85 Ogunbadcjo—Nigeria Conflict Images experience was such that, far from narrowing the differences between the peoples who underwent it, in some respects, it actually widened and deepened these differe- nces1. While the "indirect rule" was for a short while practised in the South and had to be abandoned in the end, it remained the main form of colonial administration in the North2. Through it, Britain was able to perpetuate cultural separateness by incorporating traditional political institutions into the colonial system. In the process, separatist tendencies were encouraged. Moreover, since "indirect rule" deliberately preserved the moslem culture and impeded Christian missionary in- fluence and modern education, it became a barrier to modernization in the North-*. The South on the other hand which comprise the Yoruba of the West, the Ibo of the East, and other smaller peoples, was an area in which colonial rule involved a fairly strong westernizing influence, Christian missionary effort, and an education fashioned on the English model. Successive colonial constitutions devised for Nigeria entrenched political power on regional lines.From 1951 to 1958, Britain ensured that half of the seats in the Federal Parliament were allocated to the North. But, in the final independence constitution, this balance of control between South and North was rocked. The House of Representatives, it was laid down, would be elected on the basis of popula- tion figures4. And since the North had over half of Nigeria's population, and three times the land territory of the other two regions combined, it was thus guaranteed cast-iron political domination of the country. From the point of view of some Nigerians, particularly those in the South, it was as if the British deliberately did things this way to ensure that only Northerners would continue to rule Nigeria after their departure. Yet, looked at critically, with 56",, of Nigeria's population, Britain could hardly be blamed for giving more seats to the North. Besides, it was reasonable to have a constitution that provided for a federal parliament which was to be elected by universal suffrage on a population basis. After all, every federal state in the world follows this practice and though there may be some inequality in the population size of individual constituencies no state pretending to do justice could systematically underrepresent one half of the population on the grounds that they were supposedly more 'backward' than the other half. Nonetheless, one can criticize Britain on at least one major ground, and, that is for failing to break, up the North into several regions, or, as is fashionable nowadays, states. All the colonial administrations actively encouraged the Northern Peoples' Congress (NPC) to resist the creation of new regions in the North. The main reason for this is not hard to fathom. The British felt that they had a lot in common with the Hausa Fulani aristocracy than with the restless and pushful nationalists in the South; because of this, they concluded that their interests in Nigeria would be better protected and fully guarded by the northerners, long after their departure from the country5. Clearly, it was in Britain's interests to maintain the monolithic nature of the North and to ensure that the final independence constitution favoured that region. But, as Margery Perham has argued, 'the preponderant size of the North' was bound to prevent "independent Nigeria from achieving unity*6. 86 Utafiti-Vol.4 No. 1 July 1979 Those who held the view that Britain's policy was deliberate found this belief reinforced when, after independence, the Northern-dominated Lagos government became very receptive in its for~ign policy towards the West, and the latter showered praises on the Nigerian leadership in the World J>ress7, Agreed, a man like the late Prime Ministtl.f, ;~j~ Tarawa Balewa, could be regar4ed as an h.oneIt and IDOd hearted leader, but the direction of his domestic policies, and his'attempts to strike a balance between the different int~rests of the regions, were ~epeatedly frustrated by the fact that he was also in a subordinate position, in important matter. to the late Sardauna of Sokoto, the late premier of the Northern Region .• THE DOMESTIC SOURCES OF CONFLICT The large-scale corruption that started soon after independence was anot'her factor which was at the root of the Nigerian tragedy. The politicians, while their tenure of office lasted, turned the government treasury into a large private gold mine. To remain in office, they used armed thugs to silence oppostion, manipulated census figures to ensure better representation for their political parties, and rigged elections with ingenious chicanery. The 1963 census, the 1964 elections tothe Federal Parliament, and the October 1965 elections to the We~tern House of Assembly, exhibited the worst traits of all these evils. The latter incident, which brought tota~ chaos into the West, and the large-scale army intervention in the Tiv region in 1964S. were crucial flashpoints for the young officers' coup of January, 1966. The NPC shared, in no small measure, the responsibility for the sorry state into which things had drifted in the six years of independence. The party wanted to . extend the North's hegemony to the Atlantic