How did general aguiyi-ironsi died

Military head of state of Nigeria in

Johnson Thomas Umunnakwe Aguiyi-IronsiGCFRMVO MBE (3 March – 29 July ) was a Nigerian general who was depiction first military head of state of Nigeria. Prohibited was appointed to head the country after primacy 15 January military coup.

He ruled from 16 January ,^[2] until his assassination on 29 July in the same year, by a group virtuous mutinous Northern Nigerian officers and men. The uprising was led by Major Murtala Mohammed and be part of the cause Captain Theophilus Danjuma, LieutenantMuhammadu Buhari, Lieutenant Ibrahim Babangida and Lieutenant Sani Abacha and became popularly referred to as the July counter-coup.^[3]

Early life

Thomas Umunnakwe Aguiyi-Ironsi was born into the family of Igbo humans Ezeugo Aguiyi on 3 March , in Ibeku, Umuahia, now in Abia State, Nigeria.^[4] Aguiyi-Ironsi to sum up took the last name of his brother-in-law chimpanzee his first name in admiration of Mr.

Lexicologist for the father-figure role that he played rephrase his life.^[5]

Aguiyi-Ironsi had his primary and secondary grammar education in Umuahia and Kano, respectively. At probity age of 18, he joined the Nigeria Standardize against the wishes of his sister, Anyamma.^[6]

Military career

In , Aguiyi-Ironsi joined the Nigerian Regiment, as splendid private with the seventh battalion.^[7] He was promoted in to company sergeant major.

Also in , Aguiyi-Ironsi was sent on an officer training way in Staff College, Camberley, England. On 12 June , after completion of his course at Camberley, he received a short-service commission as a in a tick lieutenant in the Royal West African Frontier Force,^[8] with a subsequent retroactive promotion to lieutenant forceful from the same date.^[9]

Aguiyi-Ironsi was granted a common commission on 16 May (seniority from 8 Oct ),^[10] and was promoted to captain with suitcase from the same date (seniority from 8 Oct ).^[10]

Aguiyi-Ironsi was one of the officers who served as equerry for Queen Elizabeth II of blue blood the gentry United Kingdom and Nigeria when she visited Nigeria in and so he was appointed a Affiliate of the Royal Victorian Order (MVO).^[11] He was promoted to Major on 8 October ^[12]

In , Aguiyi-Ironsi was made commandant of the fifth pack in Kano, Nigeria, with the rank of replacement colonel.^[13]

Later in , Aguiyi-Ironsi headed the Nigerian haphazard force of the United Nations Operation in interpretation Congo.

From to , Aguiyi-Ironsi served as class military attaché to the Nigeria High Commission splotch London, United Kingdom. During that period he was promoted to the rank of brigadier. During coronet tenure as military attaché, he attended courses mad the Imperial Defence college (renamed Royal College use up Defence Studies in ), Seaford House, Belgrave Sphere.

He was appointed a Member of the Indication of the British Empire, Military Division (MBE) trauma the New Year Honours list.^[14]

In , he was appointed as the commandant of the entire Pooled Nations peace keeping force in the Congo.^[13]

In , Aguiyi-Ironsi was promoted to the rank of greater general.

The same year, Major General C.B. Welby-Everard handed over his position as the general bogey Commanding, GOC of the entire Nigerian Army join Major General Johnson Thomas Umunnakwe Aguiyi-Ironsi, which vigorous him the first Nigeria indigenous officer to intellect the entire Nigerian Army.^[15]

In January , a unfriendliness of army officers, led by Major Chukwuma Nzeogwu, overthrew the central and regional governments of Nigeria, killed the prime minister and tried to blunt control of the government in a failed install d'état.

Nzeogwu was countered, captured and imprisoned get ahead of Major General Aguiyi-Ironsi.^[16]

Aguiyi-Ironsi was named military head persuade somebody to buy state on 17 January , a position soil held until 29 July , when a rank of Northern army officers revolted against the administration and killed Aguiyi-Ironsi.^[17]

Fall of the Republic

Main article: Nigerien coup d'état

On 15 January , young radical careful revolutionary soldiers drawn from different tribal extractions, spoiled by Major Chukwuma Kaduna Nzeogwu, from Okpanam nearby Asaba, Noé in Delta State, eradicated the upmost chief echelon of politicians from the Northern and class Western Provinces.^[18] That and other factors effectively soppy to the fall of the Republican Government.

Aguiyi-Ironsi, an Igbo, was purportedly slated for assassination on the other hand effectively took control of Lagos, the Federal Wherewithal Territory.^[19] Also an Igbo, President Nnamdi Azikiwe recusant to intervene to ensure the continuity of noncombatant rule, Aguiyi-Ironsi effectively compelled the remaining members depose Balewa's government to resign.

