1966 anti-Igbo pogrom

1966 anti-Igbo pogrom
Location	northern Nigeria
Date	May 29 – early October 1966
Target	Igbo civilians
Attack type	Genocide, mass murder
Deaths	30,000–50,000
Perpetrators	Hausa-Fulani soldiers and civilians

The 1966 anti-Igbo pogrom was a series of massacres committed against Igbo and other people of southern Nigerian origin living in northern Nigeria starting in May 1966 and reaching a peak after 29 September 1966. These events led to the secession of the eastern Nigerian region and the declaration of the Republic of Biafra, which ultimately led to the Nigeria-Biafra war. The 1966 massacres of southern Nigerians have been described as a holocaust by some authors and have variously been described as riots, pogroms or genocide.

The events took place in the context of military coups d'etat and in the prelude to the Nigerian Civil War. The lack of Igbo humility has been identified as one of the factors that sparked the pogroms, resulting in popular hostility toward the Igbo.

The immediate precursor to the massacres was the January 1966 Nigerian coup d'etat led mostly by young Igbo officers. Most of the politicians and senior army officers killed by them were northerners, including the Prime Minister Abubakar Tafawa Balewa and Ahmadu Bello the Sardauna of Sokoto. The coup was opposed by other senior army officers. An Igbo officer, Aguiyi-Ironsi stopped the coup in Lagos while another Igbo officer, Emeka Ojukwu stopped the coup in the north. Aguiyi-Ironsi then assumed power, forcing the civilian government to cede authority. He established a military government led by himself as supreme commander . In the months following the coup it was widely noted that four of the five army Majors who executed the coup were Igbo and that the General who took over power was also Igbo. It was feared that the Igbo had set out to take control of the country and in the North of Nigeria the fear of Igbo dominance became intense. On 29 July 1966 Northern officers carried out a counter coup in which 240 Southern officers and men, three-quarters of whom were Igbo, including Ironsi as well as thousands of civilians of southern origin living in the north were systematically killed. In the aftermath, Yakubu Gowon, a northerner assumed command of the military government. It is with this background that increasing ethnic rivalries led to further massacres. The massacres were widely spread in the north and peaked on the 29 May, 29 July and 29 September 1966. By the time the pogrom ended, virtually all Igbos of the North were dead, hiding among sympathetic Northeners or on their way to the Eastern region. The massacres were led by the Nigerian Army and replicated in various Northern Nigerian cities. Although Colonel Gowon was issuing guarantees of safety to Southern Nigerians living in the North, the intention of a large portion of the Nigerian army at the time was genocidal as was the common racist rhetoric among Tiv, Idoma, Hausa and other Northern Nigerian tribes. With the exception of few Northern Nigerians, mostly army officers who were not convinced that the Igbo were innately evil, the Southern and Eastern Nigerians were generally regarded at the time in the North of Nigeria as described by Charles Keil:

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