“Whereas the government of Northern Region of the Federal Republic of Nigeria has lost the confidence of the masses having been itself incompetent to govern and whereas the said Northern Regional Government is no longer able to guarantee the safety of human lives as well as the rule of law in its area of jurisdiction.
I Sir, Kashim Ibrahim, on whose shoulders the gubernatorial powers of the said Northern Regional Government have rested since Independence, having been myself the accredited custodian of the Constitution in this same Region do hereby on this day Saturday the 15th of January 1966, relinquish to the Nigerian Armed Forces all the powers, Statutory or otherwise exercised by my government”
-See Brigadier Hillary Njoku, A Tragedy Without Heroes, Nigeria- Biafra War, Fourth Dimension Publishers, 1987
Severely wounded and still bleeding from neck injuries sustained during his Jan 15 1966 dawn operations, Major C.K. Nzeogwu headed for the Governor’s Lodge. At the gates, the Governor, Sir Kashim Ibrahim was waiting. ”Your action even though late is welcome. I warned the Premier and advised him against his breach of the Constitution.’’ Kaduna was astounded by the Governor’s total embrace of his revolution. As the Major ordered a safe military escort of his Excellency to his native Bama, the Governor was not done. Sir Kashim Ibrahim raced back to his bedroom and in a minute returned to Kaduna Nzeogwu, brandishing some copies of letters he had written to the Sarduana actually warning the Premier of the consequences of his constitutional aberrations against the Opposition, the Talakawas and his scotch earth policy against the Tivs of the Middle belt.
Those letters endorsing the revolution were always with the bleeding Major throughout his memorable dawn Broadcast on Radio Kaduna until he was lured back to Lagos through the machinations of the British Intelligence. The GOC, Aguiyi Ironsi, Major Obasanjo, his trusted Counsel, during the negotiations, all had reneged on the honorable Officers agreement reached between Nzeogwu who was in total command of the North; and the GOC who had managed to secure Lagos, after the Revolutionaries took flight.
Kaduna Nzeogwu precious suitcase containing all those Letters, documents etc. was grabbed and taken away from him as he alighted Ikeja airport after surrendering his command according to the Agreement on Jan 19 1966 to Major Usman Kastina. Before Col. Conrad Nwawo, the former Nigerian Military Attachee to London, Major C.K Nzeogwu was handcuffed and thrown into the Kiri kiri maximum security prisons.
The scourge and human savagery devastating the Yoruba West before January 15 1966, found its comparative measures in the North as the 1964 elections drew nigh. The northern NPC civilian administration unleashed their authoritarian local police on the opposition. “Thousands were illegally locked up inside stinking police cells. Where no more spaces were available as these refugees were forcibly pushed into those cells with their families.” In a letter to the Provincial Commissioner on December 3, 1964, Mallam Aminu Kano, leader of the NEPU, cried out, “Aminu Abdullahi was beaten up and thrown like a dog into the police cell and he died in the night.” More of his followers were rendered homeless as their farms were burned to the ground.”
By December 28, 1964 two days before the scheduled elections, the turbulence and the regional violence rose to a crescendo. There were calls for the boycott of the elections as the NPC dominated government taking the footprints of their NNDP allies in the West had ensured that at the close of nomination exercise, large numbers of their own candidates, were returned unopposed.
In the words of Alan Feinstein, Aminu Kano, The African Revolutionary, “ the simmering political pot; the tugs and the strains within the northern Nigeria’s traditional structure increased from the 50s, as modernization and Independence approached, contributing to the instability in the region. The schism in Kano came to a head following the deposition of the Emir of Kano. Feinstein exposed further, ‘’ the powers of the local Authorities and Emirs of the North were used by the Northern NPC government to repress and intimidate opposition. With the effective regional state apparatus at their disposal, its leaders were not too worried about the North but the West was crucial. So long as their ally the NNDP retained control of the West, as did the NPC in the North, together they could continue to dominate the country.”
Consequently the northern power lobby resisted moves from any of the “radical” southern parties to find beach heads within the disparate nations that make up the Middle belt. In their “Peoples of the Niger Benue Confluence” published in 1955, Daryll Ford, Paula Brown and Robert Armstrong were categorical on the separate origins of the people of Igala, and those others from Benue hailing from Akpa. Whatever, the Northernization policy encouraged that most students from these areas went to specially created government secondary schools, while at the same time discouraging the same students from attending southern schools.
These and other outlined Nothernisation policies collided from day one with the national obsession of the most distinct Nigerian group on that Benue confluence. Before the arrival of the colonial masters, the Tiv nation had maintained their independence of all intruding forces be it British or Nigerian. They had bitterly and successfully opposed the rule of the Royal Niger Company at the end of the 20th century. Tivland was the last area in Nigeria to be brought under direct British rule in the opening decades of the last century. Non-Muslims with a distinct culture of their own, the Tiv had held their ground against the Muslim Fulani Rulers of the Far North, a position to which they reverted when the British gradually began to hand over power to these rulers with the introduction of the ministerial system of Government in the early 1950’s. Thus for nearly ten years before Independence the Tiv had never really accepted Fulani- rule. Rather they agitated that Tiv land and other neighboring Districts should form a Middle In his Belt State.
Next Week… Conclusion on January 15 Boys….Meet Major Christian Anuforo, the Revolutionary that died for the Tiv Nation emancipation