Word: murtala
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International travelers flying out of Nigeria's Murtala Muhammed International Airport in Lagos during the Christmas season are used to being hassled by security. Usually, it's a demand for tips and gifts. At every point of contact with officials, from check-in to final boarding, the requests are constant...
...Nevertheless, Ifeanyi Ukoha, 39, a banker in Lagos who flies from the Lagos airport regularly, insists the security at Murtala Muhammed International Airport is comparatively lax. "Unauthorized persons are allowed beyond the stipulated point mostly because they are in uniform," he says. "And security personnel will keep soliciting gratification, especially during festive seasons." (See what we can learn from Flight...
Driving from Murtala Muhammed Airport into downtown Lagos normally requires at least two hours. Last week it took barely 30 minutes: what traffic there was in the largest metropolis of one of the world's major oil producers bunched up at the few gas stations that still had fuel. Around those that had none, lines of abandoned vehicles fanned out in all directions. The effect was eerie, as if a neutron bomb had been dropped in the middle of the most populous country in Africa...
With the executions, Lieut. General Olusegun Obasanjo, who took over the government of Black Africa's largest and richest country after the killing of Murtala, made good on his promise to dole out military justice to those found guilty. Surprisingly, one of the executed officers was former Defense Minister I.D. Bisalla, who had helped bring Murtala to power in an earlier, successful coup last July. Bisalla and many of the others were apparently implicated in the plot by Lieut. Colonel B.S. Dimka, the man who led the Feb. 13 overthrow attempt. Dimka managed to stay at large for three...
...coup attempt, 125 people were arrested; 40 have been released. Aside from those already executed, several dozen others are still being interrogated, including Dimka himself. According to the Nigerian government, Dimka has also implicated Yakubu Gowon, the former head of state who was exiled after the coup that brought Murtala to power last July. Gowon, according to the government's charge, instructed Dimka to get together with Defense Minister Bisalla and attempt to overthrow the government. Their reasons for acting, said Nigeria's new defense chief, Brigadier Musa Yarduah, was the government's plan...