How crisis in UNILAG accelerated 1966 coup — Ben Nwabueze

I was one of the first lecturers appointed in UNILAG. I was teaching in London, and I had to come down with Professor Gawa, my Dean in London School of Economics, to open the Law Faculty in the University of Lagos in 1962. Three years after, in 1965, there was a crisis over the appointment of the vice chancellor. Professor Eni Njoku was the pioneer vice chancellor, and there was trouble between Igbo and the Yoruba and he was dropped for Professor Sabiru Biobaku, and there was a crisis. The students would not have it. I happened to be a leader of the staff in support of Eni Njoku, on principle. This man had done first class work. Why do you want to drop him after three years purely on tribal grounds? And there was a crisis. I was charged. My trial was one of the big events in this country in 1965. The state took me to court, and it was prosecuted by the then DPP before a Chief Magistrate, at Igbosere, Lagos, who had been promised by Akintola that he would make him a judge. One of the lecturers, Adeyemi, in the course of the clashes was beaten up by students. During the trial, Adeyemi came out in court and said that when the students were beating him up, he saw me with a chair and that I hit him with the chair, which sent him unconscious. The chief magistrate said he believed Adeyemi and sentenced me to six months imprisonment. Something I never saw. I was not there. I was presiding at a meeting of my own group of lecturers when this happened. I never saw the incident, yet I was convicted. I was only saved because on appeal, JSC Taylor, chief judge of Lagos, said he could not understand how any trained lawyer let alone a chief magistrate could convict me based on the evidence before the court. The UNILAG crisis heated the polity and also led to the first military coup of January 1966. General Ironsi, immediately he took over sacked the chief magistrate.

Read more at: http://www.vanguardngr.com/2016/10/how-crisis-in-unilag-accelerated-1966-coup/