Ocean and the Sa,'dauna was even unwilling to change its title (from Northern to Nigerian People's Congress) to give it an apparently national character in line with the other major political parties. True, the party had struck an early alliance with the..Eastern Region's National Convention of Nigerian Citizens (NCNC) under Ibo leadership. But this was clearly a marriage of convenience. The NPC outmanouvred its ally along the line. A major rupture came, early rn the 1963 census crisis, which was blatantly fixed9• The crisis had two main direct effectslO. First, the NPC and the NCNC broke their alliance, thereby bringing about a new political re-alignment among the main parties. Thus while the NPC and its new ally in the South, the Nigerian National Democratic Party (NNDP), forme.d the core of the Nigerian National Alliance (NNA), the two main southern parties - the Action Group (AG) and the NCNC - gathered forces under the umbrella of the United Progressive Grand Alliance (UPGA) to oppose the North11• Secondly, the President, who proved unwilling to accept the purely symbolic role which the NPC apparently wished to assign to him, finally allowed himself to become involved in local politics and polemics. On dissolving Parliament in December 1964 for the then approaching Federal elections, Dr. Azikiwe made a dawn address over the radio in which he issued a very stern warning of the consequences of electoral corruption and thuggery12. He closed his message with this dramatic and prophetic appeal: 81 Ogunbadejo-NiJetia Conflict Images I have one advice to gIve to our politicians. If they have decided to destroy our national unity, then they should summon a roundtable conference to decide how our national assets should be divided before they seal their doom by satisfying their lust for office. I make this suggestion because it is better for us that we should disintegrate in peace and not in pieces. Should the politicians fail to heed this warning, then I will venture the prediction that the experience of the Democratic Republic of. the Congo13 will be a child's play if ever it comes to our turn to play such a tragic roleI4. As the' crisis deepened, and an UPGA delegation called on the President to postpone the election in view of the. openly scandalous conduct of the compaign, Dr. Azikiwe suggested inviting the United Nations (UN) to supervise a new Federal election, a suggestion flatly rejected by Alhaji Balewa. UPGA then called on its supporters to boycott the election and to 'rally round so th,at we might save this nation from the forces of tyranny, de:;potism and feudalism, and from those who now seek to come to power at all costs'.15 Uneasily, Nigeria went to the polls on 30 December, 1964. The UPGA boycott, announced at the eleventh hour befor" the elections, swept a huge majority into the hands of the NNAY> The showdown that finally developed between the Prime Minister and Dr. Azikiwe, and the latter's suspected toying with the idea of assuming Presi4ential control, brought Nigeria to the very edge of major disaster at the begining of 1965. Dr. Azikiwe was torn between his constitutional duty as President to call upon Alhaji Balewa to form the new.government and the pull of his Ibo tribe, and that of his old party, the NCNC, which he had created. After several days of dangerous tension, the President bowed to his moderate and judicial advisers and turned a deaf ear to the demands of his old supporters. He reappointed Alhaji Balewa as Prime Minister, after both of them had accepted a six-point constitutional patch- work recommended by the Chief Justice and the Attorney General of the Federation. These included determining the legality of the elections in constituencies where the number of voters were so small as to 'make a mockery of democracy', a constitutional review commission, and the immediate formation of a 'broad-based national govern- ment'.17 But why, one may ask, did the President suddenly.retract his threat not to invite the NPC to form a Government on the basis of this fake General Election? He probably did so out of a spirit of compromise and because he was advised by his legal advisers that he had no modus operandi in law and according to the constitution to do otherwilW..-ilIffje the 'victorious' party to power, leaving the defeated party. to fight it out Il1 the law courts. Further, it would. seem that Dr. Azikiwe also acted out of purely selfish motives, for if there was a head-on-collision between him and the NPC, he was bound in law to lose. The future Biafran leader, Lieutenant-Colonel Ojukwu, at this stage a Quartermaster-General in Lagos, in fact, foresaw the impasse and wanted to stage a coup at a Lieutenant-Colonel level. which did not come off, partly because pro Azikiwe .got cold feet. The President knew it would be foolhardy to attempt such a thing when he could not be slire of a sizeahle following in the ,afJIlY.For a stan, Lt.-Colonels Ejoor and Gowan were opposed to such an idea. 88 Utafiti-Vol.4 No.1 July 1979 The probability was that many more officers who had not been contacted would be more strongly against it and could even bring about the fall of Dr. Azikiwe were he to persist. As a very shrewd former politician, he took only calculated risks. In any case, Lt.