Friday, February 20th 1976 and Tuesday, February 17th 1976.
Footage of Nigeria 's military leaders leaving memorial services held one week after the assassination of General Murtala Muhammed, the Head of State, during an abortive coup carried out by Lt. Colonel Bukar Sukar Dimka on Friday, February 13th 1976.
Muhammed was buried 36 hours later in his hometown of Kano in Northern Nigeria. Seven days of national mourning were declared at the end of which memorial services were held in Christian churches and mosques throughout the country.
Muhammed's successor, Lt. General Olusegun Obasanjo, attended a memorial service at Lagos Cathedral, while the military governor of Lagos State, Navy Captain Adekunle Lawal and the his naval colleague, Captain Husaini Abdullahi, a member of the Supreme Military Council appointed the previous month as military governor of Bendel State, were among the military leaders who attended a service at Lagos Central Mosque.
A few days earlier, student demonstrators ransacked the premises of the British High Commission and that of Reuters News Agency. Anti-British feeling had built up after it was revealed that Lt. Colonel Dimka had visited the British High Commissioner in Lagos in order to relay a message to the former Head of State General Yakubu Gowon, who was living in exile in England. General Gowon had been overthrown the previous July in a bloodless coup while he was at an OAU conference in Uganda.
The students carried placards and banners that read 'No Room For Traitors in Nigeria' and 'CIA Go Home - You Killed Muhammed'. They also called for Gowon to be extradited; singing the refrain "Gowon Ole" ("Gowon Thief") as they swarmed the roads.
Source of footage: Reuters News Archive.
