John Yahaya Madaki: The Personal Rift That May Have Saved Him from Execution After Nigeria’s 1976 Coup
In February 1976, the assassination of Nigeria’s Head of State, General Murtala Ramat Muhammed, plunged the country into another military crisis. The coup attempt led by Lieutenant-Colonel Bukar Suka Dimka was quickly suppressed, but the investigation that followed resulted in the detention, trial and execution of numerous military officers and civilians.
One officer who feared he might share their fate was John Yahaya Madaki, who had served as aide-de-camp to Major-General Iliya Bisalla, the Federal Commissioner for Defence. Madaki was connected to two men who later became central figures in the investigation: Bisalla, who was convicted and executed, and Dimka, who led the coup attempt.
Yet Madaki survived.
In an account published by journalist Mahmud Jega, based on an interview with Madaki in 1991, the former officer attributed his survival partly to a personal falling-out with Bisalla and partly to a meeting with Dimka that did not proceed as planned. His recollection offers a revealing personal perspective on how chance encounters and testimony could shape an individual’s experience of one of the most consequential military crises in Nigeria’s history.
A Young Officer Serving the Defence Commissioner
Madaki recalled that he had served for several years as aide-de-camp to Major-General Iliya Bisalla, who became Defence Commissioner under General Murtala Muhammed in 1975.
An aide-de-camp performs duties that may include assisting a senior officer with official engagements, correspondence and daily schedules. The position can bring an officer into close contact with the principal and other senior figures in the military establishment.
Madaki’s work placed him within Bisalla’s immediate circle. However, according to his account, their relationship deteriorated in early 1976 after a dispute involving Madaki’s wife and a medical emergency.
The Dispute That Changed Their Relationship
Madaki said he accompanied Bisalla on a trip to Kano early in 1976. After several days away, he managed to telephone his wife in Lagos. She told him that she was seriously ill and bleeding but had no vehicle to take her to hospital.
Concerned, Madaki asked whether she had requested transport from Bisalla’s wife. According to his recollection, his wife had made the request but was told, “Am I your MTO?”—a reference to the military transport arrangements for which an officer’s transport officer would ordinarily be responsible.
Madaki then approached Bisalla to explain the emergency. He expected his superior to intervene, but recalled that Bisalla supported his wife’s response instead.
Angered by what he considered a lack of concern for his family, Madaki left and travelled back to Lagos to attend to his wife.
He subsequently sought reassignment from the military secretary. According to the account, he was told that he could not be moved from his position as the Defence Commissioner’s aide-de-camp without Bisalla’s approval.
Madaki therefore left Lagos for Kaduna, where he spent time at the Nigerian Defence Academy’s Officers’ Mess.
This episode is known through Madaki’s retrospective account rather than an independently documented official record of the private conversation. Its significance lies in the way he later connected the breakdown in his relationship with Bisalla to the events that followed.
The Public Snub at the Officers’ Mess
Madaki recalled that Bisalla later visited Kaduna, where officers organised a reception for the Defence Commissioner at the Nigerian Defence Academy’s Officers’ Mess.
Other officers persuaded Madaki to attend. He said that approximately 60 officers lined up to greet Bisalla, who shook hands with those in the line. When Bisalla reached Madaki, however, he allegedly ignored him and moved on to the next person.
The incident was witnessed by other officers, according to Madaki.
In hindsight, the public snub became important because it helped demonstrate that his relationship with Bisalla had broken down before the coup attempt. If Madaki had been involved in a conspiracy alongside his former superior, the visible estrangement could help explain why he was no longer acting as Bisalla’s close aide.
It was not, by itself, proof of innocence. But Madaki later said that officers who witnessed the incident testified about it during the investigation.
The Meeting with Bukar Suka Dimka
In early February 1976, Lieutenant-Colonel Bukar Suka Dimka arrived in Kaduna and stayed at the Nigerian Defence Academy’s Officers’ Mess. According to Madaki, Dimka asked him to meet him there at 7 a.m. the following day.
Madaki believed that Dimka, who was close to Bisalla, might be attempting to persuade him to return to his former superior. He therefore avoided the early meeting.
At the time, preparations were under way for an international military golf championship in Kaduna. Madaki said he went to the golf course to assist with arrangements and arrived to see Dimka around 1 p.m.
He recalled that Dimka and several other officers had just emerged from the Officers’ Mess. Dimka reprimanded him for arriving late and invited him to travel with him to Kaduna airport, saying they could talk on the way.
According to Madaki, a civilian relative of Dimka then appeared, and Dimka invited the man to join them in the vehicle as well. Madaki believed the relative’s presence prevented Dimka from discussing the matter he had intended to raise privately.
At the airport, Madaki recalled, Dimka said that he had something important to discuss but would have to leave it until another time.
Madaki later interpreted the encounter as a missed opportunity for Dimka to discuss the planned coup with him. The account does not independently establish what Dimka intended to say; that interpretation comes from Madaki’s recollection of the encounter and the events that followed.
