Nigeria, 1966 — military coup
Event Summary
On 15 January 1966 rebellious soldiers led by Major Chukwuma Kaduna Nzeogwu and a group of army majors ("the January Boys," including Emmanuel Ifeajuna) carried out a putsch that killed 22 people, among them Prime Minister Abubakar Tafawa Balewa. Major General Johnson Aguiyi-Ironsi then accepted the transfer of power and, on 17 January, established the Supreme Military Council and suspended the constitution. Though considered a failed coup, it ended elected government and began a succession of military coups in Nigeria.
Films & Footage
Archival media is credited to its holding collection and license. Media sourcing policy →
Researched Details
Researched
Independent research, added record by record. Hover any label for what it means.
Sources
How It Unfolded
Hand-coded by Coup Atlas from the sources on this page, using a fixed list of tactics. Only events we have read through carry this coding, so most records do not have it yet.
- Led by
- Military
- How long it took
- 2 days from first move to resolution
- Assassination or killing of the incumbent or senior figures
- Troop movements in the capital or key cities
Cross-Reference
Datasets agree. At least two of the three reference datasets we check against carry this event, and none of them disagrees about its date or its result.
Identifiers for finding this same event in the other datasets:
- Cline Center id
47501151966- Albrecht/Koehler/Schutz (CAM) id
CAM-475-1966-01-15
How the match is made is described in crossref-report.md.
Outcome and Target
Coup Atlas research identifies the target as: Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, Prime Minister of Nigeria (killed).
Baseline coding: Incumbent executive removed from power. Recorded leader fate: deposed; killed. The baseline file does not name individual targets; researched names are kept in a separate layer.
Baseline Dataset Citation
Baseline Source-Document Entries
CSP
Luttwak
Wikipedia
New York Times
This is the citation trail carried by the baseline dataset, grouped by outlet and rejoined from the line-wrapped original. Coup Atlas has not independently re-checked every document; read the original before citing a specific claim. URLs the import damaged beyond safe repair are shown as plain text and listed in citations-report.md. How this list is built →