How Gen. Abacha crushed the Orkar coup 26 years ago.

Flag Staff House in Ikoyi, Lagos,  (now called Defence House) had traditionally always been the official residence of the GOC, Nigerian Army and later the Chief of Army Staff.    However, when he added the title of Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff to his Army title, Lt. Gen. Sani Abacha held on to the residence.   This was the position when the coup plotters struck in the early hours of the morning of Sunday, April 22, 1990.

As was his usual nocturnal practice Lt. General Sani Abacha was wide awake but busy with ''extra-curricular rest and recreational activities'' at a guesthouse nearby.  Thus, when the plotters (led by one Lt. Ogboru of Military Police, then a Law student at Uniben) arrived at his official residence he was not available.

A quick follow-up check at his nearby guesthouse (which they were aware of) was unproductive because although they fired heavily upon the guards and building they did not do a room-to-room mopping up operation.  Abacha was inside, alive and well.  This lack of close quarter follow-up probably saved his life - and the regime.

The late Abacha's first son (the late Ibrahim) is rumored to have driven to find his father at the guesthouse once the plotters left.   With mayhem around him, Abacha reportedly deliberated calmly for about 10 minutes, calmly got dressed and emerged (in mufti) with two Uzi submachine guns - one of which he handed over to his son whom he noticed was carrying a "mere" pistol.

Thereafter, Abacha ordered his son to sit in front as the driver of a civil Peugeot 504 while, he, Sani, the Army chief, sat as the right side front seat passenger.  Two security operatives occupied the back seats.  Then, in what was clearly an extremely dicey move, Abacha ordered his son to drive back to the Flag Staff House where Abacha gave orders to secure the perimeter.

At that point he knew that the plotters had not cut off telephone lines nor had they disrupted nationwide army signals networks, so he began making phone calls to other service chiefs and more specifically, Army commanders in Lagos (particularly Bonny Camp and Ikeja Cantonment) and other parts of the country to get information, alert those who were ignorant of unfolding events, convince those who thought he had been neutralized that he wasn't, and secure pledges of loyalty.

Like a pilgrimage, officers later began trooping to the Flag Staff House to account for themselves and declare loyalty.    Once fairly confident of the localized nature of the threat, he then gave firm orders that the coup was to be resisted at all costs.  There is word that some officers specifically sought confirmation about Babangida's state of health before clearly committing themselves to Abacha's destiny in those tense and uncertain early hours.  Others simply ran away or lay low.

As word got around that both Abacha and Babangida were indeed alive, galvanized by the curious and unprecedented "expulsion" of certain 'far' northern states on radio, confidence was restored, wills stiffened, and officers and units that would otherwise have been disposed to take a "wait and see" attitude or perhaps even run away, tilted toward the regime.

Once armored vehicles at Ikeja were firmly under the control of pro-Abacha elements, Ikeja cantonment was retaken (by Brigadier Ishaya Bamaiyi) and the push to regain control of all other major military barracks in the Lagos area began.  A young Lt. of the Recce battalion, for example, led the operation that went to Ojo cantonment to rescue those officers detained there.

In mustering troops to retake Dodan Barracks and the radio station, the 126 guard infantry battalion at Bonny camp under Lt. Col Ghandi Tola  Zidon, the 9th infantry Brigade under Brigadier Ishaya Bamaiyi, and the Recce unit at  Ikeja (armed with Scorpion Tanks, Panhard armored cars and some Main Battle Tanks in transit to other locations in the country) reportedly formed the spearhead.  They were supported by key AHQ elements like the Corp Commander, Artillery, Brigadier Chris Abutu Garuba and the Director of Armor, Colonel Abubakar Dada both of whom placed additional units within and outside Lagos on standby in case the need arose.

Lt. Col. GT Zidon in particular was said to be familiar with Major GG Orkar, a fellow middle belter. It is said that he dressed in tracksuit and jogged his way to the radio Nigeria station in Ikoyi to chat him up and lull him into a false sense of security while actually using the opportunity to conduct an appreciation of the troop and weapon strength and disposition of the plotters.

Having done so, he later returned with troops, supported by armor, to flush them out from the radio station.    I have no independent  official confirmation of this newspaper account.

But to those familiar with the history of coups in Nigeria, the Abacha-Zidon-Orkar liaison, if true, was a similar - but not identical - replay of the Danjuma-Babangida-Dimka liaison of 1976 and the Ironsi-Nwawo-Nzeogwu liaison of 1966.  In each case an officer friendly with the coup spokesman went to him on behalf of the Army Chief making arrangements to crush him.

The first attempt to reach and dislodge the coupists at the radio station was carried out by a group of soldiers from the 126 Battalion Bonny camp reportedly led by one Lt.  Jalingo. They were repulsed near the Obalende bridge flyover, by 2/Lt Umukoro in an armored vehicle. At least one soldier died in the hail of co-axial MG fire.  The others were later co-opted at gunpoint by Major Mukoro and made to make mini-broadcasts in pidgin English and vernacular, praising the coup.

KADUNA, KANO, JOS, ENUGU AND IBADAN
Even though Orkar, Nyiam, Dakolo, and Idele, all principal plotters, were either based in Jaji, near Kaduna, or Zaria, the April 22 plotters made no concrete arrangements to neutralize units outside the Lagos area - probably because of the stage of planning at which it was preemptively launched as a contingency to avoid arrest (according to Nyiam).  The coup plan was predicated on the presumption that once Babangida and Abacha were out of the way and Lagos units neutralized, the regime, based as it was on these "twin godfathers", would implode like a pack of cards.

Nevertheless, in seeking to crush the plot, prevent a domino effect, and reestablish the authority of the federal military government, Lt. Gen Abacha reached for all operational elements in all Army divisions all over the country directly (by phone) and indirectly through resident State Governors.

What transpired in the 1st Division is the most detailed account publicly available.

In Kaduna, the GOC 1st Div, Major General Ike Nwachukwu was on leave.  His Colonel GS, (and acting GOC) Colonel Mohammed Dansofo began contacting Brigade Commanders in the 1st Div area of responsibility (Kano, Sokoto and Minna).

In this manner he contacted the most senior officer in the Division, then Colonel Mohammed Chris Alli, Commander of the 3rd Infantry Brigade in Kano, for guidance.  Dansofo knew then that there was a coup in progress in Lagos but did not know who was involved or its political coloration.  The Kano State Governor, Colonel Idris Garba and Lt. Col Lawan Gwadabe calling in from Lagos also independently contacted Alli.  It was not long before Orkar's broadcast on radio Nigeria resolved any initial confusion about the putsch.  All Brigades were placed on full standby combat alert and all passes cancelled.  Based on a dictation made over the phone by Col. MC Alli, Col Dansofo made a counter-broadcast on Radio Kaduna thus:

"We of the 1st Infantry Division disassociate ourselves from the coup and its aims and affirm our loyalty to the President and Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces, General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida."

MC Alli also made an unambiguous broadcast to the people of Kano dissociating his Brigade from the Orkar announcement in Lagos.

In Jos, Enugu and Ibadan, the GOCsn apparently issued a similar radio message but at least one announcement by one GOC was allegedly vague, avoiding the specific mention of Babangida as C-in-C by name, pledging generic loyalty only to the "Federal Military Government" rather than the regime.  Some pundits later interpreted this omission as a cunning, "wait and see" safeguard in case the coup eventually succeeded.

Source: Renowned Military historian, Dr Nowa Omoigui