I understand the POV calling Major General Aguiyi Ironsi a fΓΈΓΈl but you have to understand two things that are critical to the decisions he made:
1. He was not a political or bureaucratic technocrat and he just gained power as a Military Man. So the British and West misguided him to make power central other that what it was before, regional. By doing so, they can now influence one Man in the centre instead of begging 3 different Men are 3 different regions... If Nigeria was still regional, we would have progressed faster.
2. He abided by the military code where he believes once anybody put on the uniform, then they're one tribe and blood. Ideally, that's the philosophy of the Military but he should have been smarter and not trust that code when the coup dβetat that brought him in wiped out Northerners and some Westerners.
NB: that was the same Military code General Yakubu Gowon abided to that ousted him also. The military men were something else, they strongly believe in the military code.
As you go down in history, you'll understand that British, USA, France and other Western countries never really left Nigeria after the British gave us independence in 1960. Every turn Nigerian has made since 1960 with each republic, there have always been a white Man in every corner down to coups, assassinations and deaths, they have always been in those rooms.
Nigeria would have broken up a long time but these people kept threatening whoever (whether military or civilian) is coming up with that idea since 1960 because of that Crude Oil discovery in Oloibiri (current day Beyelsa State) in 1956 and they sunk in almost 200M pounds as far back as 1958.
Never seen or heard of a bigger fool in my life than Major General Johnson Aguiyi-Ironsi.