Nigeria has inaugurated a General Court Martial to try 36 serving military personnel accused of involvement in a failed attempt to overthrow the government earlier this year, the country's Defence Headquarters announced on Friday. Judges were sworn in the same day, and more than 30 of the accused officers were transported to a military facility in the capital, Abuja, to begin proceedings. The trials are being conducted behind closed doors, and the identities of those facing charges have not yet been publicly disclosed.
The Defence Headquarters spokesman, Major General Samaila Uba, said the court would try the personnel on charges of mutiny, and pledged that "proceedings will be conducted with the highest standards of fairness." No timeline for a verdict has been announced. In a parallel legal process, six civilians — including retired major general Mohammed Ibrahim Gana — appeared before the Federal High Court earlier this week, pleading not guilty to charges of conspiring to wage war against the state and of threatening President Bola Tinubu. Prosecutors allege the civilian group also failed to inform authorities of the alleged plot, whose reported mastermind has been identified in local media as Colonel Mohammed Alhassan Ma'aji.
The path to Friday's court martial was not straightforward. Authorities initially denied any knowledge of a coup attempt when reports first emerged late last year. In January, however, the military reversed course, publicly confirming that it had thwarted a plot to overthrow the government and announcing its intention to prosecute those involved. Around the same time, President Tinubu moved to reshuffle the country's top military leadership, a decision widely interpreted as an effort to stabilise the armed forces in the wake of the revelations.
The case carries particular weight given Nigeria's history. Africa's most populous nation, with roughly 220 million people, gained independence from the United Kingdom in 1960 but spent much of the following four decades under military rule, experiencing a succession of coups and counter-coups. Civilian democratic governance was restored in 1999 and has been maintained for 25 years — a stretch that authorities say the alleged plot threatened to bring to an abrupt end.
The dual civilian and military proceedings signal a broad governmental effort to address the alleged conspiracy through established legal channels. How the trials unfold — and whether the identities of the accused officers are eventually made public — will be closely watched as a test of both institutional transparency and the resilience of Nigeria's democratic order.