Military Rule and the Nigerian Civil War

After the coup of January 1966 the federal military government led by Johnson Aguiyi-Ironsi suspended the constitution and, in May 1966, issued a decree replacing the federation with a unitary structure. The decree was opposed in the north, where it was understood as removing regional protections, and it was accompanied by disturbances in which many people were killed.

In July 1966 a second coup, carried out largely by northern officers, killed Aguiyi-Ironsi and other officers and brought Yakubu Gowon to the head of the federal military government. Between May and October 1966 waves of violence in northern cities were directed against Igbo residents and others of eastern origin; the death toll is estimated differently by different sources and is not settled. Large numbers of people left the north and west for the Eastern Region, and confidence in federal protection collapsed there.

Talks between the federal government and the Eastern Region, including a meeting at Aburi in Ghana in January 1967, produced agreements that the two sides afterwards interpreted differently. In May 1967 the federal government announced the division of the country into twelve states, which the Eastern Region's leadership regarded as a unilateral change to the terms in dispute.

On 30 May 1967 the Military Governor of the Eastern Region, Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu, declared the independence of the Republic of Biafra. The federal government under Gowon rejected the declaration and described the operation that followed as a police action to preserve the territorial integrity of the country. Fighting began in July 1967.

Biafran forces advanced into the Mid-West in August 1967 and reached as far as Ore before being pushed back. Federal forces took Enugu, in present-day Enugu, in October 1967, and Port Harcourt, in present-day Rivers, in May 1968. From 1968 the territory held by Biafra was largely encircled, and the war became a prolonged siege in which food and medical supplies could not reach the population in adequate quantities.

Starvation and disease within the blockaded area caused very large numbers of civilian deaths, and images of the famine drew international attention and relief flights. Total deaths are estimated by different sources in figures ranging from several hundred thousand to more than two million, most of them civilians; there is no agreed figure. Both sides received arms from external suppliers, and a small number of states recognised Biafra. Allegations of atrocities were made against both sides during the conflict and are assessed differently in different accounts.

Ojukwu left the territory in January 1970, and Philip Effiong, who assumed authority in his place, surrendered on 15 January 1970. Gowon addressed the country the following day, stating that there was no victor and no vanquished.

The federal government adopted a policy summarised as reconciliation, rehabilitation and reconstruction, and a national programme of postings for graduates, the National Youth Service Corps, was established in 1973 with the stated aim of building contact between young people from different parts of the country. A federal character principle intended to distribute public appointments across the federation was later written into constitutional practice.

The creation of twelve states in 1967, and further state creation afterwards, permanently replaced the four-region structure with a larger number of smaller units, which changed how minority communities were represented and how revenue was shared.

The war remains one of the most sensitive subjects in Nigerian public life. Assessments of its causes, of the conduct of both sides, of the blockade, and of how far the post-war settlement addressed the grievances that preceded the conflict continue to differ, including among people who lived through it. This page does not take a position on the legitimacy of the secession or attribute responsibility to any region, community or individual, and where sources disagree it says so.