Reno Omokri the Table Shaker.

Was The January 15, 1966 Coup Planned To Put Awolowo in Power? 

In an attempt to revise history, apologists of the lopsided January 15, 1966 coup have repeatedly floated the claim that the coup was planned and executed to put Chief Obafemi Awolowo in power. Let us examine the facts. 

The claim does not, in my opinion, hold water because when the coup appeared to be succeeding, Ifeajuna made no moves to free Chief Awolowo. He neither sent soldiers to Calabar prison nor made any calls to Calabar. Neither did he nor his fellow coup plotters contact any member of Chief Awolowo's family or his political associates.

Moreover, Major Ifeajuna was from the same village as Nnamdi Azikiwe, then a political rival of Chief Awolowo. He was close to Nnamdi Azikiwe and was a regular visitor to his house and friend to his son. 

It was considered strange that Axikiwe went on a Caribbean cruise for his leave and very conveniently refused to return to Nigeria after the leave. His ADC Orho Obada, who later became a Major General, kept asking Chief Azikiwe when they would return to Nigeria as his leave was over. He eventually abandoned Chief Azikiwe in Haiti and returned to Nigeria. 

The actions of Chief Azikiwe left some people feeling he was aware of the coup. But that is conjecture. Nobody really knows. But that suspicion became even more heightened when Haiti provided support for Biafra when war broke out. 

Additionally, Major Ifeajuna claimed the coup was about corruption. If that was the case, the then Trade Minister, Dr Ozumba Madiwe, had been indicted for blatant corruption. He used his office to divert government land to his private business, a firm known as Afro Properties and Investment Company. Thereafter, he leased the land back to the government through an agency under his ministry for a very inflated amount. 

He was investigated and indicted. The scandal was broken by the Daily Times, whose then editor, Babatunde Jose, insisted that Mbadiwe must resign. But he refused, and the Prime Minister could not sack him because it was his party, the NCNC, that enabled him to be Prime Minister by forming a coalition with him. If he had sacked him, the NCNC would have left the alliance, meaning his government would collapse. Chief Awolowo could then seize power if he could form a coalition with a rival Northern party, like the Northern Elements Progressive Union (NEPU).

But Ifeajuna did not touch Mbadiwe, whose house he passed on the way to Prime Minister Balewa's house. 

The likely reason for Balewa and Chief Festus Okotie-Eboh's murder was because Okotie-Eboh served as Nigeria's first finance minister, and under the Parliamentary system of government, which Nigeria ran in the first republic, as Chancellor of the Exchequer, he was next in line in the event that the Prime Minister was incapacitated in any way shape or form, seeing that there was no Deputy Prime Minister. 

Tafawa Balewa had offered the position of Deputy Prime Minister to Chief Awolowo, who treated his offer with the contempt it deserved. 

But all that ended on January 15, 1966, after the first Nigerian military coup. By killing Chief Okotie-Eboh, the coup plotters ensured that there could not be a constitutional succession. Therefore, the only other option would be for the military to step in. 

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