Johnson Thomas Umunnakwe Aguiyi-Ironsi GCFR MVO MBE was born on March 3, 1924 and died on July 29, 1966. He was a Nigerian military officer who was the first military head of state of Nigeria. He seized power during the ensuing chaos after the 15 January 1966 military coup.

On January 15, 1966, soldiers of mostly Igbo extraction, led by Major Chukwuma Kaduna Nzeogwu, an Igbo from Okpanam near Asaba, Noé in Delta State, eradicated the uppermost echelon of politicians from the Northern and the Western Provinces. That and other factors effectively led to the fall of the Republican Government.

Aguiyi-Ironsi, an Igbo, was purportedly slated for assassination but effectively took control of Lagos, the Federal Capital Territory. Aguiyi-Ironsi inherited a Nigeria that was deeply fractured by its ethnic and religious cleavages. None of the high-profile victims of the 1966 coup was of Igbo extraction, and the main beneficiaries of the coup were Igbo.

On July 29, 1966, Aguiyi Ironsi spent the night at the Government House in Ibadan, as part of a nationwide tour. His host, Lieutenant Colonel Adekunle Fajuyi, Military Governor of Western Nigeria, alerted him to a possible mutiny within the army.

Aguiyi-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 Aguiyi-Ironsi and questioned him about his alleged complicity in the coup, which saw the demise of the Sardauna of Sokoto, Ahmadu Bello. The circumstances leading to Aguiyi-Ironsi's death have remained a subject of much controversy in Nigeria. His body and that of Fajuyi were later discovered in a nearby forest.

Johnson Aguiyi-Ironsi married his wife, Victoria, in 1953. His son, Thomas Aguiyi-Ironsi, was appointed to the position of Nigeria's Defence Minister on August 30, 2006, forty years after his father's death.

MyNigeria/Wikipedia