Shocking: Did You Know That The North Plan To Break Away From Nigeria ?

Shocking: Did You Know That The North Plan To Break Away From Nigeria?

By Rowlandgate.

North Plan To Break Away From Nigeria but britain advised them they were going to suffer if they continued with the plan. Britain handed over the command of the Nigerian army to indigenous soldiers in 1965. The outgoing General Officer Commanding (GOC), Major General Welby Everald had preferred Brigadier Babafemi Ogundipe to succeed him, but his recommendation was rejected leading to General Aguiyi Ironsi, the most senior officer taking charge of the army.

When another opportunity came for Ogundipe after the bloody July 1966 coup, he was overlooked again because it was felt he will not be able to control soldiers from the north who were not ready to take orders from a Head of State of southern extraction.
The executioners of the July coup are Murtala Mohammed, Theophilus Danjuma, Martin Adamu, Shittu Alao, Musa Usman and Joe Garba and others. After a successful coup they wanted the northern region to secede from Nigeria.

Max Siolun in his book Oil, Politics and Violence said Ogundipe in a phone conversation told Ojukwu that northern officers wanted secession. The officers in a hurry to secede hijacked a British VC10 plane bound for London. The plane flew their families to Kano from Lagos in preparation for the Declaration of Independence from Nigeria.

The mutineers gave Northerners in Lagos forty hours to live and return to the north.
How the table turned that the same northern officers fought Ojukwu tirelessly to keep Nigeria one, is the tragedy of the Nigerian adventure.

Murtala, the leader of the hardliners and his co travelers were convinced by northern intellectuals not to undertake the mission of secession as it would backfire for economic and military reasons. The officers later rally round Gowon to consolidate their leadership having seen the need to remain in the entity called Nigeria.

This was welcomed in the north as victory for the people. It was celebrated, leading to deadly attacks on southerners.
Picture: Ironsi in Northern Nigeria