Orkar Coup: They Wanted To D0molish Jeba And Benue Bridges, And Then We Would Secede–Col Nyiam (rtd)

A retired Nigerian Army officer, Col. Anthony Nyiam, has shared new details about the 1990 Orkar coup, explaining that some of the officers involved had plans he strongly disagreed with.

According to him, the movement began among a group of young officers, many of whom were from the Niger Delta and felt deeply frustrated about how their region and Southern Nigeria were being treated. Their concerns pushed them to secretly organize and seek change.

Nyiam said he was invited to meet the group through a colleague. When he attended the meeting, he discovered that the officers had already been planning for months. He described them as passionate and genuinely concerned about the country’s future, which made it difficult for him to report them to the authorities.

Faced with the choice of either exposing them or joining their cause, he decided to stay involved. However, he soon realized that he did not agree with some of their strategies.

One major plan that troubled him was the idea of destroying key national bridges, including those at Jebba and over the Benue River. The intention behind this, he explained, was to isolate parts of the country and make it easier for them to break away.

Nyiam made it clear that he opposed any plan to divide Nigeria, insisting that he could not support separating from his own country.