Census controversy was one of the factors that contributed to the military intervention in

The census controversy of 1962-1963 was one of the major political crises that contributed to the first military intervention in Nigeria in 1966. The 1962 census results were rejected amid allegations of inflation by the regions, and the 1963 recount produced figures that were equally disputed, deepening distrust between Nigeria's regions.

The census crisis combined with other factors, including the Western Region crisis of 1962 (the Action Group crisis), the controversial 1964 federal elections, and the disputed 1965 Western Region elections, created a climate of political instability. These cumulative crises led to the military coup of January 15, 1966, when a group of young military officers overthrew the civilian government of the First Republic.

The year 1967 saw the outbreak of the Nigerian Civil War, not a military coup. The interventions of 1975 (Murtala Mohammed coup) and 1985 (Babangida coup) were military-to-military coups driven by different factors, not by the census controversy of the early 1960s.