Nigeria did not slide into civil war in a single moment, it fractured through a chain of shocks that fed fear, revenge, and political paralysis. The coup attempt of 15 January 1966 is widely regarded as the opening rupture because it broke the First Republic’s fragile legitimacy, pulled the army into politics, and intensified ethnic suspicion at the heart of state power. What followed was not a straight line but a tightening spiral, as one crisis fed the next until the federation could no longer hold.
Before the coup, a republic already grinding itself down
By late 1965, Nigeria’s federal system was straining under disputed elections, regional power struggles, and rising violence. Politics had become less about policy and more about control, control of regions, control of the centre, and control of access to state resources. As electoral disputes turned violent and court rulings lost credibility, faith in democratic processes weakened across the country.
The Western Region crisis exposed how quickly political rivalry could spill into intimidation, arson, and breakdown of order. Across Nigeria, the sense grew that constitutional mechanisms could no longer resolve escalating conflicts. In this climate, intervention by the military began to appear to some as a corrective force, even as it carried the seeds of deeper instability.
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15 January 1966, the night the rules changed
In the early hours of 15 January 1966, a group of young officers launched Nigeria’s first military coup. Senior political leaders and military officers were assassinated in several regions, but the plotters failed to gain uniform control of the federation. The coup advanced in Lagos and parts of the North, faltered in the East and Midwest, and collapsed unevenly across the country.
Rather than a clean takeover, the coup created a constitutional vacuum. Civilian authority weakened over the following days as surviving political leaders lost the capacity to govern and the armed forces became the only institution capable of exerting national authority. Major General Johnson Aguiyi Ironsi, the most senior officer in the army, moved to suppress the coup and restore order. In the process, he emerged as head of the Federal Military Government, formally ending the First Republic.
The killings reverberated far beyond the immediate violence. Most of the most prominent civilian and military casualties were northern and western leaders, while several of the leading coup plotters were Igbo. Although a small number of Igbo officers were also killed, the overall pattern shaped public interpretation and political reaction. Across the country, the coup was quickly understood through regional and ethnic lenses.
How suspicion hardened after the coup
The coup’s aftermath deepened mistrust. The handling of suspects, the uneven geography of the killings, and the absence of a shared national narrative all fed suspicion. While the coup plotters acted for varied reasons, including opposition to corruption and frustration with political deadlock, the public response was driven by perception rather than motive.
As rumours spread, fear took hold. Communities began to view national institutions not as neutral protectors but as potential threats. Once trust in the centre erodes, every political action is read as preparation for domination or exclusion.
Four ways the coup pushed Nigeria toward war
Militarisation of politics
Military intervention shifted political power from ballots and courts to barracks and command structures. Leadership became tied to force, and disputes that might once have been negotiated now carried the shadow of armed resolution.
Fragmentation within the army
As ethnic and regional suspicion grew, the armed forces themselves became divided. The institution meant to preserve national unity increasingly reflected the same fractures tearing through civilian life.
A crisis of justice
The absence of broadly accepted accountability after the coup became a lasting grievance. In a divided federation, justice is not only legal, it is symbolic. When justice appears selective, insecurity spreads far beyond the courtroom.
Fear as a survival strategy
As confidence in state protection declined, fear became rational. Families relocated, communities organised along ethnic lines, and contingency plans replaced trust in national guarantees. Citizenship alone no longer felt sufficient protection.
Pogroms, fear, and displacement, the human turning point
The most devastating consequences unfolded later in 1966 through waves of anti Igbo violence in northern Nigeria. These attacks occurred in phases and intensified after the July counter coup. Death toll estimates vary, reflecting the disorder of the period, but the violence was widespread and traumatic.
The attacks triggered one of the largest internal population movements in Nigeria’s history. Hundreds of thousands, and possibly more than two million people fled, many returning to the Eastern Region. This mass displacement reshaped politics on the ground. Fear became visible, measurable, and concentrated, altering how leaders and communities understood the future.
Displacement narrowed political options. Refugee flows created humanitarian pressure and sharpened demands for protection. The question confronting eastern leaders became unavoidable, what does national belonging mean if safety depends on geography?
Counter coup and the collapse of trust
The July 1966 counter coup and the killing of Ironsi deepened the crisis. Leadership changed again, and the sense that the centre could not hold grew stronger. Authority increasingly fractured between the federal military government and regional power bases, particularly in the East.
With each upheaval, trust thinned further. The federation began to feel less like a shared project and more like an unstable arrangement maintained by force and fear.
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Aburi, the last major attempt at unity
In January 1967, leaders met at Aburi in an effort to prevent further breakdown. The meeting produced agreements that were later interpreted differently by each side. As expectations diverged and implementation stalled, the gap between intent and outcome widened mistrust instead of resolving it.
From secession pressures to Biafra
By mid 1967, pressures had become overwhelming. Insecurity, displacement, and disputes over federal authority culminated in the declaration of the Eastern Region as the independent Republic of Biafra on 30 May 1967, led by Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu. Armed conflict soon followed, marking the start of the Nigerian Civil War.
The road to war was shaped by fear layered upon fear. Political legitimacy collapsed, violence spread, people fled, and regions began acting as though survival depended on standing alone. When protection becomes regional, unity becomes fragile.
Author’s Note
The road to Nigeria’s civil war shows how nations fracture long before guns formally speak. Once fear becomes normal, once safety feels selective, unity loses meaning. Leaders fell, communities fled, and families chose survival over ideals. The tragedy lies not only in the war that followed, but in how clearly the warning signs appeared, and how powerless ordinary people felt as each turning point made the next one harder to avoid.
References
Encyclopaedia Britannica, Nigerian Civil War.
U.S. Library of Congress, Country Studies, Nigeria, The 1966 Coups, Civil War, and Gowon’s Government.
C. J. Korieh, Biafra and the Discourse on the Igbo Genocide, Marquette University.