The Coup Attempt of 13 February 1976
On 13 February 1976, Dimka and other dissident officers attempted to overthrow the government. General Murtala Muhammed was assassinated in Lagos, and Colonel Ibrahim Taiwo, the Military Governor of Kwara State, was also killed.
The coup attempt was defeated by forces loyal to the government. Lieutenant-General Olusegun Obasanjo succeeded Muhammed as Head of State, and the authorities began investigating the plot and identifying those believed to have participated in it.
The investigation led to the arrest of a large number of military personnel and civilians. Some were released for lack of evidence; others faced military proceedings and punishment.
Bisalla was among the senior officers convicted in connection with the coup attempt. He was executed by firing squad on 11 March 1976, alongside other convicted defendants.
Dimka was captured later and was executed on 15 May 1976 with six other convicted men. The executions therefore took place in separate phases rather than all occurring on the same day.
Madaki’s Arrest and Detention
Madaki recalled that military police arrived in Kaduna after the coup and arrested people who had met Dimka during his visit. Because he had been seen with Dimka, he too was detained.
According to his account, he spent approximately three months in detention while investigators examined his possible involvement.
Two pieces of evidence, he said, helped his case. First, officers testified that Bisalla had publicly snubbed him at the reception, supporting his account that their relationship had broken down before the coup. Second, Madaki said Dimka confirmed during interrogation that they had not discussed the coup because Madaki had arrived too late for the intended meeting.
These details come from Madaki’s account as reported by Mahmud Jega. They have not been independently established here through the full investigation file or official interrogation records, so they should be understood as Madaki’s explanation of why he was eventually released.
Nevertheless, his survival contrasts with the fate of senior officers and other defendants who were convicted and executed.
The Executions and Their Historical Context
The executions following the February 1976 coup attempt were among the most publicised episodes of military justice in Nigeria’s post-independence history.
On 11 March 1976, a group of convicted officers and a civilian were executed in Lagos following proceedings before a military tribunal. Contemporary reporting and human-rights documentation differed in their counts and descriptions, but they confirm that the executions were carried out publicly and attracted considerable attention.
A second group, including Dimka, was executed in May.
The proceedings generated questions about military justice, the secrecy of the trials and the use of capital punishment. Amnesty International’s report for 1975–1976 recorded the March executions and the later execution of Dimka and six others, while contemporary reporting described the public spectacle surrounding the punishments.
Madaki’s story belongs within this wider context. His account illustrates how people associated with a failed coup could face detention and investigation even when their actual involvement remained uncertain.
A Survival Shaped by Circumstance
John Yahaya Madaki’s account presents an extraordinary sequence of events: a family emergency that damaged his relationship with a senior officer, a public snub witnessed by colleagues, and a delayed meeting with the man who would soon lead a coup attempt.
Madaki believed these events helped save his life. His estrangement from Bisalla gave him a way to explain why he was no longer serving closely alongside the Defence Commissioner, while the late meeting with Dimka supported his claim that they had not discussed the planned operation.
The account is a personal recollection, not a complete official reconstruction of the investigation. Yet it preserves a valuable perspective on the uncertainty and fear surrounding the aftermath of the 1976 coup attempt.
Madaki later held senior public responsibilities, including serving as Military Governor of Katsina State. His story reminds us that the history of political crises is shaped not only by the leaders and plotters whose names dominate headlines, but also by the people who found themselves caught in the investigations that followed.
Conclusion
John Yahaya Madaki narrowly avoided the fate of officers and civilians executed after the failed February 1976 coup, according to his own recollection. He attributed his survival to the breakdown of his relationship with Iliya Bisalla and to a meeting with Bukar Suka Dimka that, he said, took place too late for any discussion of the planned coup.
The wider historical record confirms the assassination of Murtala Muhammed, the failed coup, the detention of numerous suspects and the executions that followed. The finer details of Madaki’s personal story remain grounded primarily in his interview with journalist Mahmud Jega.
Taken together, the account and the wider record offer a glimpse into a tense period when a personal dispute, an unexpected delay and the testimony of other officers could become crucial elements in a man’s attempt to clear his name.
Sources
- Mahmud Jega, “How Madaki Narrowly Missed Execution,” Trust Radio, 10 January 2018.
- Mahmud Jega, “How John Madaki Narrowly Escaped Execution Over 1976 Coup,” Global Upfront Newspapers, 1 March 2025.
- Amnesty International, The Amnesty International Report 1975–1976.
- TIME, “Nigeria: Festival of Death,” 22 March 1976.
- Africa Contemporary Record, 1975–1976, account of the attempted coup and subsequent proceedings.
- The Nigeria Year Book 1976, historical account of the February coup attempt.
source credit : West African Military Rulers: 1960s–1990s.
Additional credit: Clara Dike Wall, Home of History.