Word: murtala
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Flags hung limply at half-mast in the oppressive heat of Lagos. Throughout Nigeria public meetings and other events were canceled. For seven days Africa's most populous nation (estimated at 60 million) officially mourned Head of State Murtala Mohammed, who was killed during an attempted coup on Friday...
Nigeria, black Africa's richest and potentially most powerful state, has been unable to live up to its promise. Only six years ago the country pulled itself out of the devastating Biafran civil war. Murtala himself had come to power only seven months ago, after a successful coup deposed former Head of State General Yakubu...
...conspirators' one grim success came when they caught Murtala's black Mercedes limousine in a morning rush-hour traffic jam in Lagos. Raking the car with machine-gun fire, the plotters killed Murtala, his chauffeur and an aide. Shortly thereafter, Coup Leader Lieut. Colonel B.S. Dimka and six associates seized the Lagos radio station and announced that they were taking over the government. But there was no support for the action in the army and outlying states, and Dimka soon realized that he was finished. Hands in pockets, he jauntily said, "Excuse me," walked out of the Lagos...
Following a round-the-clock meeting, the Federal Military Council named a new ruler: former Armed Forces Chief of Staff Lieut. General Olusegun Obasanjo, 38. Trained as an engineer in Britain and India, Obasanjo commanded the division that broke the back of the Biafran insurgency in 1970. Under Murtala, the tough, respected Obasanjo had been the regime's chief spokesman, more involved in managing day-to-day affairs than his somewhat aloof boss...
...being helped on the battlefield by some 7,500 Cubans. The M.P.L.A.'S supporters at the O.A.U. included all the former Portuguese African colonies, as well as such leftist states as Guinea, Somalia and Algeria; they endorsed a resolution proposed by Nigeria's strongman, General Murtala Mohammed, urging the recognition of the M.P.L.A. as the legitimate government of Angola. The resolution also called on the O.A.U. to aid the M.P.L.A. in its fight against its two Western-backed opponents, the National Front for the Liberation of Angola (F.N.L.A.) and the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola...