ABSTRACT
The January 15, 1966 military coup dtat, and subsequent events that epitomize poor political performance in the supra-national state, can be used to substantiate some of the core arguments in the discourse. The junior officers of Igbo and Yoruba origin who planned and executed that event were mainly provoked by their perception that the conservative leaders of the Northern People's Congress (NPC) the Hausa-Fulani party that controlled power in the supra-national state at the time exercised state authority in a corrupt manner. The involvement of the Igbo, Yoruba and the other nationalities whose authority patterns are democratic and who were not recipients of conservative socialization prompted them to demand responsive leadership from Hausa-Fulani political actors. In particular, those regarding preferential formulation and implementation of colonial education policy have not augured well at all for political performance in the Nigerian supra-national state.
