The Assassination of Murtala Mohammed

General Murtala Ramat Mohammed had come to power in the bloodless coup of 29 July 1975 that ended the Gowon administration and was, by early 1976, an unusually popular military Head of State — associated with the dismissal of corrupt officials, the announcement that the federal capital would move to Abuja, and the rapid-decision style captured in the phrase "with immediate effect." On 13 February 1976 he was assassinated in Lagos traffic in his black Mercedes en route to Dodan Barracks, as part of an attempted coup led by Lt-Col Buka Suka Dimka. The coup failed within hours. Dimka and his co-conspirators were tried by military tribunal and executed by firing squad at the Bar Beach in Lagos in April 1976. General Olusegun Obasanjo, Chief of Staff Supreme Headquarters, succeeded as Head of State and oversaw the completion of the transition programme that produced the Second Republic. Murtala's face is on the ₦20 note and Lagos's international airport bears his name. He remains one of the very few Nigerian Heads of State to have been assassinated in office.