The present Emir of Kano, Alhahi Muhammadu Sanusi, also known as Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, in a 1999 paper, blamed the Wild Wild West crisis of 1965, a violent political struggle between Awolowo and his then deputy Akintola, as the cause of the January 15, 1966 coup, which was the first coup in Nigeria.
The January 15 1966 coup has been blamed on the Igbo by countless anti-Igboists.
But the respected intellectual, Sanusi, in a paper titled ISSUES IN RESTRUCTURING CORPORATE NIGERIA laid the blame squarely on the violent political struggle beteeen Awolowo and Akintola which engulfed the then Western Region in 1965, and gave the military the reason to seize power in early 1966.
The paper was Presented At the “National Conference On The 1999 Constitution” Jointly Organised By The Network For Justice And The Vision Trust Foundation, At the Arewa House, Kaduna from 11th – 12th September 1999.
SANUSI who was then Assistant General Manager, Credit Risk Management and Control Division, United Bank for Africa PLC, has thus shamed people who like to blame the Igbo ethnic group for Nigeria’s first coup. Are they doing so out of guilty conscience?
The first coup of Nigeria was not caused by the Igbo or by the Yoruba, but by elements of the political class. Ethnic jingoists should stop ethnicizing the issue.
See excerpts:
The Yoruba elite were the first, in 1962, to attempt a violent overthrow of an elected government in this country. In 1966, it was the violence in the West which provided an avenue for the putsch of 15th January.
Sanusi also called for an end to moves to ‘punish’ Igbos over the coup:
Having said that, this nation must realise that the Igbos (sic) have more than paid for [1966].
They have been defeated in War, rendered paupers by monetary policy fiat, their properties declared abandoned and confiscated, kept out of strategic public sector appointments and deprived of public services. The rest of the country forced them to remain in Nigeria and has continued to deny them equity.The Northern Bourgeoisie and the Yoruba Bourgeoisie have conspired to keep the Igbo out of the scheme of things…
…When the Igbo solidly supported the PDP in the hope of an Ekwueme presidency, the North and South-West treated this as a Biafra agenda. Every rule set for the primaries, every gentleman’s agreement was set aside to ensure that Obasanjo, not Ekwueme emerged as the candidate.
Things went as far as getting the Federal Government to hurriedly gazette a pardon. Now, with this government, the marginalisation of the Igbo is more complete than ever before.The Igbo (sic) have taken all these quietly because they reason, they brought it upon themselves. But the nation is sitting on a time-bomb.
Our present political leaders have no sense of History. There is a new Igbo man, who was not born in 1966 and neither knows nor cares about Nzeogwu and Ojukwu. There are Igbo men on the street who were never Biafrans. They were born Nigerians, are Nigerians, but suffer because of actions of earlier generations. They will soon decide that it is better to fight their own war, and may be find an honourable peace, than to remain in this contemptible state in perpetuity.
The Northern Bourgeoisie and the Yoruba Bourgeoisie have exacted their pound of flesh from the Igbos. For one Saraduna, one Tafawa Balewa, one Akintola and one Okotie-Eboh, hundreds of thousands have died and suffered…. If this issue is not addressed immediately, no conference will solve Nigeria’s problems.
Good information
Thanks for sharing