On July 29, 1975, while General Yakubu Gowon attended an OAU summit in Kampala, Uganda, a carefully orchestrated military coup back home removed him from power. It was a bloodless but seismic event, one that ended nine turbulent years of his rule and ushered in the short-lived but consequential regime of Murtala Muhammed. 

Drawing on interviews, insider accounts, and years of meticulous research, Dr. Omoigui unravels the full story of what happened and why. He examines the accumulating grievances within the officer corps: the chaotic aftermath of the civil war, the failure of post-war demobilization, rampant corruption among military governors and contractors, the controversial Udoji salary awards and their inflationary fallout, the failure to meet the promised handover to civilian rule, the scandalous land boundary disputes (including the Maroua Declaration and the Bakassi Peninsula question), and the growing alienation of key middle-ranking officers who would ultimately move against Gowon. 

The author details the conspiracy: the web of plotters including Brigadier Murtala Muhammed, Colonel T. Y. Danjuma, Colonel Joseph Garba, and others; the surveillance operations and rehearsals; the critical decisions made in the hours before the coup; and the precise sequence of events on July 29 itself, the seizure of Dodan Barracks, the neutralization of loyal units, and the broadcast that announced Gowon’s removal to a stunned nation. 

The consequences are traced in equal depth: the fate of Gowon himself, now in self-imposed exile; the purge of civil servants and military officers linked to his regime; the rapid early actions of the new administration; and the long shadow the ouster cast over Nigerian political life for decades to come. This section also serves as essential background to Book 2 in this series, Military Coups and the Federation of Nigeria: 1975–1990, providing the full context for the Murtala Muhammed era that followed. 

Why This Volume Matters 

Taken together, these two works reveal the deep structural fissures: tactical, institutional, political, and personal that ran through the Nigerian military in the decade from the civil war’s decisive campaigns through Gowon’s removal. They demonstrate how battlefield failures shape political outcomes, how personal rivalries and ethnic calculations determine command decisions, and how the memory of past grievances fuels future coups. 

Dr. Omoigui’s method is distinctive: he combines the rigor of primary source research with the intimacy of an insider’s voice, someone who personally knew many of the participants, who served with the Nigerian Army’s Brigade of Guards, and who spent decades collecting firsthand testimonies before his death on 18th April 2021. 

About the Author 

Dr. Nowamagbe A. Omoigui (1960–2021) graduated at the top of his medical school class at the University of Ibadan in 1981 and went on to become a cardiologist (MD, MPH, FACC). He is equally celebrated as one of Nigeria’s foremost chroniclers of military history, a body of work built through hundreds of interviews, personal relationships with military officers, and two decades of writing, research, and public engagement. His writings have been posthumously curated and published by the DAGOMO Foundation Nigeria Ltd/GTE. 

Published by: DAGOMO Foundation Nigeria Ltd/GTE, Benin-City, Edo State ISBN: 978-978-770-351-1 Pages: 172