Today, February 13 in the sordid political history of Nigeria was a bloody and moody day, especially for the nation's military institution, which has since January 15, 1966 opened what has become a chain of military coup-de-tats in Nigeria. On this fateful day in Lagos, the Head of State and Commander-in-Chief of the Nigerian Armed Forces, Gen. Murtala Muhammed was assassinated in yet another coup. He, himself had in July 29, 1975 led a coup that toppled his Commander-in-Chief, Gen. Yakubu Gowon who was away in Kampala, Uganda to attend the meeting of the then Organisation for African Unity (OAU).

Just before 8:30 a.m. on February 13, 1976, the following curious announcement was heard on Radio Nigeria:

"Good morning fellow Nigerians,

This is Lt. Col. B. Dimka of the Nigerian Army calling.

I bring you good tidings. Murtala Muhammed's deficiency has been detected. The young revolutionaries now overthrow his government. All the 19 military governors have no powers over the states they now govern. Military brigade commanders will run the states affairs until further notice.

"All commissioners are sacked, except for the armed forces and police commissioners who will be redeployed.

All senior military officers should remain calm in their respective spots. No divisional commanders will issue orders or instructions until further notice.

Any attempt to foil these plans from any quarters will be met with death.

You are warned, it is all over the 19 states.

"Any acts of looting or raids will be death.

Everyone should be calm.

Please stay by your radio for further announcements.

All borders, air and sea ports are closed until further notice.

Curfew is imposed from 6am to 6pm.

Thank you. We are all together."

Prior to this broadcast, General Murtala Ramat Muhammed, along with his ADC, Lt. Akinsehinwa, Orderly and driver, had been assassinated on his way to work in a thin skinned black Mercedes Benz car without escorts. The unprotected car had slowed down at the junction in front of the Federal Secretariat in Ikoyi, Lagos, when a hit team which allegedly included Lt. William Seri and others, casually strolled up and riddled it with bullets.

Following confirmation of Muhammed's death, Lt. Col. Buka Suka Dimka, of the Army Physical Training Corps, who (along with some others) had been up for most of the night drinking champagne, then made a quick trip to the British High Commission at about 8 am where he demanded to be put in touch with General Gowon in Britain. He allegedly left a message through Sir Martin LeQuesne, saying Gowon should proceed to Togo and await further instructions.

Then he returned, initially accompanied by six others, to Ikoyi to seize the Radio Station. The martial music played was allegedly specially selected by a civilian worker, Mr. Abdulkarim Zakari, who had been alerted beforehand to do so.

Other hit teams simultaneously went after other key functionaries of the regime's troika, namely the Chief of Staff, SHQ, Lt. Gen. Olusegun Obasanjo and the Army Chief, Lt. Gen. T. Y. Danjuma. The Military Governors of Kwara and Oyo States, Colonels Ibrahim Taiwo and David Jemibewon, respectively, were also targeted. Taiwo, who had been the national coordinator of the July 1975 coup that brought Mohammed to power, was abducted and killed by a team led by Major K. K. Gagara.

But Jemibewon, whose name had been added to the list of targets by Lt. Col T. K. Adamu, merely because Adamu "did not like his face", escaped.

In response to a pro-coup broadcast (and other activities) from Benin-City by the Brigade Commander, Colonel Isa Bukar, counter-broadcasts dissociating other army units from the coup were made, first from Calabar by the Brigade Commander, Colonel Mamman J. Vatsa, and then from Kaduna on behalf of the GOC, Brigadier Alani Akinrinade.

Gen. Murtala Muhammed was born in Kano on November 8, 1938 and attended Barewa College Zaria. In 1959, his course mate cohort entered the Army. Initially educated at the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst, UK, as a regular combatant, he underwent subsequent courses in the teeth arm specialty of Signals. He was commissioned 2nd lieutenant in 1961, rising to the rank of Lieutenant 7 months later.

In early 1962, he served a tour of duty in the Congo as part of the UN peacekeeping force before returning to Nigeria to serve as ADC to Dr. Majekodunmi who acted as Administrator of the Western region after the declaration of a State of Emergency.

