Amaechi Turbaned As ‘Trusted One Of Daura’ in Katsina

I was the early morning duty continuity announcer on Friday 13 February 1976, exactly 45 years ago. My shift commenced at 5:30 am and would have finished at 11:30 am. Things were going on smoothly until about 7:20 am when a rather scruffy man with red eyes as though under the influence of alcohol or other substances, in army uniform and armed with a gun, walked into the continuity studio with another army officer and one of my colleagues, a producer in the Hausa Service of Voice of Nigeria. The scruffy officer was later to announce that he was Dimka. He said as they came in, ‘any resistance from these people, shoot’. He then demanded to use my microphone. I got up and he took over my seat and my microphone. He then announced that there had been a coup and that the Head of State, General Murtala Mohammed had been killed. He proceeded to make the infamous ‘dawn to dusk curfew’. He read from a scrap of paper. After the announcement he asked if I had military (martial music) to which I said no. The colleague who accompanied the officers left immediately and returned quite quickly with a compilation of martial music records possibly from the music library. He seemed to have pre-compiled them. I was commanded to play them after Dimka’s announcement. I was not overly scared at this point. I thought to myself, ’just do as you are told’ especially as the man was armed with a gun.