Nigerian military authorities are set to try more than a dozen officers over allegations that they planned to overthrow the government last year, capping months of concerns about security in Africa’s largest democracy after a series of military takeovers in neighboring nations in recent years.
The Nigerian army arrested 16 service members in Oct. 2025 in what it initially described as a “routine exercise” over indiscipline and regulation breaches. Authorities, including the president’s office, dismissed news reports at the time linking the move to a coup plot and as the reason for the cancellation of Independence Day commemorations that month. The army’s move to now try the officers before a military judicial panel on coup plotting charges comes as campaigning for the 2027 presidential elections gets underway.
Atiku Abubakar, a former vice president and presidential candidate expected to contest again next year, compared life under President Bola Tinubu to Nigeria before the return to civilian rule. “Not even the military regimes before 1999 damaged our national life and consciousness in the way this administration has done,” Abubakar was quoted as saying at a book launch this week.