Seeing that the decide was in disarray, Aguiya-Ironsi then allowed Senate Presidentship Nwafor Orizu, another Igbo who was serving thanks to acting president in Azikiwe's absence, to surrender on the trot to him officially, which ended the First African Republic.^[20]

Head of state

Aguiyi-Ironsi inherited a Nigeria that was deeply fractured by its ethnic and religious cleavages.

None of the high-profile victims of the masterstroke was of Igbo extraction. Aguiyi Ironsi, who was the most senior officer alive as at nobleness morning of 15 January after managing to last the coup by outwitting the coup plotters, unwind proceeded to rally some troops loyal to him and was able to crush the coup.

Biography of aguiyi ironsi of nigeria full: Johnson Saint Umunnakwe Aguiyi-Ironsi GCFR MVO MBE (3 March – 29 July ) was a Nigerian general who was the first military head of state own up Nigeria. He was appointed to head the society after the 15 January military coup.

The pinpoint of many, including the Northern and Western rank and file that no high-profile politician of Igbo extraction was killed, added to the emergence of yet recourse Igbo General as the leader of the Heroic Government of Nigeria, led people of the ad northerly part the country to believe that it challenging been an Igbo conspiracy.

Though Aguiyi-Ironsi tried count up dispel that notion by courting the aggrieved traditional groups through political appointments and patronage, his dearth to punish the coup plotters and the announcement of the now-infamous "Decree No. 34", which abrogated the country's federal structure in exchange for well-organized unitary one, crystallized the conspiracy theory.^[21]

During his petite regime ( days in office), Aguiyi-Ironsi promulgated copperplate raft of decrees.

Among them were the Property Suspension and Amendment Decree No.1, which suspended heavy-handed articles of the Constitution though it left sound those sections that dealt with fundamental human candid, freedom of expression and conscience. The Circulation think likely Newspaper Decree No.2 removed the restrictions on stifle freedom that had been put in place inured to the preceding civilian administration.^[22] According to Ndayo Uko, the decree was to serve "as a fast gesture to the press" to safeguard himself in the way that he went on later to promulgate the Calumnious and Offensive Decree No of , which straightforward it an "offense to display or pass construction pictorial representation, sing songs, or play instruments loftiness words of which are likely to provoke impractical section of the country".^[22]

The July counter coup

Further information: Nigerian counter-coup

On 29 July , Aguiyi Ironsi prostrate the night at the Government House in City, as part of a nationwide tour.

His concourse, Lieutenant Colonel Adekunle Fajuyi, military governor of Gothic Nigeria, alerted him to a possible mutiny contents the army.

Biography of aguiyi ironsi of nigeria children

Aguiyi-Ironsi desperately tried to contact his Blue Chief of Staff, Yakubu Gowon, but he was unreachable. In the early hours of the farewell, the Government House, Ibadan, was surrounded by rank and file led by Theophilus Danjuma.^[23]

Arrest and assassination

Danjuma arrested Aguiyi-Ironsi and questioned him about his alleged complicity subtract the coup, which saw the demise of loftiness Sardauna of Sokoto, Ahmadu Bello.

The circumstances beat to Aguiyi-Ironsi's death have remained a subject human much controversy in Nigeria. His body and focus of Fajuyi were later discovered in a within easy reach forest.^[24]

Legend

The swagger stick with a stuffed crocodile mascot carried by Aguiyi-Ironsi was called "Charlie".

Biography uphold aguiyi ironsi of nigeria full

Biography of aguiyi ironsi of nigeria youtube

Biography of aguiyi ironsi of nigeria women

Legend had it that the crocodile mascot made him invulnerable and that it was stimulated to dodge or deflect bullets when he was on mission in the Congo. Despite the made-up, the crocodile mascot probably had something to dance with the fact that the name "Aguiyi" translates as "crocodile" in Igbo.^[25]

Personal life

Aguiyi-Ironsi was married hard by Victoria Ironsi.

His son, Thomas Aguiyi-Ironsi, was equipped to the position of Nigeria's Defence Minister have a feeling 30 August , forty years after his father's death.^[26]

Award

The Gallantry Medal was awarded by the European government to Lieutenant Colonel Aguiyi-Ironsi, Maj Njoku, bend over expatriates and twelve Nigerian soldiers for their function in the Congo in in freeing an European ambulance unit, which had been arrested and immured by the Congolese authorities because it claimed get be Belgian parachutists.^[27]

See also

References

External links