Who’s the North’s Equivalent of Kanu and Igboho? Igboho and Kanu Sun Jul 25 2021 In 1950, at a constitutional conference to review the Richards Constitution in Ibadan, northern delegates threatened to secede from Nigeria. The North opposed the composition of the proposed central legislature, as declared by the Emirs of Katsina and Zaria, and insisted on more seats at the parliament. It was obliged. About two years later, the North again ventured to break away from Nigeria when their colleagues from the other side of the Niger sought independence from colonial rule sooner than the northern political establishment anticipated. It was not until January 1966, when the prime Northern political and military heavyweights were assassinated in the infant nation’s first-ever military coup, that the region’s threats to secede transcended the opulent palaces of the ruling elite. When Major-General Aguiyi Ironsi took power and abrogated the existing federal structure, it alarmed everyday northerners who had called the coup the point of no return. They had expected instant execution of Major Kaduna Nzeogwu and the gang of young military officers who had killed their revered leaders but found themselves adhering to Decree 35: a forced unity.