A retired Nigerian Army officer, Anthony Nyiam, has explained his involvement in the Orkar Coup, saying he was faced with a difficult decision after learning about the plot.
In a video shared by The Legacy Series, according to him, some young officers, mostly from the Niger Delta, were unhappy about how their region and parts of Southern Nigeria were being treated. They began holding secret meetings and eventually reached out to him through a colleague, asking him to speak with the then Head of State, Ibrahim Babangida, about their concerns.
When he met them, he discovered they had already been planning a coup for months. He said he saw them as intelligent and genuinely worried about the country’s future. In the military, he explained, anyone who hears about a coup is expected to either report it or become part of it.
Nyiam chose to join them but disagreed with some of their ideas. He opposed plans to destroy major bridges, such as Jebba and Benue, as part of a strategy to divide the country. He believed such actions would cause unnecessary damage and deepen national problems.
He also rejected the idea of breaking away from Nigeria, insisting that he could not support separating from his own country.
In his words, “I had a choice either to go and report them, because in the military, if you hear anything, you’ll report, or you will join. And from the point of view of good conscience, I couldn’t go and report them….See More
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