had given them to become dominant in many walks of life. Most signifi-
cantly in the history of the secession attempt, the first military coupof 1966
was widely regarded among other ethnic groups as an ‘Ibo coup’ because
most of the young army officers were Ibo (Lloyd, 1970). In many respects
the Ibos had become the most ‘national’ of Nigeria’s ethnic groups, taking
their economic opportunities wherever they happened to be located
(Clendenen, 1972). Plans for secession did not begin to emerge until the
communal violence of 1966 began to look like a genocide attempt. Even
then, the political unit referred to as ‘Biafra’ consisted of the whole of the
Eastern Region of the federation, including minorities of 5 million non-Ibos
in a population of 12 million.
Until the discovery of oil in the East made secession look like an eco-
nomically viable option, Ibo reaction to problems in the region, such as land
shortages, had been to look for opportunities in other regions of Nigeria.
Secession began to look attractive to Ibo members of the bureaucratic and
commercial classes working in other parts of the country only when they
sensed that discrimination in employment opportunities would await them
even if they survived the pogrom which began in 1966 in retaliation for
what other ethnic groups, particularly in the North, perceived as an Ibo
coup. Hitherto the Eastern Region had not suffered discrimination in either
revenue allocation or economic investment. The Western Region had expe-
rienced a severe drop in revenues from export duties as a result of the slump
in cocoa prices between 1960 and 1965 and lost its oil to the newly created
Mid-West Region, but the East derived a rapidly growing yield from mining
rents and royalties. In terms of total revenues the East did better than both
the West and the North between 1958 and 1965. There was concern that in
the post-independence period economic development was being concen-
trated in the North, but this was as much at the expense of the Yorubas in the
West as the Ibos in the East. Until 1964 the East had received the largest
increasein industrial investment.
Politically the Ibos played a major role in national as well as regional pol-
itics from the earliest years of the independence movement. The first major
political party to operate nationally, the National Convention of Nigeria and
the Cameroons (NCNC), was led by an Ibo, Nmandi Azikiwe, who became
the first President of Nigeria. The NCNC originally attracted support from
all parts of Nigeria, but was eventually accused by some Yoruba leaders of
Ibo chauvinism. As politics at regional level became more important, the
NCNC became the dominant political party in the East, but continued to
have a considerable following in the non-Yoruba areas of the West and
minority areas of the North. At independence it became a coalition partner
Nationalism and Secession 209