The court martial of three dozen Nigerian officers charged with planning to overthrow the government will resume next month, local officials said on Monday.<\/p>\n
The\u00a0court martial\u00a0opened on Friday when the defendants appeared before newly sworn-in judges at a military installation in the country\u2019s capital, Abuja.<\/p>\n
The next sitting, on 8 May, will also be held behind closed doors, with no media access, a military spokesperson said.<\/p>\n
The alleged coup was reportedly due to take place on 1 October 2025, during the country\u2019s Independence Day celebrations. Instead, a parade, which the president was expected to attend, was cancelled at the last minute.<\/p>\n
Authorities initially denied any knowledge of a coup attempt but in January, the military announced that a number of\u00a0military officers would face court martial\u00a0for plotting to overthrow the government.<\/p>\n
The trial of\u00a0six civilians charged with treason and terrorism\u00a0for their alleged role in the plot resumed on Monday at Abuja\u2019s Federal High Court.<\/p>\n
They include a retired major general and a serving police inspector. All six have pleaded not guilty. A seventh suspect, former Bayelsa state governor Timipre Sylva, is accused of helping to conceal the plot and is still at large.<\/p>\n
In the charge sheet, authorities said the six suspects\u00a0\u201cconspired with one another to levy war against the state to overawe the president of the Federal Republic.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n Africa\u2019s most populous nation, Nigeria has a long history of military takeovers, having spent much of the post-independence period under army rule after gaining independence from the United Kingdom in 1960.<\/p>\n Civilian governance was restored in 1999 and has continued ever since.<\/p>\n Following the initial denial of the coup plot, President Tinubu moved\u00a0to reshuffle the country\u2019s top military leadership, a decision widely seen as part of efforts to stabilise the armed forces.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The court martial of three dozen Nigerian officers charged with planning to overthrow the government will resume next month, local officials said on Monday. The\u00a0court martial\u00a0opened on Friday when the defendants appeared before newly sworn-in judges at a military installation in the country\u2019s capital, Abuja. The next sitting, on 8 May, will also be held […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":20638,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":1,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"format":"standard","override":[{"template":"1","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_comment_section":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"1"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0","source_name":"Africa News","subtitle":""},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[2362,33,1129,27],"tags":[2026,175],"class_list":["post-20637","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-politics","category-security","category-west-africa","tag-abuja","tag-nigeria"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20637","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20637"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20637\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20639,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20637\/revisions\/20639"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20638"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20637"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20637"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20637"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}