…recalls the fear, bloodshed, betrayals that destroyed the First Republic
By Luminous Jannamike
The Atlantic waters were calm, but the conversations aboard the Elder Dempster liner MV Apapa were anything but. As the ship sailed from Liverpool toward West Africa in January 1966, a young Nigerian military officer, Yakubu Gowon, found himself surrounded by anxious passengers discussing one subject with growing unease: coups.
News of governments falling across Africa drifted into the vessel through radio reports and dockside whispers. One country after another appeared to be collapsing under military intervention. Fellow passengers cornered Gowon with the same unsettling question: could Nigeria be next? At the time, Gowon still believed the answer was no.
In a deeply personal account contained in his autobiography, ‘My Life of Duty & Allegiance’, the former Nigerian Head of State reflected on how the wave of coups sweeping across Africa in the 1960s slowly destroyed his confidence that Nigeria was immune from military rule.
His recollections provide a rare insider account of the tense days leading to Nigeria’s first military coup on January 15, 1966, the bloody counter-coup six months later, and the chain of events that eventually pushed the country toward civil war.
“No further evidence was required to deduce that Africa, too, had caught the bug of serial coup d’états that had become fashionable around the world about that time, particularly in Latin and Central America and the Middle East,” Gowon wrote.
‘Africa Had Caught the Bug’
According to Gowon, several African countries had already experienced violent changes of government between Nigeria’s independence in 1960 and January 1966, creating growing anxiety among politically conscious Africans and foreign observers alike.
He recalled that Congo, Burundi and the Central African Republic witnessed coups in 1965 and 1966, while Dahomey, now Benin Republic, experienced repeated military interventions in 1963 and 1965. Algeria and Togo also suffered political upheavals during the same period.
Gowon traced the pattern further back to the overthrow of Egyptian monarch King Farouk by the Free Officers Movement in 1952, which later produced the leadership of Gamal Abdel Nasser.
“In his first coup in 1960, Col. Mobutu Sese Seko, encouraged by some external forces, led the Army to change the leadership of the Democratic Republic of Congo with the removal of the Prime Minister, Patrice Lumumba from office,” he stated.
The developments disturbed Gowon during the sea journey home, especially as fresh reports of military takeovers continued to emerge while the ship crossed West African waters.
“Between the period we set sail from Liverpool and our stopover in Tema/Accra, Ghana, on January 12 and 13, there were several news reports on the occurrence of coups in Africa,” he recalled.
According to him, conversations aboard the vessel gradually shifted from casual discussions to intense debates about failed leadership, instability and the uncertain future of democracy across Africa.
“My co-passengers were Nigerians, Ghanaians, Sierra Leoneans, Gambians, English, Scots and Poles among many other nationalities,” he wrote.
‘A Coup Was Impossible in Nigeria’
Despite the turmoil spreading across the continent, Gowon insisted that he initially believed Nigeria’s military would never overthrow a civilian government.
“My confidence was based on the quality of our training, which was firmly anchored on discipline and absolute loyalty to the nation and its political leadership.
“Besides, I felt that our built-in esprit de corps would make discussions on the subject matter of coup d’état both unheard of and totally unacceptable,” he stated.
Still convinced that the Nigerian Army remained professional and apolitical, Gowon said he brushed aside suggestions of a possible coup and assured fellow passengers that the armed forces would remain loyal to the civilian government.
“I believed then, as I still strongly do now, that the military must never under any guise play a part in any plan to upstage democracy in one’s country or anywhere else in the world,” he wrote.
The autobiography also captured how passengers repeatedly questioned him about Nigeria’s worsening political climate.
Among those who engaged him in the discussions was businessman and pharmacist Chief Olu Akinkugbe, whose younger brother, Ladipo, Gowon had earlier met in London during his Sandhurst days.
“When my fellow passengers on the ship discovered my status as a military officer, they promptly began to ask me numerous questions.
“For a moment, I was unsettled as several passengers asked me if I thought a coup d’état could occur in Nigeria,” he recalled.
Gowon said he repeatedly assured them that the military’s constitutional responsibility was to strongly defend the unity and sovereignty of Nigeria against both internal and external enemies.”l
Operation Wetie and the Collapse of the First Republic
But as more reports of coups filtered in and Nigeria’s political atmosphere worsened, Gowon admitted that his certainty gradually began to crack.
He disclosed that he had left Nigeria in December 1965 largely unaware of how badly the situation at home had deteriorated, especially in the old Western Region.
The crisis in the Western Region had become one of the most volatile political confrontations of the First Republic. Rival factions openly battled for control of the region. Electoral violence, arson, assassinations and mob attacks became increasingly common. Homes were set ablaze. Political opponents were hunted down. Fear spread across major towns.
The phrase ‘Operation Wetie’ emerged from the practice of pouring petrol on perceived enemies before setting them on fire.
“I was quite oblivious to the deteriorating crisis brewing at the time, particularly regarding Operation Wetie in the Western Region,” Gowon wrote.
The former military ruler said the atmosphere became even more troubling after news broke aboard the ship that Dahomey had suffered yet another coup on January 3, 1966.
“By the time we arrived in Accra, I had reviewed my stance. When, again, my co-passengers asked if a coup was impossible in Nigeria, the reality of the situation had made me accommodate any eventuality no matter how remote,” he stated.
Eventually, Gowon said he responded philosophically to the repeated questions from worried passengers.
