₦airaland Forum

Murtala would have survived Dimka's bullets - Orderly

*Coup plotters returned to finish him off

*Obasanjo, TY Danjuma were lucky

*I was dumped in the mortuary for dead


Had the coup plotters led by Lt. Col. Buka Suka Dimka not noticed the door of General Murtala Muhammed's Mercedes Benz car open minutes after it was sprayed with bullets from AK-47 assault rifles, triggering another round of firing, perhaps the late Head of State would have survived the brutal attack.


The lone survivor and Orderly to the late Head of State, Staff Sergeant Michael Otuwu, broke his silence in a highly emotional interview with The AUTHORITY Daily, nearly 40 years after the tragic incident.


According to the Orderly, on their way to work on the morning of Friday, February 13, 1976, the Head of State left his personal house in Ikoyi and was headed to work in Dodan Barracks, the seat of government, which he said was being renovated at the time.


Otuwu disclosed that beside the Head of State was his ADC, Lt. Akintunde Akinterinwa, himself (Otuwu) directly seated in the front passenger's seat, with Sergeant Adamu Michika behind the wheels.


According to the Orderly, as the unsuspecting car of the Head of State stopped before a row of cars at a junction, he noticed a man in a traditional attire, babanriga (he later identified as Dimka) who approached the car, removed the flowing robe and pulled out an AK-47 rifle, shooting the driver in the head point blank.


According to the Orderly, having disabled the car by killing the driver, other soldiers clad in robes, ran towards Murtala's car and opened fire.


"The Head of State, his ADC and I all ducked while the shooting lasted," narrated the Orderly, sobbing uncontrollably as he recalled the traumatic incident. After the shooting, Otuwu continued, he heard the gunmen running towards the Radio House.


A few minutes later, he continued, he noticed that the injured ADC opened his door, apparently to come to the aid of the equally injured Commander-in-Chief.


According to the Orderly, the opened door alerted the assailants that the occupants of the vehicle were not dead – and this prompted the coup plotters to return a second time to, again, open fire on the car in order to finish them off. He passed out.


According to Otuwu, Generals TY Danjuma and Olusegun Obasanjo were lucky because they were also targets but escaped because they did not leave for their offices as early as Murtala did and they heard the radio announcement which may have fatefully altered their movement plans.


According to Otuwu, who enlisted in the Nigeria Army in 11 September, 1967, he had moved early that morning with the late Head of State from his Ikoyi residence to Dodan Barracks because the overthrown General Yakubu Gowon had not evacuated the official residence and it was not yet renovated.


His words: "I was his Orderly throughout to his last day during the Dimka coup. I was inside the car with him when he was killed.


"On the morning of that February 13, we were going to the office. Sergeant Adamu Michika was the driver; Sergeant Akintunde Akinterinwa, his ADC, sat behind the driver. As an Orderly, I was in front with the driver.


"While the Head of State sat behind me - I was the one who opens the door for him. That fateful day I came up in the morning to carry him to the office in Dodan Barracks. We got to the former Secretariat, now at Ikoyi, which was under construction.


Before the place they call Alag bon junction, near the labour office. The official car was a Mercedes Benz 600. It is still at the National Museum. There were about four or five vehicles in front of us. You know at that junction there was traffic. We didn't go with sirens. During his time we didn't go with escorts with the accompanying out-riders, road-closed signs and all that.


So when we got to the Alagbon junction, the traffic warden stopped the vehicle and we were in the queue. We were the fifth or sixth vehicle behind the forward vehicles that were stopped. That secretariat was under construction.


They put zincs around the compound behind that secretariat. Then some soldiers came in Agbada carrying AK-47 rifles. "They wore uniforms but covered them with Agbada. They had their Kalashnikovs with Agbada cover-up in form of camouflage. We never knew they were even waiting for us. Then one soldier from Golf Road shot and got our driver, Sergeant Michika. Our motor was neutralized.


"Between me and the driver was an arm-rest. On that arm-rest was Oga's brief case. In this brief case he puts civil dress he could use as needed. When he wants to go to Mosque, he does not like going back to Ikoyi to change.


"Then some other soldiers converged on us. I can't recall their number. They began to spray us from the back. All of us took cover. I fell on top of the driver; the blood of the driver covered my head. They thought the bullet got my head.


