Around 1:40 am on a Sunday, the 22nd of April, 1990, the most fortified complex in Nigeria, the Dodan Barracks, which was the seat of power and the official residence of the military president and the Commander-in-Chief of the Nigerian Armed Forces, came under ferocious attack. The military president himself, 48-year-old General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida, was inside the building when the attackers launched their audacious siege. The lion was in the den when some soldiers totally dissatisfied with his government launched an offensive assault on Dodan Barracks. What was happening that night would turn out to be the bloodiest coup attempt in the history of the country.
Dodan Barracks was pounded heavily with artillery shells, mortars, grenades and all sorts of explosives. It was so intense that Babangida’s bedroom was thoroughly destroyed by the rebellious soldiers. In the ensuing gunfight, a terrified Babangida was saved by his aide-de-camp, a colonel named Usman Kakanda Bello, better known as UK Bello. He was a prince from Paiko, a small village some 25 kilometers from the Niger State capital of Minna (Paiko is the capital of Paikoro Local Government Area of Niger State) and was of the same Gbagyi (Gwari) ethnic group like General Babangida. Bello was rudely awoken from sleep with the sound of intense gunfire. His residence was located just opposite that of the Commander-in-Chief. He quickly sprang to his feet and being the ADC that he was, he immediately established contact with the C-in-C upon hearing the initial gunfire and then went straight to check on the military president. Bello was the first person to alert the military president that it seemed like a coup was in progress. Babangida knew there was a very big problem at hand that night. The Gideon Orkar coup was in full swing and it looked like Babangida was about to be swept off the seat of power the same way he took over by overthrowing General Muhammadu Buhari – via a coup d’état.
Now, this is where it gets dicey because there are various narrations of the precise events but some things are clear. When the coup plotters rumbled through the gates of Dodan Barracks that morning, Babangida had sent his scout to see the extent of the force and strength the coup plotters came with. It was overwhelming. Among the coup plotters that morning inside Dodan Barracks was Colonel Tony Nyiam, the most senior army officer involved in the coup. Usman whisked Babangida and his terrified family (Maryam Babangida later recollected that day as being one of the most traumatic of her life) to safety, he reportedly carried (some reports said dragged) Babangida physically, had him and his family over the fence onto the open field and then to a waiting Peugeot car behind the Dodan Barracks compound from where he reportedly sped through the rear gate onto the streets of Ikoyi. Babangida and his family narrowly escaped from Dodan Barracks. The timing of the escape of Babangida and his family has been put at between 1:30 and 1:45 am. Once IBB was in safe hands in a private home, UK Bello returned to the presidential complex to face the coup plotters and attempted to crush them.
As Bello went to the Dodan Barracks, he was seen by Colonel Nyiam, who later accused UK Bello of pretending to be on the side of the coup plotters. UK Bello rushed to one of the armoured tanks stationed on the grounds of the Dodan Barracks and made attempts to fire at the coup plotters. That was where he was doomed. Unknown to UK Bello, the maintenance engineer who had come to check on the tanks few days before the coup had tampered with the tank removing the firing pins and deactivating all the tanks as he was part of the coup plotters. I must also chip in at this point that a day before the coup attempt, one of the plotters (who was the head guard) was playing a game of cards with Bello at the back porch inside Dodan Barracks when he asked him of the president’s whereabouts and Bello unknowingly gave the plotter the answer they needed. Bello had been excited as they were playing the game and had befriended the guy since their days in the barracks as both were from the same hometown.