-Colonel Gowon was not o~ly hostile to the plot but he also warned Major General Sir Christopher Welby-Everard, the British General Officer Com- manding the Nigerian Army, about it. The latter took advice from the Chief Justice in good time arid he was told that his orders were to come from the Prime Minister and not the PresidentIS But the final Act - for which the Western Region provided the stage - in the electoral struggle for power, remained to be played. The Akintola Government had shrewdly used its years in office to destroy the apparatus of Action Group support, and build its own. If the NNDP had to submit to the popular vote, Akintola would obviouslv be uprooted from office. To remain in office, therefore, he resorted to blatant and unrestricted thuggery and fraud in 'winning' the 1965 election. Essen- tially, the whole exercise was an open rape on democracy: Electoral officers disappeared or refused to receive the nomination papers of opposition candidates and declared NNDP candidates elected un. 'opposed; other officers had their appointments revoked after they accepted the nomination papers of opposition candidates; ballot papers were widely found in the hands of unauthorized persons on the election day; retufl\ing officers refused to declare the result of the poll after the count, enabling false returns to be broadcast from the regional capital, Ibadan; these and many other irrgularities took place In several constitl,lences the AG candidate secured a certificate from the returning ~fficer that he had 'won, but the victory of the NNDP candidates was later announced from Ibadan. The result of this so-called election ~ave 73 out of 94 seats to the NNDpI9. But meanwhile, the regional government had virtually disintegrated, the political violence that had been unleashed as a means of defeating a rival party in elections quickly grew into an uncontrolled and uncontainable lawlessness. Before the election, the Prime Minister had threatened to flood the West with troops in the event of violence. Yet, when that violence occurred, the military wer~ only committed in aid of the civil power to a very limited extent. One'may'well ask why Alhaji Balewa allowed this pe'rVersion of electoral law and order. The only possible answer would se~!l1 to be that ..as the Sardauna had re~ained hea.d .of the NPC and had kept all control in his own hands, the Prime Minister was 'iso- lated in Lagos and had no power to intervene. At any rate, with the eruption of violence in the West and the massive resentment against an unpopular Government, the Ibadan-based .. 4th Battalion of the Nigerian Army was inevitably used to prop up the Akintola regime. Many young officers resented this;"but despite the fact that the battalion commander, Lt.-Colonel Largema, was publicly exposed for giving clandestine military support to the NNDP2o, army units and armoured cars were widely deployed in the region. Many of the soldiers and Federal police that were brought in to restore order sympathised quite openly with the AG, as opposed 89 ()sUDbadejo-Nigcria Conflict Images to the ruling party of the region, the NNDP. Consequently, their presence only added to the tension21. At the same time, 'demonstrations against Chief Akintola were becoming increasihgly like a guerrilla struggle with UPGA supporters striking suddenly at night to commit arson and to murder prominent membersofthe NNDP22, It was clear to Chief Akintola, and, indeed, to many people, that certain measures would have to be taken to arrest the deteriorating situation. The Government had two options: it could either resign from office or use ruthless force and violence to stamp out opposition. The former was not feasible since Chief Akintola wanted to stamp out oPP0stion. The former was not feasible since Chief Akintola wanted to tough it out23. So, on 13 January, 1966, he flew to Kaduna and held a meeting with his chief ally and patron, the Sardauna of Sokoto, on the latter's return from pilgri- mage in Mecca. The precise direction of Northern thinking about this time is hard to discover. Clearly, many, including the Sardauna, wanted to commit the 4th Battalion in the West fully in suppression of violence and UPGA guerrilla action. Possib!y th~y" may also have been thinking of attacking the UPGA base in the East,24, though there is no hard evidence of this one way or the other. There is, however, a consi- derable amount of evidencethat many Northerners were thinking of ditching Akintola, or, rather, kicking him upstairs to some prestigous post, possibly as President in place of Dr. Azikiwe. The spread of the violence in the West and the attacks on the Hausa community in Shagamu and other places had convinced many Northerners that Akintola was not really worth"supporting imy long since he could not keep the' peace and had no clear power base.25 It may well have been fear of this that induced Akintola to fly to Kaduna to pay court to the Sardauna. On the other hand, the Prime Minister, did not seem to have contemplated the obvious remedy for the crisis- the suspension of Akintola, the impostion of Federal emergency rules, while new elections were held and effort made to reconcile Akintola and the imprisoned lead6" of the AG, Ghit?fAwolo~o, or at J~3;sttheir supporters. Whatever might have been the official line of thinking in Kaduna; the consensus opinion in the South was that, with the failure of police and spasmodic army opera- tions to stamp out the UPGA opposition, the army was to be thrown into the West for drastic action to keep the Akintola administration in power. This belief was reinforced by the fact that after the talks of Akintola and Lt.