Preserving Unity By Staying Apart

With full military honors, Major General Aguiyi Ironsi was buried last week --for the third time. Though it had never been confirmed by the government, everyone in Nigeria knew that Ironsi, an Ibo tribesman and an Easterner, was shot to death six months ago by Northern army officers who toppled him in a coup. Ironsi's executioners first buried him in a shallow roadside grave, and then in a cemetery in the Western city of Ibadan. The decision to exhume Ironsi's remains and fly them East for burial in his home town of Imuahia Ibeku was a symbolic gesture in a campaign of national reconciliation.

Ironsi's reinterment was only one of the delicate matters that have lately been agreed on by his successor, Lieut. Colonel Yakubu Gowon, and Eastern Military Governor Odumegwu Ojukwu, an Ibo and the second most powerful man in Nigeria. At a retreat near Accra in Ghana--it was their first meeting since Gowon's July 29 coup--the Nigerian chiefs earlier this month agreed to start mending the broken fabric of national unity with a week of mourning. For two days, the whole nation flew its flags half-mast for Ironsi. For the next three--in the North and West at least --there was mourning for ex-Prime Minister Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, the Northern Moslem who was killed when Ironsi carried off his coup a year ago.

Safely Home. When Governor Ojukwu returned to his capital of Enugu, he climbed into a car and rode triumphantly through the streets--principally to show the skeptical Ibos that he had not been murdered. "This is the first realistic step taken in solving our problems," he commented, urging his tribesmen to accept the loss of Ironsi as "one more sacrifice for the good of Nigeria." The exultant tone was justified for Ojukwu brought home some significant concessions from Gowon. Gowon agreed to split the nation's army into four parts, each recruited in its own area and under the command of the regional military governor. He also pledged $28 million for the rehabilitation of refugees who fled from the North to the East because of recent massacres of Ibo tribesmen.

The concessions are typical of the patient moderation that Gowon, 31, has pursued. He prevented violence by not forcing union on the resentful Ibos. Despite a drop in foreign investment in Nigeria, he has kept the economy growing: exports exceeded imports by a record $82 million in the first nine months of 1966, and a predicted decline in employment never came. Nigeria's efficient, British-trained bureaucracy still provides most government services. And even though 6,000 Ibos quit their railroad jobs, Gowon has kept the freight trains on schedule, partly by hiring white engineers.

Suspended Animation. The Hausa majority in the North seems glad to be rid of the "uppity" Ibos, who held many of the best jobs. The Ibos, in turn, are content to enjoy as much autonomy as possible in their Eastern state, have even set up "customs and immigration" checks at their borders. Gowon walks softly, promising a constitution that will prevent any one tribe from dominating the others. He has warned, though, that his tact is not to be interpreted as weakness, that "the country must be preserved as one entity," and that he can still mobilize enough military force to quell any outright secession. For the near future, Nigeria seems condemned to a kind of tribal apartheid.

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