From Day One: The Untold Story of Murtala Muhammed's Betrayal - IBB

• How he won over Nigerians' hearts

• The civil service has not yet recovered from the purge in 1975.

According to former Military President General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida, the plot that resulted in the February 13, 1976, assassination of former Head of State Major General Murtala Muhammed began the day he assumed power in 1975 because he refused to accept a triumvirate power-sharing arrangement.

He claimed that conspiracies to overthrow General Yakubu Gowon were sparked by Murtala Muhammad's rejection of the idea that younger officers should lead a "collective" government following the coup that overthrew him.

In his autobiography, A Journey in Service, which was released last Thursday, IBB made this statement.

Additionally, he described how Murtala Muhammad won over Nigerians with popular deeds, but lamented that the nation had not yet recovered from the mass firing of high-ranking civil personnel in 1975.

He wrote: Brigadier Murtala Ramat Muhammed, 37, became the new head of state the day after the coup. However, his ascent to the position of Head of State wasn't without its challenges, despite popular belief. At the request of one of the top military officers, perhaps Lt-Col. Yar'Adua (or was it Colonel M. I. Wushishi?), a meeting of senior officers, including Brigade Commanders and GOCs, was called at the Dodan Barracks on the evening following the coup.

One of the charges made against General Gowon was that he managed the government "like a one-man show," which now seems unfair! Therefore, we, the "younger" senior officers who had participated in the coup, determined that the leadership of the new post-Gowon administration ought to be explicitly communal. Therefore, even while we agreed that Brig. Murtala Muhammed ought to be the head of state, we preferred that he merely act as the first among equals, particularly when interacting with Brig. Olusegun Obasanjo and Theophilus Danjuma, the other two senior commanders.

However, we knew Muhammad well enough to understand that he would require convincing to agree to such a deal.

Therefore, Colonel Wushishi, Lieutenant-Colonels Joe Garba, Abdullahi Mohammed, and Yar'Adua took Brigadiers Muhammad, Obasanjo, and Danjuma to another room to discuss the terms of our proposal for a triumvirate-type leadership, wherein Muhammad would have to share power with Obasanjo and Danjuma, while the rest of us "younger" senior officers waited in an adjacent room.

Since we weren't present at that meeting, I was unable to characterize the atmosphere.

However, we were close enough to hear Muhammad's thunderous voice, categorically rejecting such plans. The meeting went on for hours after midnight, as I recall. At last, Murtala Muhammad consented to serve as head of state, but he insisted that he would not answer to anyone in that capacity!

The following day, as he was appointing new people, he promptly announced a number of retirements, demonstrating the promptness that characterized his leadership. Every officer senior to a new government member or higher than the rank of major-general was required to retire.

Among those retiring were Vice-Admiral Joseph Wey, Chief of Staff, Supreme Headquarters; Major-General David Ejoor, Deputy Chief of Staff (Army); the Chief of Naval Salem; T. A. Fagbola, Deputy Inspector-General of Police; and Major-General Adeyinka Adebayo.

New appointments were made concurrently with these retirements. Major-General Ejoor was replaced as Chief of Staff (Army) by Brigadier Theophilus Danjuma, while Vice-Admiral Wey was replaced as the new Chief of Staff, Supreme Headquarters, by Brigadier Olusegun Obasanjo, the former SMC's Commissioner for Works and Housing. When Danjuma returned to government, he changed the title of that position to "Chief of Army Staff," which has stayed the same ever since.

Brigadier Iliya Bisalla, the NDA's Commandant and the sole senior army officer still alive from Gowon's SMC, was appointed Minister of Defense. Inspector-General of Police Alhaji Mohammed Dikko Yusuf was appointed police chief.

Brigadier Emmanuel Ikwue was replaced as Chief of Air Staff by Colonel John Yisa-Doko, while Rear Admiral Nelson Soroh was replaced as Chief of Naval Staff by Commodore Michael Adelanwa.

Governors' sack
The administrator of the East Central state and all of the governors of the military states were "relieved of their appointments and retired with immediate effect," but Four new GOCs were appointed, giving the SMC a new appearance: Brig. John Obada, GOC, Lagos Garrison Organization; Brig. Emmanuel Abisoye, GOC 3 Division, Jos; Brig. Martin Adamu, GOC 2 Division, Ibadan; and Brig. Julius Ipoola Alani Akinrinade, GOC 1 Division, Kaduna. Other members of the 20-man SMC were senior military commanders who held important political offices as Commissioners, with the exception of me, who was there in my role as Commander of the Armoured Corps, and Lt-Col. Alfred Aduloju, who was there as the Commander of the Signals Corps.

They were Navy Captain Olufemi Olumide (Works & Housing), Lt-Col. Shehu Musa Yar'Adua (Transport), Colonel Dan Suleiman (Health), Brigadier James Oluleye (Establishments), and Colonel Joseph Nanven Garba (External Affairs).

Lt-Commander Godwin Ndubuisi Kanu (Navy) and Lt-Col. Muktar Mohammed (Army), the other two SMC members, did not have any political positions.

An unprecedented surge of retirements from Nigeria's public sector occurred in the early days of the Muhammad administration. The administration ordered an investigation into the behavior of the twelve military governors from the Gowon era after they were forced to retire.

Ten of the twelve governors were "dismissed with ignominy" after being found guilty of unlawful gain.

The only two were Brigadiers Mobolaji Johnson and Oluwole Rotimi.

It was also discovered that some Gowon government officials were civilians who had unlawfully benefited themselves. In addition to Alhaji Ali Monguno and Finance Commissioner Shehu Shagari, who had an impact on thousands of federal servants, several high-ranking civil servants were also entangled in the web of ill-gotten asset forfeiture.

As an SMC member writing this today, I realize that we most likely went beyond with the retirement exercise.

It was a good idea to retire dishonest and inept public servants. However, with the flurry of activity, some civil servants might have fallen prey to an unjust witch hunt. Encouraged by an apparently overzealous mass media, we neglected to thoroughly examine the ramifications of the mass impact on some of those impacted.
 

Now that the retirement story was over, Murtala Muhammad was ready to go. convinced that bringing the nation back to civilian democratic control as soon as possible was a top objective for his administration. He quickly declared October 1, 1979, as the day of return. Then, with the promptness and decisiveness that would make him popular with many Nigerians, Muhammad promptly agreed to the recommendations of Justice Ayo Irikefe's panel for the establishment of additional states and Justice Aguda for a Federal capital in the current site.

He quickly added seven more states as a result, increasing the total number of states from twelve to nineteen. The new states were Anambra and Imo (from the former East-Central State); Ogun and Ondo (from the former West); Benue (from the former Benue-Plateau State); Niger (from the former North-Western State); and Bauchi (from the former North-Eastern State).

Even if only briefly, a footnote to the establishment of the new states drama should be included here. In addition to recommending the establishment of Niger State, Justice Irikefe's panel on state formation also suggested Bida as the capital, unintentionally overlooking the fact that Minna served as the provincial capital of the former Niger Province and ought to be chosen as the new state's capital, in my opinion. My stance on the subject was motivated by a straightforward historical reality.

Despite his tendency for impulsivity, Murtala Muhammad was surprisingly modest for a head of state. As we younger officers grew closer to him, typically at SMC meetings, I noticed a softer, more intimate side that has stayed with me ever since.

In terms of foreign affairs, Muhammad also gained the respect of his peers, particularly with regard to the cold-war politics of the time, but he aggressively backed the People's Movement, which was centered on Marxism, for the US president Gerald Ford. When it became evident that the FNLA and UNITA, Angola's opposition forces, were not giving the MPLA enough funding for their liberation efforts.