General Godwin Alabi- Isama

13 February was the 45th anniversary of General Murtala Mohammed’s death. That day, his aide-de-camp, Lieutenant Akintunde Akintehinwa also died. That was in the coup led by Lt. Col Buka Suka Dimka.

However, General Godwin Alabi- Isama would have been killed the same day but what saved him was the boat his mother bought for him. He revealed this in an interview with TheNEWS.

“When I was transferred to Lagos, after Murtala’s coup, I wanted a house by the waterside so that I could use boat. They couldn’t give me a place by the waterside. So I had a house at No 1 Rumens Road. So when the Army was not going to give me a boat, they gave me a staff car. With traffic in Lagos? I got a boat. My mother bought me a boat. And so during Dimka’s coup, Murtala had been killed, there was so much traffic. Danjuma, Domkat Bali and even the commander of the Navy, Adelanwa,  came to me, asking to enter my boat to work. That was how we bypassed Dimka’s ambush. We went by boat.

“And so of course we got to the office. General Alani Akinrinade was waiting for me. And there was a lady that called and Akinrinade picked the phone. She said, “Alabi, Alabi, they just killed the Head of State . You people should run from the office now. There is a coup.” I said coup?  We’ve just come back from war front. Who the hell? We tuned the radio on. It was Dimka.  Ah. Dimka had just come back from Madrid meeting with me. Dimka would organize a coup in this country and I would go and hide somewhere? Iro ni (it’s a lie). So we started looking for him. That’s another story.”

Expect the full interview soon