Abdulkarim Zakari an inlaw to General Yakubu Gowon was the only civilian exe**cuted for participating in 1976 Dimka coup

Abdulkarim Zakari an inlaw to General Yakubu Gowon was the only civilian exe**cuted for participating in 1976 Dimka coup

Abdulkarim Zakari was the elder brother of Victoria Gowon, the wife of \General Yakubu Gowon. He was a graduate of the University of Ibadan and a broadcaster/producer with the Nigerian Broadcasting Corporation (NBC). .

After the assass**ination of General Murtala Mohammed at Dodan Barracks on the morning of 13 February, Dimka and his men headed for the NBC building. A contemporary U.S. diplomatic report states that when Dimka arrived, he met Abdulkarim Zakari, who had already made the necessary arrangements at the NBC. Another account says Zakari personally led Dimka and his men into the broadcasting studios.

This is probably the most important allegation against Zakari.

The coup plotters wanted the radio station to broadcast their announcement to the country. Zakari was accused of having selected and provided the martial music that accompanied Dimka’s takeover broadcast. The case against Zakari appears to have rested primarily on facilitating the coup’s occupation of the broadcasting station.

The military tribunal found 31 military personnel and Abdulkarim Zakari guilty of complicity in the coup plot and they were exe**cuted in Lagos on 31 March 1976.

Zakari’s punishment was extraordinarily severe: he was the only civilian executed among the principal group convicted in the aftermath of the coup. Till date, he was still the only person working with Radio station that was executed for coup plotting.

Most political analysts believe that his relationship with Gowon worked against him as Grown himself became a suspect.