On December 31, 1983, Nigerians woke up to the sound of martial music on their radio and television sets. They knew a coup had taken place. Then at 5.00 in the morning, the throaty voice of one Brigadier Sani Abacha came on air informing Nigerians of the shenanigans that characterized the Alhaji Shehu Usman Aliyu Shagari civilian government. With the deftness of a would-be suitor, the Army Office, claiming to be speaking on behalf of his other colleagues in the Armed Forces, itemized the reasons why he and his colleagues had decided to shove the corrupt politicians aside. All the reasons he gave for the coup were known to Nigerians but lamentably, he failed to disclose how he and his colleagues would solve the Problems.

Majority of Nigerians were not taken aback by the sacking of the politicians by the military. Their fall was good riddance. Its demise was not a question of how and why but when. As the late American Civil Rights leader Dr. Martin Luther-King Jr. once said: “There comes a time when the people are fed up and want it no more.” Nigerians got to that stage in 1983 under the “lootocaratic” regime of Alhaji Shehu Shagari, to use the words of Chinweizu,Vanguardnewspaper Columnist. Albeit, corruption has become endemic in Nigeria but the political rascals under Alhaji Shagari legitimized this national cankerworm. It became a “de rigueur.”No Nigerian would have raised eyebrows or shed tears if the military boys that came to power had seized those political vermin of the so-called Second Republic, tied them to stakes and execute them. It was that bad. They had stolen too much for the owners of the house to notice and they flaunted their stolen wealth with obscenity and abandon.


But as events started to unfold, the military brass hats soon discovered the gargantuan problems especially the battered economy they inherited from the thieving politicians. They soon found out it was easier to topple a government than to govern a nation. Their subsequent policies such as War Against Indiscipline called WAI, queue culture, mandatory monthly Environmental Sanitation to clean households and cities including other peripheral programs could easily be decreed by wearing military epaulette but you can’t command a prostrate economy neither can you decree jobs for able-bodied striplings roaming Nigerian streets.
There were a potpourri rainbow coalition of forces both within the disenchanted civil populace and the opportunistic Nigerian military which all combined to ensure the demise of the corrupt Shehu Shagari regime and the success of the 1983 putsch. Situated within the dynamics of coup planning in Nigeria, the planer of the 1983coup d’état did not emerge as the Head of State. With the exception of late Major-General Tunde Idiagbon, General Muhammadu Buhari who emerged as Head of State was not one of the planers of the coup. The brain behind that coup was late Brigadier Bako who was killed by Alhaji Shehu Shagari’s Presidential Guard in Abuja. If he had survived, Brigadier Bako would probably have emerged Head of State. Others who joined in the coup were the late General Mamman Jiya Vasta, late Brigadier Sani Abacha, General Muhammed Magoro in that order. General Buhari became Head of State because he was the most senior military officer at that time. He came in as a compromised candidate to replace Brigadier Bako, the mastermind and architect of the coup. Even then, there was so much rancor and bitterness at the meeting called to deliberate on Brigadier Bako’s replacement. When Gen. Sani Abacha, then a Brigadier and General Officer Commanding (G.O.C) Mechanized Brigade, Ibadan read his coup text at 5:00am on December 31, 1983; an unidentified voice came on air at 12noon or thereabout that day to announce to Nigerians that the new Head of State would address the nation at nine o’clock that evening,. The voice was that of Major-General (then Brigadier) Tunde Idiagbon. During this period, no person had been chosen as Head of State. The putschists were undecided on who should step into late Bako’s shoes. While a faction favored Gen. Buhari, the other faction opposed him and the whole place became so charged that at a mild drama took place. A Colonel pulled out his pistol and threatened the coup plotters that if Gen. Buhari was not made the new Head of State, none of them gathered at the meeting would come out alive. He was even more livid when a Brigadier mentioned the name of Major-General Ibrahim Babangida as the new Head of State. That Colonel was Col. Mustapha Jokolo, who later became Buhari’s aide-de-camp and now the Emir of Gwandu after the death of his father late Alhaji Rasheed Jokolo.

A plane was then dispatched to Jos, Plateau State to fetch Gen. Buhari and he was made Head of State. He could not address the nation at nine a previously announced so a statement was hurriedly put together for him to address his fellow country men and women at 10:00pm that day. Thus began the Muhammad Buhari-Tunde Idiagbon military regime.


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Still very fresh in my memory. Buhari had no knowledge of the coup but was chosen to be the head of state. Corruption of those days reminds me of what corruption is under Jonathan. Here we are again clamoring for Buhari to lead this country again.

Sai Buhari!

I have always asked the handlers of GEJ who accuse the people's General of toppling a democratically elected government of Shagari, to go and study the history of December, 1983 coup.


It's still General Muhammadu Buhari that can clean up the mess GEJ has plunged us into, just as he came in and rescued Nigeria out of Shagari's mess.

I just love Buhari, I no go lie..

Sai Buhari

Sai Buhari!

Sai Buhari
Sai Osinbajo
Sai Omoalhaja

Sai Buhari-Osinbajo-Omoalhaja

Hmmm..