Murtala Rufai Muhammed
Murtala Rufai Ramat Muhammed was born on November 8th, 1938 in the Kurawa Quarters of Kano State to Risqua Muhammed and Uwani Ramatu. He had 7 siblings (one sister and six brothers) and was the second child. The Alkalin Kano and Chief Kadi of the State (Chief Judge), was his grandfather (same with his great-grandfather, Salihu Dattuwa).
Murtala attended Cikin Gida Primary School, Gidan Makama Primary School and Barewa College Zaria (formerly Government College). On the 26th of January, 1952, he was admitted as student number 941 at Barewa College. He was one of the ten students from Kano and finished in 1957.
Murtala also attended the Regular Officers Special Training School , ROSTS (Teshie, Ghana), now Ghana Military Academy where he was taught as a 2nd Lieutenant, infantry tactics and military laws by the late Odumegwu Ojukwu , a man of uncommon brilliance, in 1958.
Murtala’s father was schooled and literate. He was trained as a veterinary inspector and served the Kano State Government in the Hides and Skin Department but later on left to start his own cattle-rearing enterprise.
Murtala Muhammed joined the Nigerian Army in 1958. He spent short training stints in Nigeria and Ghana and then was trained as an officer cadet at Sandhurst Royal Military Academy in England.[16] After his training, he was commissioned as a second lieutenant in 1961 and assigned to the Nigerian Army Signals that same year, later spending a short stint with the No. 3 Brigade Signals Troop in Congo.[15] In 1962, Muhammed was appointed aide-de-camp to M. A. Majekodunmi, the federally-appointed administrator of the Western Region.
In 1963, he became the officer-in-charge of the First Brigade Signal Troop in Kaduna, Nigeria.[citation needed] That year he traveled to the Royal Corps of Signals at Catterick Garrison, England for a course on advanced telecommunications techniques. On his return to Nigeria in 1964, he was promoted to major and appointed officer-commanding, 1st Signal Squadron in Apapa, Lagos. In November 1965, he was made acting Chief of Signals of the Army, while his paternal uncle, Inuwa Wada had recently been appointed Defense Minister.
Unknown to Muhammed, majors planning the January 1966 coup recruited troops from the signal unit. The coup plotters later went on to assassinate leading politicians and soldiers from the Northern and Western region. After the coup plot failed, new military postings made by the new leader generated some discomfort in the North.[15] In April 1966, Muhammed was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel and was the inspector of signals[16] posted to Army Headquarters, Lagos in a move that was partly to pacify Northerners weary about the new military regime.[16] Muhammed was also appointed member of a Post and Telecommunications management committee. Muhammed opposed the regime of Johnson Aguiyi-Ironsi, which took power after a coup d’etat on 15 January 1966.
Aguiyi-Ironsi, as GOC of the Nigerian Army, brought normalcy back to the nation by imprisoning the coup makers and intimidating the federal cabinet into handing over the helms of government to him. However, many northerners saw this and the reluctance of Ironsi to prosecute the coup leaders, and the fact that the army was purportedly giving exceptional privileges to the coupist as an indication of Ironsi’s support for the killings. Consequently, northern politicians and civil servants mounted pressure upon northern officers such as Muhammed to avenge the coup. The promulgation of Decree No. 34 restructuring Nigeria from a federal constitutional structure to a unitary structure also raised suspicions among many Northern officers and Muhammed and a few others began to contemplate separation of the Northern region from the country.
At the start of the Nigerian Civil War, Muhammed was the commander of the newly established 2nd Infantry Division.[15] The 2 Division was responsible for the beating back of the Biafran Army from the Mid-West region, as well as crossing the River Niger and linking up with the 1 Division, which was advancing from Nsukka and Enugu. However, this was only achieved after several failed river crossings in which thousands of troops died as a result of drowning or enemy fire. During his time as commander, Muhammed was implicated in several violations of appropriate conduct; Lieutenant Ishola Williams, an officer who served under Muhammed alleged that he ordered the summary execution of Biafran prisoners of war.
In June 1968, he relinquished his commanding position and was posted to Lagos and appointed Inspector of Signals. In April 1968, he was promoted to colonel. The actions of the division during this period, mostly in Asaba became a subject of speculation. In a book published in 2017, S. Elizabeth Bird and Fraser Ottanelli document the 1967 mass murder of civilians by troops of the 2 Division under General Muhammed’s command. They also discuss the events leading up to the massacre, and its impact on Asaba and on the progress of the war, as well as other civilian massacres carried out by soldiers of the 2nd Division at Onitsha and Isheagu.
On 29 July 1975, General Yakubu Gowon was overthrown while attending the 12th summit of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) in Kampala, Uganda. Muhammed took power as the new Military Head of State.[24] Brigadiers Obasanjo (later Lt. General) and Danjuma (later Lt. General) were appointed as Chief of Staff, Supreme HQ and Chief of Army Staff, respectively.
Murtala Muhammed was married to his only wife Ajoke. They had six children together.[9] In order of elder to youngest: Aisha, Zakari (deceased), Fatima, Abba (also known as Risqua), Zeliha and Jummai.[36] Abba Muhammed was a Special Adviser to President Olusegun Obasanjo on Privatisation.
On 13 February 1976, General Muhammed set off for work along his usual route on George Street. Shortly after 8 a.m., his Mercedes Benz car traveled slowly in the infamous Lagos traffic near the Federal Secretariat at Ikoyi in Lagos and a group of soldiers (members of an abortive coup led by Dimka) emerged from an adjacent petrol station, ambushed the vehicle and assassinated Muhammed.[32]
Murtala Muhammed was killed, aged 37, along with his aide-de-camp, Lieutenant Akintunde Akinsehinwa, in his black Mercedes Benz saloon car on 13 February 1976. The car was ambushed en route to his office at Dodan Barracks, Lagos. The only visible sign of protection was a pistol carried by his orderly, making his assassination an easy task. The assassination was part of an attempted coup led by Lt. Col Buka Suka Dimka, he was executed on 15 May 1976[33] at the Kirikiri Maximum Security Prison in Lagos for treason.
He was succeeded by the Chief of Staff, Supreme HQ Olusegun Obasanjo, who completed his plan of an orderly transfer to civilian rule by handing power to Shehu Shagari on 1 October 1979. Today, Muhammed’s portrait adorns the 20 Naira note and Murtala Muhammed International Airport in Lagos is named in his honour.
