STORY TIME

|Lt. Col. Yakubu Gowon Is Named Nigerian Head Of State| On this day in 1966, Lt. Col. Yakubu Gowon was named the new Nigerian Head of State. Gowon’s appointment came a few days after the assassination of General Aguiyi-Ironsi (read here ) and resulted from the pressure the military was receiving from the Nigerian elites and intellectuals concerned about the whereabouts of the country’s leader and state of the nation. Gowon lead Nigeria from August 1966 to July 1975, ensuring that the country remained united after the declaration of the Republic of Biafra by Lt. Col. Chukwuemeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu in May 1967. Ojukwu had decided to lead the Igbo people to secede from the rest of Nigeria under the belief that the people were under threat of being wiped out by the Northern dominated government of Nigeria. The threat of genocide was not a mere assumption. Throughout Northern Nigeria, the Igbos were being massacred in large numbers.    

|The Abolition Of Slavery Act| Slaves on a West Indian plantation being freed following passage of the Slavery Abolition Act (1833). On this day in 1834, the Abolition of Slavery Act, which scaled the reading of the British Parliament in 1833, came into force, thus setting free over eight hundred thousand slaves in several British colonies around the world. Although the Abolition of Slavery Act was a huge victory for Africans and the abolitionists, it only really freed slaves below the age of six. Slaves over the said age were designated as “apprentices," with their servitude being abolished completely on 1st August 1838 and 1st August 1840. Note: The Abolition of Slavery Act is not to be confused with The Slave Trade Act of 1807. Although the Slave Trade Act prohibited slave trade in the British Empire, it did not abolish the practice of slavery.