In their incursions into the Nigerian political landscape, the military were obsessed with issues of unity, ethnicity, national integration, and belonging. Yet, six of the eight military heads of state that ruled Nigeria from 1966 to 1999 were from the North, running the country for over 25 of the 40 cumulative years of military rule. The other two were one each from the West and the East; but none was from any of the minority ethnic groups of the South. While the military were in power for all those years, there was an absence of a viable opposition in national politics, consequently, a vocal section of the press constituted itself into a veritable opposition group.
Excesses of an extremely ethnicised and corrupt political culture were the reasons advanced for the first military takeover of power in Nigeria. As Ojo (2012) submitted, “ethnicity was the hallmark of Nigerian politics up till the time Ironsi assumed office” (p15).
Ironically, even the coup, which was purported to correct the situation, became embroiled in the ethnic politics of exclusion.
Onwuka (2011) noted that the northern-led remedial coup only
“succeeded in deepening the division which had already existed in the Army” (p31). The mastermind of the January 1966 coup, Major Chukwuma Kaduna Nzeogwu, was an Igbo by tribe; General Aguiyi Ironsi, who became the first military head of state, as a result of the coup was also an Igbo man, both men from the Eastern Region of Nigeria. To compound issues, the victims of the January 1966 coup were mostly from the Northern Region. This led some northern military officers to believe that the 'purging' of the Nigerian political system as claimed by the military was actually the purging of northerners from governance. Ojo (2012) noted that what
“exacerbated northern anger” was that the coup “annihilated the ranks of the civil and military leadership of the North”, and its planners were seen as heroes by many Igbo people (p15). According to Onwuka (2011), General Ironsi’s regime only further deepened the ethnic division that was already entrenched in the Nigerian army.
As a result, the people of the Northern Region saw the appointments in General Ironsi’s government and many of his policies as against overall Northern regional interest. For example, barely four months in office, in April 1966, General Ironsi promoted military officers from Majors to Lt. Colonels: 18 out of the 21 officers promoted were of Igbo extraction (Ojo, 2012). By design or otherwise, “Ironsi’s appointments tilted too much in favour of the Igbo” (Ojo 2012, p14), and this
“aggravated ethnic suspicions” (p15). His government was accused of promoting an eastern regional agenda. Most of his policies were met with protests from the Northern Region; the “Hausa-Fulani abhorred some of the policies of the Ironsi regime” (Ojo, 2012, p16).
Unsurprisingly, the interplay of ethnicity in the Nigerian military became so intense that it led to a second military coup in one year – 29 July 1966, in which General Ironsi was assassinated. Mostly army officers of northern extraction carried out this second coup, and they installed Lt. Col. Gowon, a northerner as the second military head of state (Ojo, 2012).
Lt. Col. Odumegwu Ojukwu was the military governor of the Eastern Region during General Ironsi’s short-lived regime. He objected to the installation of Lt. Col. Gowon, a northern officer, as the military head of state. According to him, Gowon was not the most senior officer at that time; the military officer in line for that position was Brigadier-General Babafemi Ogundipe, of the Yoruba ethnic extraction. For Ojukwu, installing a junior officer as Commander-in-Chief would be going against ordinances of the military, anywhere. But Gowon remained as the head of state and Ojukwu refused to acknowledge him in that position. Another round of tension and tussle between the East and the North began and eventually resulted in an attempted secession by the Eastern Region from the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
Failure at the Aburi (Ghana) negotiation table to persuade them to remain in the union led to the Nigerian Civil War of 1967; it lasted nearly three years and claimed the death of about two million people (Uzokwe, 2003).
The Biafran War of secession, according to Jega and Farris (2010), became “an important factor that combined to push the nationalistic drive exhibited by the Gowon regime” (p141). To whittle down on the excessive powers of regions, Gowon dissolved the four ethnically conceived regions of the country and created twelve states in their stead – six states in the North and six states in the South. This singular move, according to Osaghae and Suberu (2005) “contributed crucially to the collapse of the Igbo secessionist campaign” (p20). It also helped in the process of national integration, and in the “relative stabilization of post-war Nigeria, and to the prevention of any further major secessionist conflict in the federation” (Osaghae and Suberu, 2005, p20).
After the Civil War, and after the regime of General Gowon, all subsequent military heads of state and one civilian president were of Northern origin, except General Olusegun Obasanjo, whose rise to power many saw as accidental, considering the circumstance of his ascension. (General Obasanjo became the head of state following the assassination of General Murtala Mohammed in a failed coup attempt in February 1976. Obasanjo, as Chief of General Staff, Supreme Headquarters, had been Mohammed’s deputy.)
The heads of state that ruled Nigeria thereafter were seen in the light of trying to promote and protect a “northern” agenda. According to Orji (2008), General Buhari’s regime was accused of favouring northern hegemony. It is still regarded as “one of the most narrowly-based Northern leadership” (p176). From one military dictatorship to another, the leaders surrounded themselves with aides that were close and of the same ethnic backgrounds. According to Tamuno, “many within the southern political elite read the Buhari coup as a further narrowing of the base of political power to a core Hausa-Fulani oligarchy” (Tamuno, 1999, cited in Ibrahim, 1999, p13). Military intervention in politics did not solve the ethnic and national unity problems, it intensified them.
MAPS OF NIGERIA BY YEARS AND SEASONS Figure 2.1: 1959 – 3 REGIONS
Figure 2.2: 1963 – 4 REGIONS
Figure 2.3: 1967 – 12 STATES
Figure 2.4: 1976 – 19 STATES
Figure 2.5: 1987 – 21 STATES
Figure 2.6: 1991 – 30 STATES
Figure 2.7: 1996 – 36 STATES