“Men of color asked me my opinion on airplanes.” “I’ll be the first to buy one if they’re brought to Hausa land in Nigeria,” I declared. Image Info: M. Dikko, the Katsina emir, and his offspring visited England in 1933
In an interview, General Olusegun Obasanjo revealed how, when they were detained, General Sani Abacha wanted him, the late Shehu Musa Yar’Adua, and the late Moshood Abiola, the hero of June 12th, dead. He made this statement during a dinner program hosted by Christ The Redeemer’s Friends International of the Redeemed Christian Church of God, Lagos Province 39 Chapter, an interdenominational Christian organization. The former president said that Yar’Adua was poisoned by Abacha’s assassination team and that he was supposed to be the next casualty, but that he was spared by God’s providential intervention. “Two people had earlier told me,” stated Obasanjo. Abacha pledged that none of the three of us—including me—would escape jail or custody alive. MKO Abiola and Shehu Yar Adua. Additionally, two of them perished. Given that I survived, perhaps God has a purpose. Thus, it’s okay if the goal is for me to serve the people and, in doing so, serve God. I was allegedly planning a coup by Abacha. It wasn’t me who got arrested first. I attempted to ask for Shehu’s (Yar’Adua) release after he was taken into custody. I told Abacha that the second-most powerful man in this nation could not be detained without your knowledge when he claimed he was unaware of Shehu’s detention. He then said he would go and find out. “Abacha excluded God from his design, and as a result, it (his government) ultimately collapsed. Every single one of us and every single institution has God’s hand in it. That, in my opinion, is really credible. “I was placed in isolation for three months after being detained and brought to a home in Ikoyi, Lagos.…
Pictured from left to right are Brigadier Zakariya Maimalari, Chief Festus Okotie-Eboh, and General Aguiyi Ironsi at a party he threw in Lagos. Little did they realize, however, that the coup of January 15, 1966, was still going on. This photo was taken in 1966, and hours later, he and Okotie-Eboh were assassinated. When Maimalari was celebrating his recent marriage the day before the coup on January 15, 1966, he had no idea that among the guests were rebel leaders who would later come back to haunt him.He fled through the back of his house on the day of the coup as soon as rebel soldiers invaded it. He first fled into a small room inside the complex before emerging onto the main road. He saw a car on the road and thought it was headed to Ikeja, but it turned out to be a rebel vehicle, and he was taken prisoner and subsequently executed.
General Murtala Muhammed, the head of state, is pictured (R) with Colonel Ibrahim Taiwo, the military governor of Kwara state (L), during the 1975 Hajj pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia. Less than two months after this photo was taken, they were killed.