Word: junta
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...they had secured the radio and television stations in Lagos and had begun to take prominent politicians into custody. They temporarily cut international telephone and telex lines and closed down airports, border posts and the port of Lagos. At 7:30, a member of the new junta, Brigadier Sana Abacha, announced over Nigerian radio that the Shagari government had been overthrown. For the most part, Nigerians seemed to accept the news with a shrug and an instinct that the change was not going to make matters any worse...
...only reported bloodshed occurred in the partly completed capital, Abuja. When soldiers went to the official residence to arrest President Shagari, their commander, Brigadier Ibrahim Bako,.was shot dead by a bodyguard. Shortly afterward, Shagari surrendered and was taken into custody. The junta subsequently denied early reports that he had been brought to Lagos in handcuffs...
Buhari moved swiftly to reassure both his countrymen and foreign governments of his junta's intentions. He declared that the 1983 elections had been "anything but free and fair" and complained that the Shagari government was turning Nigeria into "a nation of beggars." He stressed that people were worried about the rising prices of such basic foods as rice, sugar, yams and tomatoes, and pointed out that many civil servants had not been paid for months. "The armed forces could not stand idly by," he said, "while the country was drifting toward a dangerous state of political and economic collapse...
Most Western countries, including the U.S., believed that the generals would maintain most of the previous government's external policies and were probably sincere in their desire to put Nigeria into better working order. The junta, however, has inherited Shagari's balance sheet and most of his problems. Food prices fell sharply, if temporarily, in Lagos last week. But it will take more than the announcement of a crackdown on profiteering to make Nigeria self-sufficient in food production, as it had been until a few years ago. As for corruption, it has long been endemic in Nigerian life...
...Former Army Commander in Chief Cristino Nicolaides, 59, and former Navy Commander Ruben Oscar Franco, 54, both of the last junta, who are accused of obstructing an investigation into the disappearance of Communist Party Member Ines Ollero, detained by uniformed men in 1977 and never seen again...