When Lt Col. Bukar Dimka of the Nigeria Army Physical
Training Corps stepped out of his official residence on Macpherson Road, Ikoyi,
in the early hours of February 13, 1976, he had on agenda in mind; to kill the
then Head of State , General Murtala Muhammed .
According to the lone survivor and orderly to the Head of
State, Staff Sergeant Michael Otowu, who recalled the event of that day in an
Interview with The Authority Daily, he narrated;
“On the morning of that February 13, we were going to the office.
Sergeant Adamu Michaka was the driver, Sergeant Akintunde Akinterinwa, his ADC,
sat behind the driver. As an orderly, I was in front with the driver while the
Head of State sat behind me, as I was the one who opens the door for him.
That fateful day, I came up in the morning to carry him to
the office in Dodan Barracks. We got to the former secretariat, now at Ikoyi,
which was under construction before the place they call Alagbon junction, near
the labour office.
The official car was a Mercedes Benz 600. It is still at the
national museum. There was about four or five vehicles in front of us. You
know, at that junction, there was traffic. During his time, we didn’t go out
with sirens or escorts with accompanying out-riders, road-closed signs and all
that, and so when we got to the Alagbon junction, the traffic warden stopped
the vehicle and we were in a queue. We were the fifth or sixth vehicle behind
the forward vehicles that were stopped.
That secretariat was under construction, so they put zincs
around the compound behind the secretariat. Then some soldiers came in Agbada
carrying AK-47 rifles. They wore uniforms but covered them with Agbada . They
had their Kalashnikovs with Agbada cover-up in form of camouflage. We never
knew they were waiting for us. Then one soldier from Golf road shot and got our
driver, Sergeant Machika, our motor was neutralized.
Between me and the driver was an arm-rest. On the arm-rest
was Oga’s brief case. In this brief case he puts civil dress he could use as
needed. When he wants to go to the mosque, he doesn’t like to go to Ikoyi to
change.
Then some other soldiers converged on us. I can’t recall
their number. They began to spray us from the back. All of us took cover. I
fell on top of the driver; the blood of the driver covered my head. They
thought the bullet got my head.
After the first shooting and without return of fire they
must have assumed that we were all dead. The shooting was actually in two
phases. They ran to the NBC to announce the assassination. They shared themselves
into three.
There was a group waiting for Obasanjo when he was about to go to the office. Also,
another group was waiting for TY Danjuma at Bourdillion- our own was at Ikoyi
Road. It happened that we were the first target that moved early from the house
to the office.
Before Obasanjo and TY Danjuma moved to their offices, they
had already heard the radio announcement. By the time of the first shooting, we
being the target and their running to NBC to go and announce that they have
already finished their assignment, the ADC who was still alive, thinking they
were gone, opened the door of the Benz.
In the first spraying of the car, except the driver who was
killed, the three of us were injured but not dead. On observing the car door
opening, one of the attackers, still within range, a Major, called to others:
‘he never die, he never die’. He was calling his group to return.
This time around when they came back they finished their
entire magazines. That was what happened. They carried everybody to the mortuary
at Igbosere hospital, not far from Kam Salem police headquarters. Because of
the extreme cold in the mortuary, at my hand started shaking and one of the
attendants saw it and called the nurses or doctors and said somebody was alive.
They checked and confirmed that I was breathing, so they
looked for a vehicle to carry me to Dodan barracks. From Dodan barracks, they
looked for an ambulance and carried me to a hospital, Awolowo Road Hospital, a Military Hospital.
Murtala, along with his entourage, was killed in a hail of
bullets, a task that was made all easier because the only visible sign of
protection was a pistol carried by his Orderly.
His assassination was part of a coup attempt led by Lt Col.
Buka Suka Dimka, who was the head of the Nigerian Army Physical Training Corps.
He was succeeded by the Chief of Staff, Supreme HQ Olusegun
Obasanjo, who completed his plan as an orderly transfer to civilian rule by
handing power to Shehu Shagari on October 1, 1979.
Today, Murtala Muhammed’s portrait adorns the 20 Naira note
and the Murtala Muhammed International Airport in Lagos is named after his
honour.
Source: legit.ng, Ourpage9ja
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