Nigeria, Jan. 26 -- The last fortnight has been awash with stories marking the sixtieth commemoration of the January 1966 coup that terminated Nigeria's First Republic. But as usual, a lot of these are myths that have been promoted to the status of history. So, I decided to emerge from the bomb-resistant bunker of my knowledge of Nigerian history to shoot supersonic missiles at the myths.

The truth is that there was no coup on 15 January, 1966; there was only an attempt. That attempted coup claimed the lives of Prime Minister Abubakar Tafawa Balewa and Finance Minister Festus Okotie-Eboh. So, the rest of the government at the federal level was intact, as were the parliament and judiciary. The government did what was correct by appointing...