So Murtala Muhammed didn’t dïe immediately he was first shot at?
Photo: Otuwe at the hospital and late General Murtala Muhammed
In an interview with the Daily Trust of Friday, 12 February, 2016, Muhammed’s orderly, Master Warrant Officer Michael Otuwe (rtd) gave vivid details of how the attack happened. He said:

“He (Murtala Muhammed) was assassïnated on July 29, 1976 (starts shedding tears). He ruled for six months from July 29, 1975 to February 13, 1976. He was a very good man as he did not allow the goods (personal effects) of General Gowon to be thrown out but to be removed gently and for the house to be renovated before he relocated from Dodan Barracks.

“That was why he was shuttling from Ikoyi without pilot cars, motorbike outriders, armed military and security bodyguards among others. He only rode in the official Mercedes Benz car with two flags the national flag on the left and the armed forces flag on the right. On that fateful day, we passed through Federal Secretariat in Ikoyi which was undergoing renovation and covered with zinc.

“When we reached Alagbgon Junction the traffic man did not notice the flags, he would have allowed the traffic in our direction to continue moving, but he stopped the five or six cars in front of us then I saw some people in agbada (Babanriga) and when they lifted them up they brought out AK-47 rifles and fired at us. Already a masked man had got the driver, Sergeant Adamu Michika, in the head and he feel on the arm-rest where the suit case containing the General’s mufti was.

“I took cover and fell on the driver. The General and the ADC also took cover. When the assassins left and were heading to National Broadcasting Corporation – Radio House – to announce the takeover, one of the Majors turned and saw when the ADC opened the door to help the General, the Major shouted and notified his colleagues that they were alive. This made them to turn and rush back and emptied there bullets in us. I was the only survivor as I was shot in the arm and the hip.
The troops loyal to General Murtala came after the soldiers and they took us to the mortuary. I recovered from coma when the breeze from the air conditioner and the pain woke me up. A mortuary attendant notice that I raised my hand and he alerted a doctor who said I was alive and they took me to Dodan Barracks and then to a hospital on Awolowo Road Ikoyi.