British intelligence reports on how Ironsi took over
Gowon had met Galadima at the Prime Minister’s residence and he had told him that not the whole army but a renegade section was responsible and that the GOC was in Ikeja issuing orders. When Galadima availed the gathering of this information, Dipcharima ordered the Police to bring in Ironsi for a review and way-forward meeting. At Ikeja, just before Ejoor left Ironsi and Njoku to proceed to the Airport for a security flight to Enugu, a helicopter hovered over the 2nd battalion prompting the B Company to quickly put themselves in firing positions as the helicopter landed close to the parade ground. Out came L.A. Marsden, the Acting Deputy Inspector General of police and Duckett, the Assistant Superintendent of Police. Ironsi and Njoku who did not travel with Gowon on Land Rovers to confront the coup plotters promptly joined the British expatriates on a flight back to Lagos for the meeting. Francis CummingsBruce (FBC) wrote of the meeting in a despatch to London on 16th January 1966:
“Dipcharima was in the chair with Minster of External Affairs, Acting Minister of Defence and Attorney General with Cabinet Secretary in attendance. Dipcharima said that an approach was being made to me on behalf of those members of the Cabinet that had been able to assemble at his house. He was under considerable strain but coolheaded. When Elias (the Attorney General), who had heard nothing until he joined the meeting wept at the news of assassination and expressed his fears for Abubakar’s life, Dipcharima rebuked him for showing emotion; need was for firm action. He gave me summary of situation as understood by Government. Acting Inspector General of police and G.O.C. were then called in and asked to give summary statements of situation.”
The previous night, Teslim Elias transmitted to the Prime Minister an urgent message from Dr Busia, the head of opposition to Nkrumah’s government in Ghana warning that coup in an advanced state was about to break out. For four years since the commencement of the Western Region crisis, he had been receiving secret messages of bloodletting and impending doom on his person on a constant basis even from high places. Just on that very day, he had received two warnings. First, Shagari had received warning from a man who came to his house and described himself as “NPC intelligence man.” He said that the customs officers who had been in industrial dispute with the Federal Government some time had made the borders porous; that weapons of military grade were being smuggled in easily from the borders. That the keg of gunpowder which the country and in particular, the West was sitting on was about to explode.
But the message from the Attorney General was the most specific yet, stating who and who would be terminated and the night the terminations would take place. But Abubakar characteristically did not allow his heart to skip a beat as Elias delivered the message. He was a simple and humble man who refused to live in a fortress or have a fortress mentality. And so when Elias was told at the special cabinet meeting that a mutiny had taken place and the PM was missing, more than the others, he knew straight away the PM was dead. He burst into tears.
Dipcharima on behalf of the cabinet wanted FBC to transmit an urgent request for British military assistance to stabilise the situation.
The main fear was that the army would dissolve and law and order would break down completely with loyal troops willing to shoot down mutineers and the battalions becoming warring bands. The ministers thought that a show of force from an external power would deter Nzeogwu and the rebels who had promises to march down on the South. FBC went to the meeting with his First Secretary Mr P.D. McEntree who took down minutes. The high commissioner responded that since this was a country-to-country request, it had to be written down and signed by the appropriate authority. The ministers looked round at themselves. But who was the appropriate authority in the absence of the Prime Minister when there was no deputy prime minister?
After the 1959 Federal elections to usher in a government for the soonto-be independent Nigeria, there was no clear winner between the three main parties: NPC, NCNC and AG. A coalition government had to be formed.
Azikiwe and Okpara of the NCNC went to Kaduna to forge an alliance with Sardauna’s NPC simply to deny Awolowo and his Action Group the power to have a say in the affairs of the new nation. The move shocked many. Southerners had spent the previous 15 years complaining that the colonial masters had imposed a powerful North on Nigeria to continue to dominate and hold back the progress of the rest country. And yet there came the opportunity to nullify once and for all the colonial design. Azikiwe refused partnership with AG and went up North to form a coalition government with Sardauna and the NPC. That was Nigeria’s original sin which Ifeajuna and his Ibadan progressive intellectuals wanted to undo with the coup. But a government without Awolowo was still a government about Awolowo.
Abubakar expressed his wish that Awolowo deserved to be part and parcel of the historic government not only for the recognition of his remarkable role during the colonial times, but that his brilliant ideas, his practical and sustainable policies which were there to see in the West were needed for the development of the young nation in general. Therefore, instead of offering NCNC’s parliamentary leader and coalition partner Dr Ozumba Mbadiwe the post of Deputy PM, Abubakar offered Awolowo. Awolowo refused, preferring to be positioned across the bench as the head of opposition. A democracy without a rigorous and robust opposition was like a ship without its sails. Since 1960, Abubakar left the post vacant even with the insistence of Azikiwe, the titular head of the government.
In the absence of Abubakar, the minister of defence, Muhammadu Ribadu, usually acted as the PM. Ribadu had been in Council of Ministers with Abubakar since it was formed on Thursday 24 January 1952, according to sections 162 - 164 of the order in council. But he died on 1 May 1965 and Inuwa Wada took over. On the coup day, Wada was in London en-route Zurich for an eye operation. The next on the power organogram was Dipcharima. He was initially a highly articulate NCNC politician and the former president of Zikist movement who with Azikiwe and four others went to London in 1947 to campaign for repealing of the four “obnoxious ordinances” of Arthur Richard’s government and to demand self-government for Nigeria. The delegation almost came to blows in their London hotel and they could not come to any agreement on what they were in the UK for and how to conduct themselves. Many students like Ayo Rosiji studying in the UK who went to watch them slug it out with the Secretary of colonies were ashamed to see them fighting themselves publicly instead of the colonial chiefs.