Nigerian Leaders since Independence: General Aguiyi Ironsi (1924-1966)

Major General Johnson Thomas Umunnakwe Aguiyi-Ironsi (March 3, 1924, Umuahia - July 29, 1966, Lalupon, Oyo State) was Nigeria’s Head of State for only six months. He was in office from January 16, 1966 until he was overthrown and killed on July 29, 1966 by a group of northern army officers who revolted against the government.

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Early life
He was born to Mazi Ezeugo Aguiyi's on March 3, 1924, in Umuahia-Ibeku, present day Abia State,Nigeria. When he was eight years old, Ironsi moved in with his older sister Anyamma, who was married to Theophilius Johnson, a Sierra Leonean diplomat in Umuahia. Ironsi subsequently took the last name of his brother-in-law, who became his father figure. At the age of 18, Ironsi joined the Nigerian Army against the wishes of his sister.



Military career
Aguiyi-Ironsi enlisted into the Nigerian Army on 2 February 1942 and was admitted and excelled in military training at Eaton Hall,England and also attended Royal Army Ordnance Corps before he was later commissioned officer as an infantry officer in the rank of Lieutenant on 12 Jun 1949. He soon returned to Nigeria to serve as the Aide de camp, ADC, to John Macpherson, Governor General of Nigeria. During the Congo Crisis of the 1960s, the United Nations Secretary-General, Dag Hammarskjöld, appealed to the Nigerian government to send troops to Congo. Lieutenant Colonel Ironsi led the 5th battalion to the Kivu and Leopoldville provinces of Congo. His unit proved integral to the peacekeeping effort, and he was soon appointed the Force Commander of the United Nations Operation in the Congo.
There he single-handedly negotiated the release of Austrian medical personnel and Nigerian troops when they were ambushed by Katangese rebels. For this he was awarded the 1st class Ritta Kreuz Award. He also single-handedly confronted an angry mob in Leopoldville, disbanding them. Ironsi became General Officer Commanding of the Nigerian Army on February 9, 1965.

His rise to power
The political crisis in post-colonial Nigeria precipitated into a breakdown of law and order in some of the country's provinces. The inability of Prime Minister Tafawa Balewa to quell the situation incited the military to terminate civilian rule in a bloody coup d'etat on January 14, 1966. The revolutionary soldiers, led by Major Chukwuma Kaduna Nzeogwu, an Igbo from Okpanam near Asaba, present day Delta state, eradicated the uppermost echelon of politicians from the Northern and Western provinces. Though Ironsi, an Igbo, was originally slated for assassination, he was able to outmanoeuvre the rebellious soldiers in Lagos, the then Federal Capital Territory. Ironsi then rose from the ashes of the First Republic to become the country's first military Head of State when Acting President Nwafor Orizu officially surrendered power to the military.

Counter coup and assassination
On July 29, 1966, Ironsi spent the night at the Government House Ibadan as part of a nation-wide tour. His host, Lieutenant Colonel Adekunle Fajuyi, Military Governor of Western Nigeria, alerted him to a possible mutiny within the army. Ironsi desperately tried to contact his Army Chief of Staff, Yakubu Gowon, but he was unreachable. In the early hours of the morning, the Government House Ibadan was surrounded by soldiers led by Theophilus Danjuma. Danjuma arrested Ironsi and questioned him about his alleged complicity in the coup which saw the demise of the Sardauna of Sokoto, Ahmadu Bello. The bullet-riddled bodies of Ironsi and Fajuyi were later found in a nearby forest, and Yakubu Gowon became the new Military Head of State.

Compiled with information from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aguiyi_Ironsi