By the end of 1966 Nigeria's federal structure had collapsed in practice. The 15 January 1966 coup of Major Kaduna Nzeogwu had killed the Prime Minister, the Sardauna of Sokoto, the Premier of the Western Region and most of the senior Northern officer corps. The counter-coup of 29 July 1966 had killed General Aguiyi-Ironsi and brought Lt-Col. Yakubu Gowon, a 31-year-old Middle-Belt Christian, to power in Lagos. Between May and October 1966 a series of pogroms across the North killed an estimated 30,000 Igbo and drove perhaps 1.5 million into the Eastern Region. The Eastern Military Governor, Lt-Col. C. Odumegwu Ojukwu, refused to recognise Gowon's seniority and refused to attend any meeting on Nigerian soil that placed him within the reach of Lagos garrisons.
The National Liberation Council of Ghana, led by General Joseph Ankrah, offered Peduase Lodge at Aburi as neutral ground. The Supreme Military Council convened there on the morning of 4 January 1967: Gowon, Ojukwu, Lt-Col. Hassan Katsina (North), Lt-Col. David Ejoor (Mid-West), Lt-Col. Robert Adebayo (West), Commodore Joseph Wey (Navy), Col. Robert Adebayo and the Inspector-General of Police Kam Salem. The talks ran late into 5 January.
The Aburi communiqué, drafted by Ojukwu's legal adviser C.C. Mojekwu and accepted in plenary, contained four central provisions. First, all legislative and executive powers of the Federal Military Government would be vested in the Supreme Military Council, whose decisions on substantive matters would require the concurrence of all Regional Military Governors. Second, the Nigerian Army would be reorganised into Area Commands corresponding to the Regions, each Area Command under the operational control of its Regional Military Governor. Third, military personnel of Northern origin serving in the South would return North and vice versa, ending the inter-regional posting of officers. Fourth, displaced persons from the pogroms would receive their salaries until 31 March 1967 from the federal account and a permanent settlement scheme would be agreed.
The practical effect was confederal. Ojukwu signed and flew back to Enugu. Gowon flew back to Lagos and within seventy-two hours the Federal Permanent Secretaries — led by Allison Ayida (Economic Development), Philip Asiodu (Industries) and Ahmed Joda (Information) — produced a memorandum arguing that the Aburi decisions could not be implemented within a single sovereign Nigerian state because they dissolved the federal centre. Gowon's law officers issued Decree No. 8 of 1967 on 17 March 1967, which incorporated only a fraction of the agreed provisions and reserved emergency powers to the federal authority. Ojukwu denounced Decree 8 as a repudiation; the Eastern Region's Consultative Assembly authorised secession on 26 May 1967; on 27 May Gowon decreed the creation of twelve states, splitting the Eastern Region; on 30 May 1967 Ojukwu proclaimed the Republic of Biafra. The Civil War began on 6 July 1967.
The verbatim Aburi tapes — released by the Eastern Region in February 1967 as 'The Meetings of the Supreme Military Council' — remain the single most studied document in Nigerian constitutional history. The phrase 'On Aburi we stand' was the rallying cry of Biafra and is invoked, sixty years later, in every restructuring debate from the National Conference of 2014 to the present.