Military command compound in Obalende that served as the official residence of the head of state from 1966 to 1991 (Gowon, Murtala/Obasanjo, Buhari, Babangida) — receiving more foreign heads of state and bilateral envoys than any other Nigerian site in that period.
Dodan Barracks was the seat of the Federal Military Government from the July 1966 counter-coup until the federal government's formal relocation to Abuja in December 1991. Every military head of state between Gowon and Babangida operated from Dodan; the Supreme Military Council met there; foreign ambassadors presented credentials there throughout the period.
Key diplomatic events at Dodan: the receipt of OAU and Commonwealth missions during the Civil War (1967–70); the Murtala–Obasanjo transition planning that produced the 1979 Constitution; the Babangida-era bilateral summits with Mitterrand, Mugabe, Mubarak, and US Secretary of State George Shultz.
Dodan was also the site of the 22 April 1990 Gideon Orkar coup attempt. The compound was attacked at dawn; Babangida escaped through the rear perimeter. The coup announcement, broadcast from Radio Nigeria Ikoyi, declared the temporary excision of five northern states — Sokoto, Borno, Kano, Katsina and Bauchi — from the federation, the only Nigerian coup declaration to attempt a unilateral redrawing of the federation's borders.
The compound remains a Nigerian Army headquarters facility but is no longer used for the head of state.