he had founded in 1944, the National Council of
Nigeria and Cameroons (NCNC). The Yoruba, in
the western region, supported the party led by
Chief Obafemi Awolowo. But together the
peoples of the western and eastern regions con-
stituted no more than half of Nigeria’s total pop-
ulation. The Muslim-dominated north of the
Hausa-Fulani created its own party, the Northern
People’s Congress, whose most impressive politi-
cian was the deputy leader Abubakar Tafawa
Balewa. The early misfortunes of Nigerian inde-
pendence stemmed from the fact that the cultural
and regional clashes and the militancy of regional
groups proved more powerful than the urge to
create a united Nigerian nation that would allow
each region some measure of autonomy. The par-
liamentary system that Britain had created before
independence gave no regional party the major-
ity, though the north was allowed a representa-
tion larger than the west and east combined.
Immediately after independence in 1960,
power was exercised by a coalition of the north
and east, Ibo and Hausa, who had nothing in
common except the desire to gain patronage.
Azikiwe became head of state and Tafawa Balewa
federal prime minister, and Awolowo headed the
opposition until imprisoned in 1962. Electoral
rigging and corruption created intense bitterness,
and there were serious disturbances. In January
1966 Ibo officers of the federal army led a mutiny
and assassinated prominent politicians, including
the federal prime minister Abubakar Balewa. The
officers all came from the south; their objective
was to overthrow the north’s political domination.
Major-General Aguiyi Ironsi re-established
control and assumed power, the military taking
over from the failed politicians. Ironsi, adopting
a policy of unifying Nigeria and abolishing the
federation, favoured Ibo advisers and so aroused
the apprehensions of the conservative north. The
Ibos who had migrated to the north to take up
posts in the railways and banks and who had
established themselves as enterprising traders
formed a better-off elite deeply resented by the
Hausa. Ironsi’s military coup was soon inter-
preted in the north as an Ibo plot to dominate
the country. When the false rumour was spread
that the many Ibo officers in the north planned
to kill their fellow officers, the northern junior
officers and NCOs in July 1966 organised a
second coup which began by mass killings of Ibo
officers. Among the victims was Major-General
Ironsi. His chief of staff, Colonel Yakubu Gowon,
a Christian from a Muslim region without ethnic
prejudice, was chosen by the coup leaders as the
new military ruler.
Gowon, who had so accidentally come to
power, was to play a major role in Nigeria’s
history. But during the following months, despite
conciliatory efforts, he was unable to master the
growing fanaticism in the north and east. In the
north, the unrest culminated in the massacre of
thousands of Ibos. Hausas who lived in the east
were driven out and retaliatory killings took place.
Two million panic-stricken refugees, mainly Ibo
from the north, tried to get back to their own
people. Nigeria was threatened with anarchy, each
region going its own way.
The biggest tragedy was yet to come – civil
war. The military commander of the eastern Ibo
region, Odumegwu Ojukwu, on 30 May 1967
declared the region’s independence as the new
state of Biafra. Fighting on the ground began in
July as Gowon, despairing of a peaceful resolu-
tion, was determined to maintain Nigerian unity.
The civil war lasted nearly three years, until
January 1970. The Biafrans, with the main oil
reserves and the refinery at Port Harcourt in their
region, had for a time the resources to secure
weapons and help from abroad, especially from
France, Portugal and South Africa. Their seces-
sion was soon recognised by a number of African
states. Although the Ibos fought fiercely, they
faced an overwhelmingly larger federal army, and
when a blockade was imposed, food supplies to
the civilian population dwindled. Famine killed
hundreds of thousands, many more than died in
the fighting. Pitiful television pictures and news-
paper reports reached the West and aroused wide-
spread sympathy for the cause of Biafra, but
Britain refused to intervene. Gowon made it clear
that the federal government and army were not
engaged in genocide.
Gowon’s statesmanship was proven when
Biafra surrendered. There was no revenge such as
the Ibos had feared, for Gowon wanted to heal
1
THE END OF WHITE RULE IN WEST AFRICA 733
