Nigeria Divided into Twelve States

On 27 May 1967, as the crisis with the Eastern Region deepened, Yakubu Gowon proclaimed a state of emergency and announced the abolition of the four regions and the division of Nigeria into twelve states (Library of Congress country study; the date is the creation date recorded in this archive from Statoids). Three days later the Eastern Region's leaders proclaimed Biafra.

The country study notes that the Igbo heartland became the East Central State, under an Igbo administrator, Ukapi "Tony" Asika, while the Delta was reorganised as the Rivers State and the South-Eastern State; the Northern Region was divided into six states, leaving the north without its former single power base in the federation.

The division into states had been debated since independence. The country study describes how minority peoples sought states of their own, and how in 1966 and 1967 even northern leaders, who had been the first to threaten secession, came to favour a federation of many states. The twelve-state plan was announced as the Eastern Region moved towards secession (Library of Congress country study).

The country study records that the new structure made national unity more attractive to westerners, who now had a Yoruba-majority state, Kwara, in the north, and that it removed the north's former single power base. In the war that followed, federal forces secured the Delta, which became the Rivers and South-Eastern states, cutting Biafra off from the sea.

Six of today's states date their creation to this day in this archive's records: Cross River, Kaduna, Kano, Kwara, Lagos and Rivers. The twelve-state structure replaced the regions that had dominated the First Republic.