-Colonel Largema, with the Sardauna on 14th January, Lt.-Colonel Largema flew to Lagos for discus- sions at the Army Headquarters. Indeed, it was in the conviction that a larger and more effective military presence was to be organised in the West, that the young Majors finally took action. This is not to suggest, of course, that the plotters ex~cuted a coup solely on account of the Kaduna meeting. Far from it, after alL the Nigerian crisis, as we have seen earlier, had long erupted into the open even before the 19{)5 Western Region election was held. And, in any case, the Special Branch report on the coup has si.nceconcluded that it was sometime during August 1965 that: a small group of army officers, dissatislied with political developments within the Federation, began to plot in collahoration with some civilians. the overthrow of what was then the Government of the Federation of Nigeria:!". 90 Utafiti-Vol.4 No.1 July 1979 JANUARY 19b6: THE FIRST MILITARY COUP Th'e military coup of January 15th. 19b6, was therefore, the culmination of a national crisis in which the former political leadership had forfeited the respect of the Nigerian public for rigging elections, subversion of the principles of constitutional behaviour. large scale embezzlement of public funds, a deplorable display of ethni- city, and, gene'rally, for its oppressive and intolerant measures. The coup was widely regarded as a logical step. and it brought badly needed relief. The military met with a great welcome from those echelons who were dissatisfied with the pace ofmoderni. zation and nation-building and who were impatient with the widespread corruption of the old order. Initially at least. almost all sections welcomed the change. The chief plotters were Majors Ifeajuna, Okafor, Anuforo, Chukuka, Onwuatuegwu, Ademoyega. and Nzeogwu. Between them, they killed most of the twenty-seven officers and civilians who died in the coup. Soon afterwards, however, and for a number of reasons, it became clear that the coup had operated selectively. First, only political leaders of Northern origin - Prime Minister Balewa and the Premier of the North, Alhaji Ahmadu Bello, the Sardauna of Sokoto- and their most devoted non-Ibo allies in the South - Premier Akintola of the West and the Federal Finance Minister, Chief Okotie-Eboh- had been killed. Second, four out of the five Northern officers above the rank of Major, including the most senior, Brigadier Maimalari, Commander of the 2nd Brigade, were killed27• Third, almost all the arch-plotters came from one ethnic group, in fact apart from Major Ademoyega, a Yoruba. the other six Majors were Ibo. Moreover, nineteen of the" other twenty-three active participants were also of the same tribe. Lastly, no member of the group came from the North. Not surprisingly, therefore, the January affair soon came to be regarded as an Ibo coup against the North. But was the coup an Iho conspiracy to dominate Nigeria'? True. mostof the plo- tters were Ibos. but it was quite reasonable that the conspirators should not share their secrets with members of all other ethnic group!>.After all, factors like secrecy, ease of communication and group cohesion are usually"maximised in a single ethnic group. Besides, tl}e patterns of interaction among military colleagues. particularly those of the same rank. in this case at the Major level, would tend to cluster around ethnic lines. This is hecause of unconscious similarities in values and outlook among memhers of the saHli: ethnic g.roup~~.At any rate. some Yoruba ofticers were ah.o involved. and one of them has this to say: As regards the planners. the main movers were Ihos with few Yorubas . This was mainly hecause of capahility. trust. and courage to start Iirst29 . It would seem that the young Majors were motivated in the iirst instance hy the highc-;t sense of patriotism. a desire to stop their country from sliding into a state of moral decadence and politicai hankrurtcy. As Major Nzeogwu put it: We wanted to get rid of rotten and corrupt ministers, political parties, trades unions and the whole clumsy apparatus of the Federal system. We wanted to gun down ail the higwigs on our way. This was the only way. We could not alford to let them live if this was to work30. 91 Oaunbadejo-Nigeria Conftict Images It is a matter of the greatest regret that their original plans laudable as they were misfired. There is no doubt that Major Nzeogwu and the others were idealistic young men, who wanted only the best for theIr country, Nevertheless, it would be absurd to say that ethinicity played no part in the way the coup was executed. Some of the conspirators found, when it came to the crunch, that their tribal loyalties could not be easily erased. 