1966 anti-Igbo pogrom
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The 1966 anti-Igbo pogrom was a series of massacres directed at Igbo and other southern Nigerian residents throughout Nigeria following the overthrow (and assassination) of the Aguiyi-Ironsi junta by Murtala Mohammed.
[edit] Background
It took place in September 1966, with the deaths of thousands of Igbo citizens, including the mass execution of over 200 military officers of Igbo extraction by Ibrahim Haruna in Asaba; most of the victims were residing in Northern Nigeria, where those of Igbo ancestry had constituted a disproportionate majority of the civil service employees in the region since the colonial period. The resentment of the Hausa and Fulani peoples against the Igbo residents was stoked further by Aguiyi-Ironsi's military coup of January 1966, which had been led primarily by Igbo military officers; however, the assassination of the Northern Nigeria premier, Ahmadu Bello during the coup led to riots by the Hausa and Fulani peoples in Northern Nigeria, in which several thousands of Igbos and other residents of Eastern Nigerian origin.
Anti-Igbo demonstrations and massacres had also taken place in Lagos and Jos.
[edit] Aftermath
The pogroms led to the mass movement of Igbos and other Eastern Nigerians back to Eastern Nigeria. It also was the precursor to Ojukwu's declaration of Eastern Nigeria's secession from the federation as the Republic of Biafra, and the resulting Nigerian Civil War (1967-1970).
