Nigeria’s armed forces have cancelled all leave and called troops back to barracks, military sources said on Thursday, amid rumours that disgruntled officers have been canvassing support for a coup d’état.
”We security forces don’t take any rumour lightly. We’ve been banned from leaving our posts and whoever contravenes that order will be arrested and taken as a suspect in this coup rumour,” one naval captain said.
”Nobody knows, for now, how long this order will last,” he said, speaking on condition of anonymity and adding that he had personally been forced to cancel plans to travel home over the Easter holiday weekend.
Another senior officer said the ban came into effect last week, as rumours of a plot to overthrow President Olusegun Obasanjo surfaced.
The state-owned Daily Times newspaper, citing ”defence sources”, said that all leave has been cancelled and that no soldier, sailor or airman can leave his or her duties without the express permission of the defence minister.
Nigeria’s Defence Ministry and defence headquarters both separately refused to confirm or deny the report, but a naval spokesperson said: ”It’s not just naval personnel, it was defence headquarters that issued the order.”
Last week, Obasanjo’s spokesperson Remi Oyo said Nigeria’s intelligence agencies were probing ”what looks like a serious breach of security on the part of some military officers and apparent civilian collaborators”.
Asked to confirm reports that 28 senior officers had been held for questioning, she said, ”It’s a considerable number.”
Officials have so far played down fears that Africa’s most populous country — and the world’s sixth-largest exporter of crude oil — is at risk of suffering its sixth military putsch since 1966.
But Nigeria has been alive with coup-plot rumours since last week when Hamza al-Mustapha, former chief of security to the late military dictator Sani Abacha, was taken from a civilian jail by military intelligence agents.
Military sources, including an army general, said al-Mustapha was suspected of having links to the supposed plot, despite being held on remand on allegations he ordered the 1996 attempted murder of a newspaper publisher. — Sapa-AFP