Twenty eight months after commission he made the rank of Captain at which time he was given command of a signals unit at the Brigade HQ in Kaduna. By late 1964 he had been promoted temporary Major (T/Major).

He subsequently moved to Apapa in Lagos about the time his Uncle (Alhaji Inua Wada) became Defence Minister in 1965, following Ribadu's death, and was in Lagos when the first coup took place in January 1966.

With Lt. Col. Hassan Katsina as the Military Governor of the North, Mohammed lay low in the background in Lagos as Lt. Col. Gowon traded banter with Lt. Col. Ojukwu and negotiated the tortuous path through various 1966 constitutional conferences and the

1967 Aburi meetings. This resulted in part because Gowon was uncomfortable with

Mohammed and kept him "out of the loop".

However, in the period leading up to the outbreak of hostilities with Biafra, Murtala Mohammed did not hide his feelings that peace talks or not, war was coming and that preparations be made for this inevitability.

It is alleged that some of the earliest preparations by northern civilians to import weapons privately were made at his urging. As fate would have it, Mohammed did not have long to wait. On May 30, 1967, Lt. Col. Ojukwu proclaimed the Republic of Biafra. Almost immediately, steps were taken to bring the situation under control. A total naval blockade of the bights of Benin and Biafra (later renamed 'Bonny') was ordered. The 'police action' land phase of what is now referred to as the Nigerian Civil War subsequently began on July 6, 1967.A few weeks later, faced with north-south and south-north axes of federal advance, Ojukwu took a gamble.

On Wednesday, August 9, 1967, about 3000 Biafran soldiers and militiamen, under the

command of Lt. Col. "Brigadier" Victor Banjo, crossed the Niger Bridge at Onitsha into

Asaba. The seizure of the Midwest was essentially accomplished within 12 hours. It

became obvious that Ibadan and Lagos were next. Desperate for a bail out, Gowon turned

to the 28 year old Lt. Col. Murtala Mohammed. Aided in part by temporary hesitation on the part of the Biafran commander, Muhammed, with Patton-like boldness, hit the ground running, commandeering officers, men, supplies, mammy wagons, and weapons meant for other divisions which had been waiting for clearance at the Ports.

He practically created a new Army Division from scratch by building around a skeletal crew of units withdrawn from other fronts and local units in Lagos and Ibadan. Supported

by Lt. Cols Akinrinade, Aisida and Ally as his Brigade Commanders, Muhammed launched a lightening counter-offensive, eventually checking the Biafran units at Ore as

two brigades entered the Midwest from Okenne and marched southwards furiously in a flanking move toward Benin City.

The ancient city fell back to federal control at 6 p.m. on Sept 20, 1967. With supporting operations in the Delta by units of Lt. Col Adekunle's third division, much of the

Midwest, except Agbor and Asaba, were cleared simultaneously.

On August 7, therefore, Brigadier Murtala Mohammed became the Federal Commissioner for Communications - while retaining his role as Inspector of Signals in the Army. Tensions were already building in the Army - accelerated in part by Gowon's decision, announced on October 1, 1974, to renege on his promise to hand over to civilians in 1976. But the main grouse was that officers who "fought the war" felt excluded from patronage.

Several solidarity meetings of senior Army Officers were held.

It is alleged that at one such meeting Brigadier Mohammed advised General Gowon: "If you want to prevent a coup, remove the cause".

In late 1974/early 1975, the cabal of civil war frontline officers who felt they had been long excluded from the corridors of power and patronage began actively plotting to remove General Gowon from power. These officers, including Colonels Ibrahim Taiwo, Abdulahi Mohammed and Anthony Ochefu, Lt. Cols. Shehu Yar'Adua, Ibrahim Babangida and Alfred Aduloju among others, co-opted Colonel Joseph Nanven Garba, then Federal Guards Commander.

Then they approached Brigadier Murtala Mohammed for blessing. He reportedly told them that he would not actively join them but would do everything to 'save their necks' if they failed. They timed their coup to coincide with the absence of General Gowon at an OAU meeting in Kampala, Uganda on July 29, 1975. Mohammed took the precaution of arranging an official trip to London to avoid being asked to accompany Gowon to Kampala.

