COL USMAN KAKANDA BELLO WAS KILLED WHILE DEFENDING HIS MASTER

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COL USMAN KAKANDA BELLO WAS KILLED WHILE DEFENDING HIS MASTER. 

The 1990 Nigerian coup d'état attempt was a military coup attempt which took place in Nigeria on 22 April 1990 when a faction of Armed Forces officers, led by Major Gideon Orkar, attempted to overthrow the government of General Ibrahim Babangida (who himself took power in the 1985 coup d'état). Rebel troops seized the FRCN radio station and various military posts around Lagos, including the military headquarters and presidential residence, the Dodan Barracks. Babangida was present when the barracks were attacked but managed to escape by a back route. In his coup address, Orkar called for the excision of five northern states of Nigeria.

COL U. K. BELLO

Around 1:40 am on a Sunday, the 22nd of April, 1990, the most fortified complex in Nigeria, the Dodan Barracks, which was the seat of power and the official residence of the military president and the Commander-in-Chief of the Nigerian Armed Forces, came under ferocious attack. The military president himself, 48-year-old General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida, was inside the building when the attackers launched their audacious siege. The lion was in the den when some soldiers totally dissatisfied with his government launched an offensive assault on Dodan Barracks. What was happening that night would turn out to be the bloodiest coup attempt in the history of the country.

A Colonel named Usman Kakanda Bello, better known as UK Bello. He was a prince from Paiko, a small village some 25 kilometers from the Niger State capital of Minna (Paiko is the capital of Paikoro Local Government Area of Niger State) and was of the same Gbagyi (Gwari) ethnic group like General Babangida. Bello was rudely awoken from sleep with the sound of intense gunfire. His residence was located just opposite that of the Commander-in-Chief. He quickly sprang to his feet and being the ADC that he was, he immediately established contact with the C-in-C upon hearing the initial gunfire and then went straight to check on the military president. Bello was the first person to alert the military president that it seemed like a coup was in progress. 

COL U. K. BELLO

 As Bello went to the Dodan Barracks, he was seen by Colonel Nyiam, who later accused UK Bello of pretending to be on the side of the coup plotters. UK Bello rushed to one of the armoured tanks stationed on the grounds of the Dodan Barracks and made attempts to fire at the coup plotters. That was where he was doomed. Unknown to UK Bello, the maintenance engineer who had come to check on the tanks few days before the coup had tampered with the tank removing the firing pins and deactivating all the tanks as he was part of the coup plotters. I must also chip in at this point that a day before the coup attempt, one of the plotters (who was the head guard) was playing a game of cards with Bello at the back porch inside Dodan Barracks when he asked him of the president’s whereabouts and Bello unknowingly gave the plotter the answer they needed. Bello had been excited as they were playing the game and had befriended the guy since their days in the barracks as both were from the same hometown.

 At that moment he entered the tank and attempted to fire, it was obvious UK Bello was not on the side of the coup plotters and he was instantly killed in the crossfire. He was killed inside the tank surrendering to a volley of bullets from dissident soldiers who had surrounded him. It was then around 2:00 am and the shelling of the president’s residence with heavy artillery continued nonstop. The goal was to ensure that even if Babangida was not captured alive, he should be killed in the gunfire. For the coup plotters, they had crossed the Rubicon. Since they were not sure of the room where IBB was, they turned their guns on all the rooms and kept firing indiscriminately. The pounding was so intense that they believed there was no way Babangida could have survived it only to be dissapponted later on as they discovered that Babangida was nowhere to be found. 

Orkar and 41 of his co-conspirators were confronted and captured by government troops. They were convicted of treason. On 27 July 1990, they were executed by firing squad.

Published by 

Captain Akaaba 

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