The Nigerian government and some of its officials have been requested by the South East Youths Stakeholders Forum (SEYSF) to issue a national apology for misrepresenting the January 15, 1966 coup as an Igbo-led plot. According to SEYSF, this Misinformation promoted mass murders of Igbo people, political marginalisation, and racial animosity. Following General Ibrahim Babangida’s disclosure that officers from many regions who were unhappy with Nigeria’s political state participated in the coup, in addition to Igbo soldiers, the demand was made.
According to SEYSF Chairman Mazi Ezenwa Onyirimba, the Igbo people have been persecuted and marginalised for decades as a result of the false narrative. The group contends that mass murders, like as the retaliatory atrocities against the Igbo, were caused by this historical distortion and fuelled the Nigerian Civil War (1967–1970). Discrimination against Igbo people has persisted in national politics, government, and Security posts even after the conflict. The Forum maintains that the coup was not ethnically motivated, citing fresh historical data, especially from Babangida’s book Journey to Serve.
National apology will clear misconceptions about tribal dominance.
Furthermore, the forum requests that the Federal Government and Nigerian Army issue an official apology for their misleading accusations that the Igbo were planning the coup for tribal dominance. Along with ending their exclusion from national leadership, security, and economic prospects, they demand that the Igbo people be recognised for the deaths they suffered during the 1966 pogroms. Prime Minister Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, Northern Region Premier Sir Ahmadu Bello, and Western Region Premier Chief Samuel Akintola were among the prominent political personalities assassinated in the 1966 coup. The president, Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, and the premier of the Eastern Region, Dr. Michael Okpara, were notably spared.
Particularly in the Northern Region, this selective pattern of killings gave rise to beliefs that the coup was an Igbo-led plot to take over the country. Following this, Igbo Major General Johnson Aguiyi-Ironsi, who was the Nigerian Army’s Commander at the time, took over as head of state. His adoption of Decree No. 34, which aimed to replace the federal system with a unitary one, heightened mistrust among other ethnic groups, especially the Hausa-Fulani in the North. This action was seen as a tactic to strengthen Igbo power in the country.
Thousands of Igbos were massacred in the Northern region.
As tensions increased, Northern military officers led a counter-coup on July 29, 1966. Aguiyi-Ironsi and several Igbo military officers were assassinated in this coup, which essentially transferred authority to Middle Belt Lieutenant Colonel Yakubu Gowon. Following the countercoup, thousands of Igbos were massacred in the Northern region, which prompted a large-scale Igbo flight back to the Eastern region. In reaction to the atrocities and perceived marginalisation, the Eastern Region, led by Colonel Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu, demanded more autonomy. The Aburi Accord in Ghana and other attempts to find a peaceful solution were unable to stop the growing gap.
Political analysts and historians have been debating the January 1966 coup’s designation as a “Igbo coup” in great detail. Although officers from a variety of ethnic backgrounds led the coup, the target assassinations of Northern and Western political heavyweights and the disproportionate number of Igbo officers involved stoked suspicions of a racial agenda. Pogroms against the Igbo and the counter-coup are just two examples of the violent and quick responses in the North that highlight the long-standing racial rivalries and mistrust that the coup heightened.
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A coalition of young organisations and leaders from the South-East area of Nigeria, primarily representing the Igbo ethnic group, is known as the South East Youths Stakeholders Forum (SEYSF). Founded with the goal of promoting the rights and interests of Igbo youth, SEYSF concentrates on topics including social justice, economic development, and political inclusion. A dedication to tackling the issues confronting their communities unites the forum’s participants, who come from a variety of professional backgrounds, including academia, entrepreneurship, civil society, and grassroots movements.