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What brought things to a head were elections last October in the Western Region. Chief Akintola had labels switched on ballot boxes, prevented opposition candidates from running, even reversed local vote counts to give his party a lopsided victory despite a hostile electorate. A wave of violence immediately broke out, and the wave became a flood. Political riots and assassinations have taken more than 150 lives in the past three months. Gunmen of the opposition Action Group ranged the roads, stopping cars and trucks and demanding money for the party. Police, unable to control them, warned motorists to stay off the roads, and truck drivers demanded hazard pay.
Fortnight ago, Akintola and the Sardauna of Sokoto met secretly in Ibadan, decided to call in the army to crush the growing rebellion. As far as the junior officers were concerned, that was the last straw. They launched their long-planned coup. "Our enemies," said Nzeogwu, "are the political profiteers, the men that seek bribes, those that seek to keep the country divided permanently so they can remain in office as Ministers, tribalists and nepotists, those that have corrupted our society and put the political calendar back."
Coffin & Banner. It is probable that the conspirators, who believe with Nzeogwu that "only in the army do you get true Nigerianism," intended to follow the coup with a Nasser-style revolution based on a permanent military regime. But they quickly lost their control of the army to the remaining senior officers under Army Commander Aguiyi Ironsi. A tough and respected soldier who served as commander of the United Nations forces in the Congo, "Johnny Ironsides," as Ironsi is known, had other ideas. He recalled Nzeogwu from the north, replaced him with a moderate northern officer, appointed other moderates as regional military governors, and announced that his military regime would step down eventually —whenever a new constitution can be drawn up and approved. "Our only purpose is to maintain law and order," he told his countrymen.
Not surprisingly, Nigerians fell in immediately behind their new regime. Businessmen and labor unions cheered, university students paraded through the streets of Lagos bearing a coffin and a banner proclaiming "Tyranny Has Died." All political parties—including the deposed Northern People's Congress—swore their allegiance. Editorialized the West African Pilot: "This great country has every reason to be proud of the military, which has taken over the fumbling feudal and neocolonialist regime. Today, independence is really won."
That still remained to be seen. For while the joy was obviously genuine in the south, it was just as obviously mixed in the north. Any new constitutional convention is almost bound to slice up the north into several regions to cut it down to size. And the assassination of the Sardauna of Sokoto raised a possibility that southerners have long feared: a Moslem holy war of reprisal. Besides, it was far from clear that the power struggle within the army itself had been fully resolved.