On Wednesday, the Nigerian Presidency announced the passing of Taoreed Lagbaja, Chief of Army Staff (COAS), weeks after his noticeable absence from public functions and after trying to dispel rumours of his death.
Bayo Onanuga, Special Adviser to the President on Information and Strategy, stated that Lagbaja died on Tuesday night, 32 years into his career in the Nigerian Army.
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However, Lagbaja won’t be the first security chief to die in active service.
Egalitarian Voice looks back at a list of Nigerian service chiefs who died in office.
WAHEED AYILARA, AUGUST 2024
On August 29, Waheed Ayilara, the serving commissioner of police in Akwa Ibom State, died after only four months in office.
He had previously served as Lagos’ acting commissioner of police in November 2023, before his deployment to Akwa Ibom in February.
Ayilara was an alumnus of the University of Ibadan where he bagged a law degree and then a master’s degree in the same profession from the University of Lagos.
He joined the Nigeria Police Force (NPF) on May 18, 1992, where he was appointed cadet assistant superintendent.
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The commissioner suddenly died in August after a prostrate cancer surgery. According to some media reports, the surgical exercise had been successful but he didn’t survive the complications that arose afterwards.
Just one month before his death, Ayilara earned backlash for donating cups of beans to the Akwa Ibom Students’ Parliament 7th Assembly. The welfare package carried the inscription “Akwa Ibom Student’s Parliament (7th Assembly). Welfare package. CP Waheed Ayilara loves you all”.
It had sparked outrage among young Nigerians on X particularly as it came days ahead of the August 1 nationwide protest against hunger and bad governance.
IBRAHIM ATTAHIRU, MAY 2021
Ibrahim Attahiru was Nigeria’s Chief of Army Staff for only four months before he died in a Nigerian Air Force (NAF) plane crash in Mando, close to the Kaduna International Airport, on May 21, 2021.
He was appointed in January 2021 by ex-president Muhammadu Buhari.
Attahiru was renowned for facing terrorism in Nigeria head-on after he changed the campaign of Operation Lafiya Dole (Peace by Force), the central outfit of the Army in North-Eastern Nigeria, to Operation Hadin Kai (Let us Cooperate). He was the Theatre Commander of Operation Lafiya Dole.
The late chief of army staff joined the Nigerian Defence Academy in 1984 as a cadet officer and graduated in 1986. He also obtained different degrees from the United Kingdom and the University of Nairobi in Kenya.
Before he was appointed the COAS, Attahiru was the General Officer Commanding 82 Division of the Nigerian Army, Enugu.
He also served as the Deputy Commander at the Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC) of the Nigerian Army, in Minna, Niger State; the Deputy Director Office of Military Secretary; the Director of Army Public Relations; the Commanding Officer, of the 146 Battalion in the Bakassi Peninsula; the Commander of, 13 Brigade (Pulo Shield) in the South-South; and the General Officer Commanding 82nd Division, Enugu.
He died at the age of 55 with ten other officials who were with him on their way to the Nigeria Army Depot, Zaria, to attend the passing-out- parade of a new set of recruits the next day.
FRANCIS MOBOLAJI ODESANYA, JANUARY 2017
Francis Mobolaji Odesanya served as the Rivers State Commissioner of Police until his death on January 31, 2017.
Odesanya was appointed the 37th police commissioner of the state on July 12, 2016, after rising through the ranks since he joined the NPF in 1986 as a cadet assistant superintendent.
Afterwards, he held the positions of Deputy Commissioner of the Police Department of Operations and Deputy Commissioner of the Department of Finance and Administration in Rivers before his promotion to Commissioner.
He served as the state’s commissioner for only six months before he died at Sterling Hospital Ahmedabad-Gujarat, India, from an illness.
Odesanya hailed from Ikenne, Ogun State, and died at 56 years old, the same age as Lagbaja.
SHITTU ALAO, OCTOBER 1969
Shittu Alao was a Nigerian Chief of Air Staff who died in active service. He was the fourth Commander of the Nigerian Air Force (NAF), and the second indigenous officer to hold the position.
He was appointed at 30 and died only two years into his service as the chief of air staff.
Alao was killed in an L-29 aircraft. He was alone in the plane, encountered bad weather somewhere around Benin City, and ran out of fuel while straining to navigate the fog.
He made an emergency landing but didn’t survive the crash. He died on October 15, 1969.
JOSEPH AKAHAN, AUGUST 1967
Joseph Akahan was appointed Nigeria’s Army Chief just before the civil war broke out in 1967. He was killed in a helicopter crash alongside two of his pilots on his way to Makurdi after a visit to Nsukka, Enugu, one of the front lines of the Biafran War.
Akakan died in the crash at the age of 30.
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