- Tenure
- 1984 — 1985
- Era
- Second Military Era (1983 — 1999)
- Mode of entry
- Coup of 31 December 1983
- Mode of exit
- Overthrown in the palace coup of 27 August 1985
War Against Indiscipline. Decree 2 (detention without trial). Decree 4 (press) used to jail Tunde Thompson and Nduka Irabor of The Guardian. Overthrown by Babangida and detained for three years.
Major-General Muhammadu Buhari (b. 1942, Daura, Katsina), GOC 3rd Armoured Division at Jos, led the 31 December 1983 coup against Shagari with Brigadier Tunde Idiagbon as his second-in-command. The Supreme Military Council enacted the War Against Indiscipline, the most disciplinarian regulatory programme in Nigerian peacetime history.
Decree 4 of 1984 made it a criminal offence to publish material that 'embarrassed' a public official, even if true; under it Tunde Thompson and Nduka Irabor of The Guardian were jailed for one year. The botched attempt to abduct former minister Umaru Dikko from London in a diplomatic crate (5 July 1984) ruptured Anglo-Nigerian relations for years.
Buhari was overthrown by his Chief of Army Staff Major-General Ibrahim Babangida in a bloodless palace coup on 27 August 1985 and detained at Benin City until 1988. He would return — as an elected civilian — thirty years later (see Era VI).
Tier 1 · primary
Courts. Gazettes. National archives.
Tier 2 · corroborating
OCCRP. HRW. BudgIT. TheCable.
Tier 4 · tertiary, flagged
Wikipedia only where primary is pending. Always labelled.