The Minister of Defence, General Christopher Musa (retd.), has revealed that he was among those marked for arrest by officers accused of plotting to overthrow President Bola Tinubu, adding that the plan was to shoot him if he resisted.
Musa disclosed this on Sunday during an interview on Channels Television’s Sunday Politics, days after the military announced that 16 officers arrested in October 2025 would face trial over an alleged coup plot. The former Chief of Defence Staff said he later became aware that his name was on the list of targets identified by the plotters.
According to him, the intention was to arrest him, but he was to be shot if he refused to comply. “I was also a target. I was supposed to be arrested, and if I refused, I was supposed to be shot,” Musa said.
He described coup plotting as an extreme act that carries grave consequences, noting that anyone who attempts it does so with full awareness of the risks involved. However, he dismissed the accused officers as unserious individuals who grossly underestimated both the Nigerian Armed Forces and the Nigerian people.
Musa said the plotters failed to understand that Nigerians, given their long resistance to military rule, would not have supported any attempt to subvert democratic governance. “Even without the armed forces, Nigerians would have stood against them,” he stated.
The military had earlier announced the arrest of 16 officers for acts of indiscipline and breaches of service regulations. However, further investigations later linked some of them to allegations of attempting to overthrow the government.
The Director of Defence Information, Maj. Gen. Samaila Uba, said officers found to have cases to answer would be arraigned before a military judicial panel in line with the Armed Forces Act, stressing that due process and fairness would be observed.