“Nothing is impossible in this world,” he recalled telling them. Still, he hoped any disloyal officers within the Nigerian military would be swiftly crushed.
“I hoped the few loyal ones among the officers would quickly deal with the silly coup and return the polity to status quo ante,” he wrote.
January 15, 1966: The Night the Guns Spoke
Just days later, that fear became reality. In the early hours of January 15, 1966, a group of young military officers led by Major Chukwuma Kaduna Nzeogwu struck in what became Nigeria’s first military coup.
By dawn, Nigeria’s First Republic had collapsed under the weight of gunfire, confusion and political mistrust. Prime Minister Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa was abducted and later killed. Northern Premier Sir Ahmadu Bello was assassinated in Kaduna alongside his wife, Hafsatu. Finance Minister Chief Festus Okotie-Eboh was murdered in Benin. Western Region Premier Chief Samuel Ladoke Akintola was also killed in Ibadan.
Gunfire rang out across major cities. Soldiers stormed official residences in the dead of night. Senior officers were hunted down. Armoured vehicles rolled through tense streets as frightened residents woke to radio announcements that the government had fallen.
Within hours, Nigeria had changed forever. The young officers behind the coup claimed they were acting to rescue the country from corruption, election rigging and political violence. But the operation quickly became controversial because many leading Northern and Western political figures were killed while key Eastern leaders survived.
Then came the fear, the suspicion and the dangerous ethnic narratives that would poison the country for years. The coup eventually collapsed after senior military officers loyal to the government regained control. But the civilian administration had already been shattered beyond repair.
In a matter of hours, the country’s fragile political balance had been shattered, leaving behind fear, suspicion and deepening ethnic distrust.
Ironsi, Suspicion and a Fractured Nation
Major-General Johnson Aguiyi-Ironsi emerged as Nigeria’s first military Head of State after taking power and suspending parts of the constitution. His government promised national unity and stability, but bitterness spread rapidly across the country.
Many Northern officers viewed the January coup as ethnically motivated. Suspicion deepened further after Ironsi introduced the controversial Unification Decree No. 34, which sought to replace Nigeria’s federal structure with a unitary system.
Before long, the atmosphere became dangerously tense. Barracks conversations grew bitter. Distrust hardened. Rumours travelled faster than facts. The country was no longer only politically divided. Distrust had begun to seep into both the military and civilian life.
July 1966: Revenge, Bloodshed and Counter-Coup
On July 29, 1966, Northern officers launched a bloody counter-coup that plunged the country into even deeper chaos.
Soldiers mutinied in several barracks. Revenge killings spread through military formations. Officers suspected of supporting the January coup became targets.
Ironsi was captured in Ibadan alongside the Military Governor of the Western Region, Lt.-Col. Adekunle Fajuyi. Both men were later killed.
The counter-coup unleashed another wave of terror within the military. Ethnic distrust erupted openly inside the armed forces. For days, confusion gripped the country as military commanders struggled to prevent total collapse. Nigeria was now trapped in a dangerous cycle of reprisals, counter-reprisals and growing instability within the armed forces.
The ‘Reluctant’ Emergence of Gowon
It was against that chaotic backdrop that Gowon, then a relatively young officer, unexpectedly emerged as Head of State at just 31 years old.
Gowon’s emergence was itself controversial. Some senior officers questioned his elevation because he was neither the most senior officer nor among the original coup plotters. Yet many Northern officers saw him as a compromise figure capable of holding the fragile country together.
In the autobiography, Gowon reflected with lingering unease on how quickly military intervention became normalised across post-colonial Africa.
He wrote, “What was not too clear to me was whether the actions were based on honest patriotic considerations to correct the ills of bad governance or were encouraged by foreign political and economic interests.
“History is yet to fully return its verdict on how much positive change, if any, had been brought about by many of Africa’s so-called corrective regimes over the years.”
He also suggested that ideological indoctrination abroad, exposure during international military assignments and personal ambition among officers contributed significantly to the rise of coups across the continent.
“With hindsight, however, one could say that coups became fashionable in the continent in the 1950s and 1960s for several reasons.
“It is hard to discountenance the fact that many of the masterminds had been ideologically indoctrinated abroad whilst they were on courses at one foreign military institution or the other,” Gowon stated.
From Coups
to Civil War
The political consequences of the twin coups of 1966 would eventually alter Nigeria forever. The killings and reprisals that followed deepened ethnic distrust across the country, particularly between the North and the East.
Anti-Igbo riots later broke out in parts of Northern Nigeria, forcing thousands to flee. Political negotiations repeatedly collapsed as suspicion and bitterness widened.
By 1967, the crisis had escalated into full civil war after the Eastern Region, under Lt.-Col. Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu, declared the secession of the Republic of Biafra. The war lasted nearly three years and claimed more than a million lives through fighting, starvation and disease.
When Ballots Gave Way to Bullets
For Gowon, the memories of 1966 remain tied not only to Nigeria’s descent into military rule, but also to a wider African tragedy in which soldiers increasingly replaced ballots with bullets.
What began as anxious conversations aboard a passenger ship crossing the Atlantic would soon become one of the defining realities of post-colonial Africa.
Across much of post-colonial Africa, soldiers who were trained to defend the state increasingly became decisive actors in political power struggles.
And once military intervention took root in politics, many African nations spent decades struggling to rebuild democratic stability and civilian authority.
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