'The coup: ..... was not well accomplished because of inability to remove fully tribal considerations and likeness of Ibo personalities'31 As a result, the actions planned simultaneously for Enugu and Benin were not carried out32• The military government which finally ,emerged was not that of the radical Majors but that of General Ironsi. His exact role in the coup, and the circumstances in which he assumed power, has always generated a measure of controversy~ not least among the writers on the Nigerian scene33. Did he 'trick' the rump cabinet to hand ovet the government to him, or was he 'invited' to assume'power? Further- more, did the rump cabinet ask for British troops to quell the mutiny and thus 'prevent Ironsi from assuming power? I put these questions to Richard Akinjide. 'In his reply, he made the following points: Nobody asked for British troops. The truth is that lronsi was playing double, he was telling us that he was loyal to us and that he is going to suppress the mutiny; at the same time, he wasboldingmeeting with Ojukwn who has flown down from Kano, where he was in command, and he was 'agreeing on steps to take over the Government with the mutineers ... :.. The myth of the so-called voluntary handing over is utter nonsense. What Ironsi told us was that we either hand over in disgrace or we hand over in ,peace. It was real blackmail, it was an ultimatum, it was a coup, pure and simole. He subverted the government, he threatened the rump cabinet 'that unless they hal'1d'over to him, the whole thing was going to be bloody34. This evidence pomts out one part of the truth. The other factor was that some ministers, especi!llly the Northerners genuinely believed that General Ironsi asked for power as a short-term measure, that is to enable him to restore order and to return political power to them as soon as the task was over. But, of course, he who parts with AIIaddin's lamp, even if it is only, for a short time is 'not likely to see it back again. At any rate, the situation at that time was hardly conducive to the retention of civilian government. Admittedly, General Ironsi did not reckon with the coup plotters when he first asked to be allowed to bring the situation under control but, In the subsequent negotiations with. the ringleaders of the coup, he found he had no .choice but to make certain concessions, since Nzeogwu appeared to still have a whole Brigade up in Kaduna under his control or at least a considereable following in the Army. To do otherwise was to court disaster. So he agreed when Nzeogwu insisted that the corrupt and inept policians already displaced from power shoulii never be allo~ to retut1l'thore. It was, 111 some measure, a successful coup, in so far as a chaJ)go of go'\'C.l1bneD.t was effected through violent means, although essentially the . CO~d failed ~ tbe~l planners did not quite succeed in getting themselves 92 Utafiti-Vol.4 No.1 July 1979 into power, where they had hoped to be able to carry out a number otreforms. Thus they were unable to push their revolution to its logical conclusion. From the very start, the Ironsi regime failed to recognise the need to barpi.n and compromise with the growing forces of dissent in the North, and neglected to , maie Use of the taletl8. of other groups such as the radical politicians who had previously been e~cluded from power. The unsatisfactory lack of official action towards the coup-plotters was also an error. Indeed, this was to prove to be Itonsi's undoing: whatever he did with them would offend either the North or the South. If he failed to punish the mutinous majors, he would be seen to have betrayed the North, while if he court-martialled them, it would be argued in the South that he was taking vindictive actions against the heroes of the revolution. There was no doubt that the series of ilI-conceived, ilI-motivated, and i1l~ advised steps taken hy Ironsi increased the doubts of many as to his sincerity. The one-sided promotions in the 'armed forces35, the air of arrogant supetiority of which lhos were widely accused by non-Ibos, the caucus of Ibo advisers with which lronsi surrounded himself36 and the spate of Government decrees made him and his regime suspect. Bitter inter-tribal strife had been generated by his managment: of affairs in La'gos and anti-Ibo feeling was exacerbated by the promulgation of the Unification decree37• This led in May to disturbances , in the North. By mid-July, Northern fears were further strengthened when Ironsi announced, rather pre- cipitately, to appoint military prefects at a provincial level, to post the Military Governors away from their regions of origin. and to rotate the battalions. Each of these decisions would have tightened central contwl over the regions stillJurther, to the detriment of the North. The situation was not helped by the air ofbraggadacio heing radiated hy the Ibo community in the North which revelled in taunting and teasing the Northerners that their time was over. It was now the turn of the IbC's to rule, they contended. These apostles of disorder carried portraits of Nzeogwu sitting in a victorious posture on Ahmadu Bello, thus i;litterly wounding'the sus- ceptihilities of the Northerners. It soonbecaJ?1e'Obvious:that:sooner:or:later, another 'coup would take place; and indeed it occurred in July I96{). JULY 1966: THE COUNTER-COUP In the second coup, Northern officers aggrieved hy the death of their compa- triots in January. and fearful of the various measures ofGenerallronsi. particularly the new dominant positi9n of the Ihos in the military hierarchy, which they thought would perpetuate lho dominance. led an attack on thelbo officers and other ranks. Although the coup was executed hy junior officers and NCOs, the plot was hatched by some senior officers, notably Lt.