Once Colonel Garba went on air in Lagos, a plane left London for Nigeria and was allowed to land in Kano even though all airports were theoretically closed at the time.

That plane had an important passenger - Brigadier Murtala Ramat Muhammed. After a serious misunderstanding with the coupists, in which they almost decided to drop him as their choice to lead the country, Brigadier Murtala Muhammed finally agreed to accept the position of Head of State on their condition - that he would share power in a troika with Brigadiers Obasanjo (who was senior to him) and Danjuma (who was junior to him). Muhammed had initially wanted absolute executive power.

Murtala Muhammad, a Hausa from the north (Kano State), ruled for only seven months. Within that short period, he endeared himself to most Nigerians because of his strong leadership and the radical reforms he introduced in domestic and foreign policies. He "purged" the public-service ministries, universities, parastatals, and other government agencies at the federal and state levels of individuals accused of being corrupt, indolent, or inefficient. He set up a panel headed by Justice Ayo Irikefe to advise on the creation of more states. Its report led to the creation of seven additional states in 1976.

Murtala also set up a panel under Justice Akintola Aguda to consider whether a new federal capital should be created because of the congestion in Lagos. The panel recommended Abuja in the southern part of the former Northern Region as the site of a new capital. In economic matters, Murtala Muhammad introduced the "low-profile" policy, a radical departure from the ostentation of the Gowon era.

Although he retained the framework of military federalism, Murtala Muhammad removed state governors from membership in the SMC and created a new body in which they were included at the center, the National Council of States. Because this body was chaired by the head of state and subordinate to the SMC, its creation underscored the subordinate position of the state governments. This arrangement enabled the head of state to exert greater control over the state governors than had been the case under Gowon.

In the area of foreign policy, Murtala Muhammad pursued a vigorous policy that placed Africa at the center and that involved active support for liberation movements in the continent.

Of all Murtala actions, however, the one that had the most lasting consequences was a program of transition to civilian rule that he initiated before his death. The program was carried through as planned by his successor, Obasanjo. The stages of the transition agenda included the creation of more states, the reform of the local government system, the making of a new constitution, the formation of parties and, finally, the election of a new government. The transition process was to culminate in the handing over of power to civilians on October 1, 1979.

In February 1976, Murtala Muhammad was killed in an unsuccessful coup led by Colonel Bukar Dimka and officers from the middle belt; the coup appeared to be an attempt by middle-belt officers to bring back Gowon from his self-imposed exile and reinstate him as head of state. Obasanjo, a Yoruba and southerner, became head of state. Although unfavorably compared with Murtala Muhammad initially, he succeeded in many areas of his administration where the more intransigent Murtala Muhammad might have failed. Obasanjo became an adept political ruler, determined not to exacerbate north-south and Muslim-Christian schisms in the country.

In addition to its methodical conduct of all the stages of the transition to civilian government in 1979, the Obasanjo government initiated numerous reforms in public life. Attempts were made to introduce greater probity in the activities of civil servants and other public officials. The main vehicle for this process was the establishment of public complaints commissions in all states of the federation and in the capital. Despite the publicizing of particular cases of abuse of office and corruption, little progress was made in stopping the spread of this cancer in the society and economy.

In January 1976, Murtala Muhammed was promoted to the rank of full General (four stars). TY Danjuma and Olusegun Obasanjo were also promoted to the rank of Lt. Generals - in a move that proved to be controversial within the uppermost echelons of the military. On February 3, 1976, following recommendations of the Aguda panel, General Murtala Muhammed announced that the Federal Capital would be moved "to a federal territory of about 8,000 square kilometres in the central part of the country." No plebiscite has ever been organized to approve this momentous decision.

Subsequently, seven (7) new states were created and a political transition program announced which was scheduled to end with hand-over to civilians on October 1, 1979.

Unfortunately, he did not to live to see the outcome of his efforts. General Murtala Muhammed was assassinated in the early morning hours of February 13, 1976.

General Murtala Ramat Muhammed's colorful life thus came to a tragic end at the tender age of 38 years. Many monuments in the country are dedicated to his memory, including the International Airport in Lagos and a park in Benin City.