At about 12.30am on April 22, 1990, a group of soldiers met at a civilian warehouse in Ikorodu area of Lagos for a final briefing. Thereafter, they fanned out into different directions using civilian Peugeot J5 buses.
The first group of soldiers had the task to secure weapons. This they accomplished by first taking control of an armoury at the military police dominated barracks at Apapa.
Other groups headed for the FRCN radio station, Bonny camp, Dodan Barracks (which was the seat of the Federal Government), Ikeja cantonment and Or-jor cantonment primarily to get additional heavy caliber weapons and active duty soldiers as well as seize these locations as they boot-strapped the operation.
These were the opening events of the 1990 failed coup attempt which took place in Nigeria when a faction of Army officers, led by Major Gideon Gwaza Orkar, attempted to overthrow the government of General Ibrahim Babangida.
Rebel troops had seized the FRCN radio station and various military posts around Lagos, including the military headquarters and the presidential residence, the Dodan Barracks.
Babangida was present when the barracks were attacked but managed to escape, largely through the courage of his aide-de-camp, Colonel U.K. Bello, who spirited him and his family out of Dodan Barracks via a back route.
Bello later returned to the barracks to face the coup plotters but was killed inside an armoured tank.
In the coup address to the nation through a live broadcast from FRCN at about 4am on April 22, 1990, the coup plotters made a stunning announcement expelling indigenous people of far North states of Bauchi, Borno, Katsina, Kano and Sokoto from Nigeria. They accused Babangida of planning to install himself as Nigeria’s life president, accused the Federal Military Government of marginalization of the people of Nyjar Delta and the entire Southern part of the country.
Analysts have argued that part of the reason for the coup’s failure was the ethnic undertones and bias that accompanied their coup speech broadcast. Also, the amateurish excise of citizens of the core North away from military and civil life was naturally going to divide the same people whose support they would have needed especially at such an infant stage of their coup plot. In fact, military officers of Northern extraction rallied in support of the Federal Military Government when they found out it was a plot targeting their very existence.
Although, the coup was identified to be masterminded by Major Gideon Orkar, the trial of the coup plotters and other evidences showed that he was just a conduit and not the original mastermind behind the coup. The ideological arrow heads of the coup were Lieutenant Colonel Anthony In-yiam, Major Cyril Obahor and Major Saliba Mukoro, who was reputed to be the first-ever PhD holder in the Nigerian military. It was only in the latter stages of the coup that Orkar was recruited into the plot.
Hundreds of people, including some civilians, were arrested after the coup attempt and the death toll involved in the shootouts between the rebel forces and the government troops coupled with the post-trial executions that took place made it the bloodiest coup detat in Nigeria’s history.
Major Gideon Gwaza Orkar was arrested along with about 300 other military personnel and more than 30 civilians. In the usual Nigerian pattern of mass arrests and reactive witch hunting, some journalists considered unsympathetic to the regime were also detained and newspapers even closed.
Following a Board of Inquiry, cases were referred to a Military Tribunal chaired by Major General E-kay Omar Sanda Nwachukwu. The Chief Prosecutor was Brigadier General Tunde Olurin while Lieutenant Colonel Akin Kejawa led the defence.
After a thorough investigation, the following facts were confirmed to be the outline plan of action of the dissidents;
(a) to overthrow the Federal Military Government by force,
(b) to summarily execute, in the process, the following principals of the government, The President and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the Federation, all members of the Armed Forces Ruling Council (AFRC), all military and civilian members of the National Council of Ministers, all military governors, senior military and police officers,
(c) to blow up the seat of government in Lagos and move the federal capital to another location to be decided after the successful execution of the coup plot:
(d) to excise five states out of the federation;
(e) to demolish major bridges across the River Niger and Benue to effectively dismember the country.
On 27 July 1990, Major G.G. Orkar and 41 others were convicted for treason and executed by firing squad after confirmation of sentences by the Armed Forces Ruling Council (AFRC). Nine other defendants were jailed while 31 soldiers were acquitted.
Following a serious controversy inspired by allegations made by some of the convicts – as they were about to be shot – that those acquitted by the first tribunal were fellow putschists acquitted on ethnic grounds, the AFRC ordered the retrial of 31 of the surviving accused by a new tribunal headed by Major General Y.Y. Kure.
In September 1990, therefore, a second batch of 27 executions was carried out.
It has been said that the coup plotters from former Bendel State (now Edo and Delta States) and former Rivers States (now Rivers and Bayelsa States) were not remorseful about the rebellion. Captain Empere in particular was very defiant and identified the late Isaac Adaka Boro, a pioneer of minority rights activism in Nigeria, as his mentor and hero. He and others were driven by deeply held feelings that although their exploited lands produced Nigeria’s oil wealth, their people had little to show for it.
It is fair to categorize the rebellion, therefore, as a “resource control uprising”.
No fewer than 16 officers were declared wanted by the Federal Military Government (FMG) including Major Saliba Daddy Mukoro, Lieutenant Colonel Nyiam, Lieutenant Henry Ogboru and Lieutenant Sunday Echendu.
Also declared wanted was a fish merchant, Great Ovedje Ogboru, who was believed to have bankrolled the plot and offered his warehouse at Ikorodu as operational base.
He was accused of buying J5 Peugeot buses used by the plotters in carrying arms and men. He was also accused of importing arms into Nigeria for the operation, using his fishing trawlers.
30 Years After Orkar’s Coup, the Federal Government under the leadership of Muhammadu Buhari, officially gazetted the presidential pardon granted to the military officers and a civilian who were declared wanted in the abortive attempt.