-Colonel Murtala Muhammed, Major Danjuma. and Lt.-Colonel Akahan, with the former NPC politicians, like Alhaji lnuwa Wada, egging them on 3h. For few days after the coup, there was a power vacuum in Lagos, eventually Lt.-Colonel Gown emerged as the new Head of State. It is generally believed that he knew nothing orth~ coup until he was sent to Ikeja harracks by Brigadier Ogundipe to parley with the troops.;l; But there the 2nd Battalions' other ranks had taken over 93 ()pnbadcjo-Nip:ria Conflict Imaaes and Gowon was placed under guard on Lt. Colonel Murtala Muhammed's order. As the coup got under way, he emerged as the nominee of the Northern officers as Commander-in-Chief40. Obviously, only a Northerner would have been acceptable to the plotters. In fact, they had opted to secede from the rest of Nigeria but were counselled against secession by the British High Commissioner in Lagos, Sir Fraqcis Cummings-Bruce, who pointed out to them that they were now back in p0:-ver, so why secede into a landlocked North,?41 With the new political balance fully established, the consensus in favour of secession began to weaken as more and more Northern officers ralIied round the idea of a strong and united Federation. In fact, by September. 19M. some cracks had surfaced in the relationship between the far North and the Middle Belt officers.. While the former wanted the North to be preserved as one entity. the latter group now began to demand that a number of states he created from the region4::!. Meanwhile, within three months of the second coup, civilian disturbances and tribal killings, on an unprecedented scale, erupted throughout the country. The initial killings in July were confined to the army. Well over two hundred Ibo officers and other'ranks were killed in the North, at Abeokuta and in Lagos. By September, however, hundreds of Ibo soldiers and civilians and even others who could speakneitberY oruba nor Hausa were done to death in cold blood. When new,s reached the East that there had been killings of Ibos on a large-scale in the North, their instinctive reaction was to retaliate. This act of reprisal was exaggerated by Cotonou Radio and thus resulted in more killings of Ibos in the North. The number of Ibos killed could never be correctly estimated but it must have run int() thousands. It was a real pogrom, a massacre, no doubt about it4J. As dazed refugees streamed to the relative security of their home villages in the East, they brought news of atrocities which quickly transformed a brooding distrust of Northern inten- tions into an ohsessive terror. I saw myself in mid September the appalling situation in Gboko and Makurdi when the 4th Battalion, sent by some madmen to relieve the well behaved 3rd Battalion in those towns, started a pogrom in alliance with thugs and old NPC cadres and proceeded to assume a self imposed task of driving every Ibo from the North. The Kano and Jos killings were even worse«. Attempts were made to find a constitutional formula that would restore confidence in a Nigerian solution, but the situation had so deteriorated that every move towards a settlement was interpreted as a new form of treachery. So much so, that the more moderate lbos came to believe that they had nothing to gain from remaining within the Federation; and the more extreme were convinced only secession would enable them to escape cultural and possibly physical extermination. These September and October, massacres, in fact, strengthened the hands of the planners of secession in the East beyond Ojukwu's control; and once he was won over by. he assumed leadership of the fbos for secession45. 94 Utafiti-Vol.4 No.1 July 1979 On the side of the Federal Military Government,.. Lt.-Colonel Gowon, though sympathetic to the plight of the lbos, initially, seemed iilcapable of halting the gradual drift to the brink. Later on, however, when it was too late in the day, he attempted, without much success, to keep open the possibility ofa peaceful settlement. Having failed to achieve reconciliation by the constitution-making exercise46 which the military had left largely to the political and civil cadres, the two military leaders finaIly attempted to find a solution through personal telephone contact. This, too, failed to yield any fruitful dividends, as the camaraderie of the former days in the officers' mess had by now turned sour. Indeed, by late 1966, all the ex- changes had become futile. Gradually and steadily, the engine of conflict gathered momentum. The series of crises that followed ensured that Nigeria would not be pulled back from the oncoming disaster. Thus, in May 1967, Lt.-Colonel Ojukwu declared the former Eastern Region a sovereign state of Biafra. And, in retaliation and in an attempt to preserve the territorial integrity of Nigeria, the Federal govern- ment took up arms47• For thirty months a bitter civil war raged. It was not until January 1970 that Lagos succeeded in bringing the conflict to an end by reuniting the whole country. CONCLUSION Structural imbalance was a source ot' n