The coup that wasn’t, until it was

As the saying goes, what has horn must not be hid in a sack. When in October last year reports emerged of a foiled plot to overthrow the Nigerian government, the military and the government denied the reports. The objective of this denial, ostensibly, is to foster a sense of stability in the country. But […]

As the saying goes, what has horn must not be hid in a sack. When in October last year reports emerged of a foiled plot to overthrow the Nigerian government, the military and the government denied the reports. The objective of this denial, ostensibly, is to foster a sense of stability in the country. But the government’s action betrayed what it was trying to convey.

A major culling in the ranks of the military followed, resulting in the abrupt retirement of dozens of generals, including the then Chief of Defence Staff, Chris Musa. Not long after that, the Minister of Defence, Abubakar Badaru, was sacked and replaced by the now-retired General Musa.

However, this week, the military has confirmed that there was indeed a plot to overthrow the government and that some of the 16 officers arrested at that time may be facing a court martial for their offences, as confirmed by the military spokesman Samaila Uba.

The government and the military’s denials of the coups had been with so much gusto despite the strong media reports. But the admission of the coup and the announcement of the impending trial had been made with lame commitment. The question is: what has changed? New evidence, which the media has been trumpeting about since last year, or the political calculation?

The flip-flopping serves only to undermine public trust in the authorities and creates a credibility crisis when what you need the most is to build trust and confidence, which is not usually achieved by telling lies. Sadly, this is not the first time we are dealing with terrible information management at moments that need the greatest clarity and trust. Winning public trust is not denying a crisis until it becomes undeniable. It is managing that information in a way that restores confidence. Just last week, the police denied a mass abduction in Kaduna only to make a U-turn and admit that it did happen, centering the conversation on the lie the institution told when it could have been tackling the crisis.

The consequence of this sort of information mismanagement is that instead of Nigerians gathering to roundly condemn an attempt to violate our democracy, we were compelled to debate whether there was a plot or not, and now, why the government lied about it. Instead of asking questions that matter, we were busy swatting at rumours. A government that denies a coup plot one day and prosecutes it the next is asking citizens to believe everything and nothing at once.

One of the crucial questions we should be asking is why in 2026 a military coup still seems like a viable solution to Nigeria’s problems to anyone. Yes, there is an economic crisis; there are, and have always been, security failures, with at least 50 Nigerians killed in January alone. Despite intelligence warnings, there has been an exponential rise in poverty levels, and regional tensions have been what they have always been: high and testy. But a military coup is not, and hasn’t been, the answer.

This is not our first rodeo. We have been through this cycle at least eight times before: six successful coups (if one counts the January 1966 coup that ousted the Balewa government) and at least seven major failed attempts and plots.

Each successful coup has failed spectacularly to solve the problem it purported to want to address the first time. If we are being honest, democracy hasn’t actually solved our problems either, but it has remained a government by Nigerians, on our own terms, relatively speaking. After 27 years of democracy, it would be foolhardy to jeopardise that for a tenuous “revolutionary” fever plague that has left Africa in the lurch.

Despite the abundance of resources in Africa, 200 coups on the continent since independence, at least 100 successful ones, have seen this continent stagnate economically, perpetually at odds with itself socially, and shambolic infrastructure-wise. If history has taught us anything, it is that military coups have not been the rescue missions each one has promised to be.

To have lived through the arbitrariness of the circles of coups that have blotched this nation’s history, to have had stable, if not stellar, democracy, and to still long for a coup is to harbour the desire to subvert the will of the people. Tinubu might have been the Nigerian president with the least number of popular votes, but he still won the elections, even if contested. He might not be everyone’s cup of tea, but he has the mandate to govern this country as stipulated by the constitution until Nigerians, through the power of the ballot—not soldiers through the power of bullets—decide otherwise.

There are security failures that might have fuelled the angst and would probably have provided the coup plotters with the greatest justification for their planned intervention, but if truth be told, the military itself is complicit in these failures. Yes, the insecurity that has plagued Nigeria predates this administration; yes, the president has promised during his campaigns to end insecurity and has so far not delivered on that promise. A former general, President Muhammadu Buhari, with his military experience and background, also failed to address this.

If there is an argument to be made that perhaps a military head of state might handle this better, one only needs to look to the Republic of Niger and Mali to dispel such thoughts. While in the former, terrorists have continued their operations almost unimpeded, in the latter, the country has lost more territory to the terrorists.

Since the coup in Mali in 2020, the country has lost 60 per cent of its territory to the terrorist group JNIM, which controls twice the territory it held before the coup, and which, at the end of 2025, laid a month-long siege over the capital, Bamako. That was how close Mali came to falling to a terrorist group under military leadership.

Even Burkina Faso, under the poster boy of the recent coups in West Africa, Ibrahim Traore, has witnessed a 144 per cent increase in fatalities in terrorist-related violence. Since the charismatic Capt. Traore seized power in 2022, fatalities linked to the terrorist violence have almost tripled in the past three years, reaching 17,775 deaths. In comparison, 6,630 deaths were recorded in the three-year period prior to Traoré’s coup. At the moment, the capital, Ouagadougou, is almost completely encircled by the terrorists.

Finding a justification for a coup is one thing; understanding the real motivation is quite another. While most coups have always made grand altruistic claims as justifications—from ridding countries of corrupt, tribalistic regimes to centering the needs of the people or rescuing democracy—we have seen that in the end, the real motivation has been the officers’ greed and avarice.

Mobutu Sese Seko made similar grand claims when he overthrew his benefactor Patrice Lumumba and eventually took over the country that he robbed blind. We have seen that play out countless times, even in Nigeria, where a coup that was meant to eradicate tribalism failed on account of it and entrenched even deeper ethnic and regional tensions.

While this coup plot has been foiled and the military has finally admitted what every Nigerian had known since the news first broke last year, questions still remain. What does this coup reveal about the current administration’s relationship with the military?

While President Obasanjo’s brutal culling of the military in 1999 when he came to power helped rid the transference of the coup culture in the military, the history has remained and so have the possibilities of both external instigation and foreign inspiration, like the recent coups that have plagued Nigeria’s neighbours.

President Tinubu has maintained a steady relationship with the military until he recently had to cull the top hierarchy of the military in the wake of the coup rumours. Every Nigerian president since 1999 has had to manage the delicate dance with an institution that once ruled the country and took power at whim. Some have been more successful than others, but no one says it is easy.

That is why the trials for this coup plot ought to be transparent and fair so as not to cause further disaffection in the military, but also to send a clear message to anyone else harbouring such intentions.

It is also a message to the government to do better and stay connected not only with the military but with the pains that Nigerians are feeling and the realities of life in these very difficult times in the country.