"After the first shooting and without return of fire they must have assumed that we were all dead. The shooting was actually in two phases. They ran to the NBC to announce the assassination. They shared themselves into three.


"There was a group waiting for Obasanjo when he was about to go to the office. Also another group was waiting for TY Danjuma at Bourdillon – our own was at Ikoyi Road. It happened we were the first target that moved early from the house to the office.


"Before Obasanjo and TY Danjuma moved to their offices they have already heard the radio announcement. By the time of the first shooting, we being the target and their running to NBC to go and announce that they have already finished their assignment, the ADC who was still alive, thinking they were gone, opened the door of the Benz.


"In the first spraying of the car, except the driver who was killed, the three of us were injured but not dead. On observing the car door opening, one of the attackers, still within range, a Major, called to the others: "he never die, he never die." He was calling his group to return.


"This time around when they came back they finished their entire magazines. That was what happened. They carried everybody to the mortuary at Igbosere Hospital, not far from Kam Salem Police Headquarters. Because of the extreme cold of the mortuary, my left hand started shaking and one of the attendants saw it and called the nurses or doctors and said somebody was still alive.


"From there they checked and confirmed I was still breathing. So they had to look for a vehicle to carry me to Dodan Barracks. From Dodan Barracks they looked for an ambulance and carried me to a hospital, Awolowo Road hospital, a military hospital."


Otuwu, who hails from Kogi State, spent six months in the hospital after his miraculous survival. He has not been recognized by the army or the state. Presently, he does a few jobs for late General Murtala's son, in Abuja.


Credit: The Archives.

Murtala Mohammed


He who lives by the sword…….

General Murtala Mohammed was an evil man

He was a murderous coup plotter whose first coup claimed some 300 lives

He was commander of the second division that commited the Asaba genocide where over
thousand people were lined up and shot dead in Asaba during the war

He was a brutal military dictator who seized power by the gun, and died by the gun

How did such a man with so much blood on his hands end up a national hero on the N20 note? A man known for nothing good?

The answer is because he was a Northerner

Murtala Ramat Muhammed, the Butcher of Asaba

Was this coup a plateau or middle belt coup? Did the rest of Nigeria military go about killing all military officials of plateau or middle belt origin after this failed coup . Was there really any difference between the February 13th coup 1976 and January 15th 1966 coup

kettykin:
Was this coup a plateau or middle belt coup? Did the rest of Nigeria military go about killing all military officials of plateau or middle belt origin after this failed coup . Was there really any difference between the February 13th coup 1976 and January 15th 1966 coup

Middle belt coup.

W

kettykin:
Was this coup a plateau or middle belt coup? Did the rest of Nigeria military go about killing all military officials of plateau or middle belt origin after this failed coup . Was there really any difference between the February 13th coup 1976 and January 15th 1966 coup

Was any civilian government officials killed??

In as much I disagree with tagging the first coup a igbo coup cos not like all igbos came together to authorize it but some of you lack of emotional intelligence sometimes make most people go on with that narrative.

You people hardly condemn any bad or evil act done by your brothers.

Unless betrayed, Nigerian presidents of nowadays will have a full barracks of security personnel on their convoys and even while they are sleeping, it will be difficult to pull such a stunt now, these people are so guarded that they don't have any form of privacy anymore

He deserved it. He that taketh by the sword perishes by the sword

DMerciful:
He deserved it. He that taketh by the sword perishes by the sword

yet he's on Ur naira notes inside Ur wallet 😄🤔

Fvck them all, who cares...

They killed Fajuyi very good officer

Bobodee09:
.
You people hardly condemn any bad or evil act done by your brothers.

You lied. There's no tribe that call out evil be it by their tribesmen or any other tribe than the Igbos. Reason why you all see us as disrespectful because we do not cover evil not minding the age of the felon.

chyzoo4u:
You lied. There's no tribe that call out evil be it by their tribesmen or any other tribe than the Igbos. Reason why you all see us as disrespectful because we do not cover evil not minding the age of the felon.

We all saw that when Evans the kidnapper was arrested.

We all saw that when mmesoma was caught faking her jamb score

Okay, congrats on survival

Nothing concerned me

He doesn't know that, he is dead like a stone

mytime24:
yet he's on Ur naira notes inside Ur wallet 😄🤔

Bobodee09:
Was any civilian government officials killed??