At that moment he entered the tank and attempted to fire, it was obvious UK Bello was not on the side of the coup plotters and he was instantly killed in the crossfire. He was killed inside the tank surrendering to a volley of bullets from dissident soldiers who had surrounded him. It was then around 2:00 am and the shelling of the president’s residence with heavy artillery continued nonstop. The goal was to ensure that even if Babangida was not captured alive, he should be killed in the gunfire. For the coup plotters, they had crossed the Rubicon. Since they were not sure of the room where IBB was, they turned their guns on all the rooms and kept firing indiscriminately. The pounding was so intense that they believed there was no way Babangida could have survived it only to be dissapponted later on as they discovered that Babangida was nowhere to be found. This was how Colonel Nyiam narrated the death of Bello:
By 3:00 am, satisfied with their torrents of gunfire, some of the coup plotters left for the radio broadcasting house, carrying with them the corpse of Bello. The coup plotters met what was described as a mild opposition from the presidential guards and the gunfight continued until General Sani Abacha put on his combat gear, rushed to the scene of action with devastating firepower and destroyed the coup plotters thus saving the day and the government of Babangida. If not for UK Bello’s sacrifice and Abacha’s audacity and legendary courage to save his friend, it looked like nothing was going to stop the Orkar boys from killing Babangida and overthrowing his junta that very day.
Babangida was utterly devastated by the killing of his devoted ADC who had lost both his young and loving wife and his own father. He addressed a world press conference which he held on the coup and it was there he announced the killing of his ADC, Col. U. K. Bello.
Two days after he was killed in the botched coup attempt, UK Bello was buried at Paiko with full military honours. He was buried close to the grave of his father, Sarkin Muhammadu Bello (the traditional village head of Paiko) and Mama Dada, his grandmother. He was buried according to Islamic rules and among those present at his burial were Lt.General Sani Abacha, who was the Chief of Army Staff and Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff, Rear Admiral Murtala Nyako, Chief of Naval Staff, Air Vice Marshal Nureini Yusuf, Chief of Air Staff, Major-General Ike Nwachukwu, GOC, 1 Mechanized Infantry Division, Lt. Colonel Lawan Gwadabe, Military Governor of Niger State, Federal Ministers, members of different State Executive Councils and the Niger State Council of Chiefs. The UK Bello Cultural Centre in Minna is named in his honour.
On the 22nd of August, 1990, Major Nuhu Bamalli was appointed the aide-de-camp to President Babangida, replacing the late Lt. Col. U.K Bello. Bamalli himself would later become a major-general and he died in 2006 when a military Dornier plane crashed in the mountains of Benue State, he perished alongside 17 other high-ranking military officers. They were on their way to the Obudu Ranch Resort for a retreat. The other ADC of President Babangida was Major Sambo Dasuki, and he is inside Kuje Prisons as I am writing this. Sambo has been accused of being the mastermind of the $2.1 billion arms scandal. It is quite interesting that such terrible fate awaited the ADCs of General Babangida. I wonder what will be going on in the mind of Nigeria’s only military president anytime he remembers the tragedies that afflicted his most trusted bodyguards, those who were so ready to lay down their lives for him to live.
THANKS FOR YOUR TIME.
REFERENCES
- Nigeria: Shadow of A Great Nation by Lai Joseph, Dubeo Press Limited, 1995, page 40.
- Seven Years of IBB: Foreign Policy, Volume 8, Compendium, Daily Times of Nigeria PLC, 1993, pages 205, 209.
- Abacha: The Murder of A Hero by Abdullahi Adamu Sherriff, 2004, page 12.
- Indigenous Political Structures and Governance in Nigeria by Olufemi Vaughan, 2004, page 334.
- A Special Edition of Cultural Magazine on the Opening of the Multipurpose UK Bello Cultural Centre, Minna, Niger State Council for Arts and Culture, 1990, page 52.
- UK Bello: Patriot As Hero: The Biography of the Slain ADC to the President by Olu Osunde, Ezekiel Fajenyo and Sunday Patrick, Afrolink Business Communications, 1991.
- Beyond the Execution: Understanding the Ethnic and Military Politics in Nigeria by Tom Mbeke-Ekanem, page 33.
- New Breed, 1990.
- The Morning of A Coup: The Dictatorship of Nigeria’s Ibrahim B Babangida by Oladimeji Adeoye, Chicago Spectrum Press, 1995