In the early hours of 15th January 1966, Nigeria’s First Republic died. By the time the sun rose, a Prime Minister, two Regional Premiers, and a string of senior military officers were either dead or missing. Six months later, the countercoup came, and the nation has never been the same ever since. 

Military Coups and the Federation of Nigeria: 1966 is the gripping, authoritative account of the two seismic events that ended democracy in Nigeria and ignited a chain reaction leading straight to civil war. Drawing on the official Police Special Branch investigation report, declassified US diplomatic archives, and personal interviews with the men who planned and lived through these coups, including Generals Gowon, Babangida, and Danjuma, Dr. Nowamagbe Omoigui delivers a narrative that is as forensically precise as it is compulsively readable. 

What makes this account unlike any other is the author himself. At age seven, Omoigui was woken by a neighbour with news of the first coup. He survived Biafran air raids. He later served with the Nigerian Army’s Brigade of Guards and spent decades interviewing the key players before their stories were lost forever. The result is history told from the inside. 

Readers will discover who really planned the January conspiracy, what Tafawa Balewa was privately contemplating hours before his abduction, why the northern counter-coup could not be stopped once it started, and how a tense 48-hour standoff in Ikeja Barracks produced Yakubu Gowon as Nigeria’s unlikely new leader. 

This is the essential first volume in Nigeria’s most important military history series, the book that explains everything that came after. 

For readers of Nigerian history, African politics, and military affairs.  

Published by DAGOMO Foundation Nigeria Ltd/GTE | ISBN: 978-978-770-355-7