In as much I disagree with tagging the first coup a igbo coup cos not like all igbos came together to authorize it but some of you lack of emotional intelligence sometimes make most people go on with that narrative.

You people hardly condemn any bad or evil act done by your brothers.

So once a "civilian official" is killed in the coup, the ethnic group of most members of the Coup plotters should be used to brand the coup?
What a convoluted mindset you have. Keep spinning..

Sad! Murtala was the architect of his own misfortune. He was involved in the July 1966 bloodshed and civil war massacres.

Coup plotters no dey joke with Radio Announcement.

WhiteBalaclava:
Murtala Mohammed


He who lives by the sword…….

100 percent correct.


👍👍👍

Racoon:
Sad! Murtala was the architect of his own misfortune. He was involved in the July 1966 bloodshed and civil war massacres.

100 percent correct too!


👍👍👍👍

I pity the day Karma will remember Tinubu and his supporters.

Let him continue to shine today.


😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

MM should be change to OBAFEMI OWORORO international Airport.

Bobodee09:
Was any civilian government officials killed??

In as much I disagree with tagging the first coup a igbo coup cos not like all igbos came together to authorize it but some of you lack of emotional intelligence sometimes make most people go on with that narrative.

You people hardly condemn any bad or evil act done by your brothers.

why you dey answer am… when they killed the sultan, their people were using the incident to mock the man in a song, saying that he bleated like a goat when he was shot, they even sang the song in the North, (imagine the effrontery) and you expect the Northerns not to be angry? They gloated over that coup, how do you expect it not to be tagged Igbo coup? They would still cry victims, but na dem dey find trouble. And if you know them well its their lifestyle

Bobodee09:
Was any civilian government officials killed??

In as much I disagree with tagging the first coup a igbo coup cos not like all igbos came together to authorize it but some of you lack of emotional intelligence sometimes make most people go on with that narrative.

You people hardly condemn any bad or evil act done by your brothers.

Yoruba man projecting what he does onto others

And saying what he wish as if it has happened

Typical Yoruba character

mrvitalis:
Yoruba man projecting what he does onto others

And saying what he wish as if it has happened

Typical Yoruba character

See you ba

The only thing you haven't lied about is being an igbo man. 😆

Engaging you is waste of time and intelligence.

gidgiddy:
General Murtala Mohammed was an evil man

He was a murderous coup plotter whose first coup claimed some 300 lives

He was commander of the second division that commited the Asaba genocide where over
thousand people were lined up and shot dead in Asaba during the war

He was a brutal military dictator who seized power by the gun, and died by the gun

How did such a man with so much blood on his hands end up a national hero on the N20 note? A man known for nothing good?

The answer is because he was a Northerner

so u Igbos expect people to give u ice cream when u shoot them right?

The same way u expect people to give u food when u are fighting them in a war

That's pure stupidity

kettykin:
Was this coup a plateau or middle belt coup? Did the rest of Nigeria military go about killing all military officials of plateau or middle belt origin after this failed coup . Was there really any difference between the February 13th coup 1976 and January 15th 1966 coup

name the tribe this coup was targeted at?

Everyone can see it was clearly to sieze power n the person who have the power was killed unlike the Igbo coup where u killed leaders of other regions without killing yours

chyzoo4u:
You lied. There's no tribe that call out evil be it by their tribesmen or any other tribe than the Igbos. Reason why you all see us as disrespectful because we do not cover evil not minding the age of the felon.

even u self know u are lying

U Igbos defended invictus obi
U Igbos defended Evans
U Igbos defended mmesoma
U Igbos defended amaka
U Igbos defended the Igbo kidnappers killed in Lagos n called it witch hunting
U Igbos defended the guy Bashir Ahmed mistakenly sent money to his account
U Igbos defend d drug barons n criminals amongst u

Everyone knows Igbos defend their brothers crime no matter what

Imagine obi saying fake drug manufacturers should b pardoned n their shop reopened

See as them dey off people those days.

I’m still surprised till today that Abiola died on the day he was suppose to be released. Some thing was not adding up

Bobodee09:
We all saw that when Evans the kidnapper was arrested.

We all saw that when mmesoma was caught faking her jamb score

2 cases out of thousands

but we all see how you people are supporting a drug baron that fraudulently entered also rock and his bigot wife.
their decisions in also rock is affecting millions of lives including you defending them, but continue.