The North never wanted to be part of Nigeria

The North never wanted to be part of Nigeria 

At first, the leaders of the July 1966 coup had seemed uninterested in assuming the reins of government of the country the moment they could individually attest that the Eastern leadership in the army had been liquidated root and branch. Having accomplished their task, the Northern troops were undoubtedly headstrong to affect their “physical withdrawal” and that of their region from Nigeria, as they repeatedly mouthed the Hausa expression for ‘Let’s secede’: “A raba! A raba!! A raba!!!” They equally matched words with action by harnessing nearly all transport operations, whether rail, road or air, to repatriate their families to the North. Professor Akinjide Osuntokun authenticates the “mopping operations” in his 149-page book Power Broker: A Biography of Sir Kashim Ibrahim (Spectrum Books, 1982), page 111:

“Once the Eastern leadership in the army had been eliminated, it seemed that leaders of the coup had no plans for taking over the government and running the affairs of the state. What seemed to have been the aim of Northern troops immediately they had accomplished their task was the physical withdrawal of themselves and the North from Nigeria. They had done what they had to do. The next thing to do was to send their families to the North, by rail, road and air.”

Dr. Nowa Omouigi also bears out in Operation Aure: The Northern Nigerian Counter-Coup:

“Indeed, Sergeant Dickson’s boys took control of the two BOAC VC10 aircraft at the airport and ordered the Captains to fly northern families of soldiers back to Kano before returning to Lagos to pick commercial passengers. The soldiers involved had been completely taken in by frivolous rumours of a “second Igbo coup” and, like northern civil servants, wanted to get their families away.”

That was until the British government, which had always reaped from “Nigeria’s underdevelopment and shoddy politics” as a result of the pampered oligarchy of the North being in power, intervened which marked a public signal of their concern. The British had become embattled and shocked owing to the success story that the coup had developed into, and had hastened to sensitize the NPC leadership to perish the confederation or secession thought and instead remain in Nigeria to support the military regime of Lieutenant-Colonel Yakubu Gowon (who, himself, had wanted “secession”) since political power would now return to the region. According to the official history of the Army, Military Governor of Anambra State (1978-1979) during the regime of General Olusegun Obasanjo (1976-1979), Colonel Datti Sadiq Abubakar (1939-2005), who was at the Abeokuta Garrison in July 1966 when mainly Igbo officers were killed, and was actively involved in the payback coup that flushed out Ironsi, quotes Sir Francis Cumming-Bruce (1912-2013), the British High Commissioner to Nigeria (1964-1967), who later succeeded his late brother as 8th Baron Thurlow in 1971, as having pointed out:

“If you dare do this kind of thing – confederation - that is the end of you [northerners].”

The British warned the Northerners that in the event of secession, it was the North that would suffer the more, for the reason that Northern Nigeria would inadvertently be promoting a regime of “between the devil and the deep blue sea” if it failed to appreciate the fact that Nigeria’s major wealth resides in the South, as well as consider the geographical realism of the region’s landlocked status. This meant that the North will constantly have to choose between an unfriendly Southern Nigeria and a hostile Cameroon to be able to deal with its maritime issues. So, from the foregoing, it was really the British who, by digging their heels in, that prevented the planned secession of the North. Ademoyega remarks, ibid (pg. 170):

”The British were quick to point out to them that it was the North that would suffer if they seceded – because the wealth of the nation emanated from the South, also because the North is landlocked…This was how the secession speech already drafted for Gowon to broadcast onAugust 1 was hastily edited to remove the secession aspect.”

But, history, it would seem, was not only repeating itself, it was also confirming the aim of the North which was to secede immediately after the 29th July revenge coup despite the said hasty editing, when the Chief of Army Staff, Lieutenant-Colonel Yakubu Gowon, who was not involved in the coup, but enjoyed wide support among Northern troops that insisted he succeeded Ironsi, declares in his hurriedly amended maiden broadcast to the nation after days of no effective government in Nigeria that:

“Suffice to say that putting all considerations to test – political, economic as well as social, the basis for unity is not there, or is badly rocked, not only once, but several times.”

Likewise, it cannot be quickly forgotten that during the constitutional crisis of 1953, the Sardauna of Sokoto, Sir Ahmadu Bello (1910-1966), had, while referring to the amalgamation of Northern and Southern Nigeria by the Colonial administrator, Lord Frederick Lugard (1858-1945), had also disapproved of the union. Bello had supposed:

“...the mistakes of 1914 have, at last, become obvious.”

But while the army remained bloodied and bewildered, seeming completely to have lost its bearings and unsure of its next line of action, civilians like Chief Stephen Oluwole Awokoya (1903-1985), Awolowo’s energetic Minister of Education in the Western Region, when free and compulsory primary education was introduced in 1955 and Sir Adetokunbo Ademola (1906-1993), then Chief Justice of Nigeria (1958-1972), maternal nephew of lawyer, politician, businessman, co-founder and Chairman of Daily Times of Nigeria, Sir Adeyemo Alakija (1884-1952), and son of King Ladapo Samuel Ademola II (1872-1962), paramount leader and Alake of the Egba clan who reigned in Abeokuta, a historic walled city of the Egba in South-western Nigeria, picked up the gauntlet and spoke to some Northern leaders in Kaduna. The pro-establishment CJN, a man who many had put on a pedestal and felt could do no wrong, was himself, involved neck-deep in the whole political crisis, providing support, aiding and abetting, and doing the late Prime Minister’s bidding all the way, which made him part of the problem. There was clear and abundant culpability on his part regarding how the Judiciary was used to wreck the First Republic which, as well, involved other people at the very highest level of the Balewa Government. (See Olufemi Ogunsanwo’s 246-page book, Awo: Unfinished Greatness, Pace Books and Periodicals, 2009)

-M.M.Mbanaja