On August 26, 1993, General Sani Abacha met with the “retired Service Chiefs”, empathised with the way they were treated, and offered to extend the effective dates of their retirements until September 17th. Then, the next day, with their support, he backdated the date of Babangida’s retirement from the Army to August 26th, a step which rendered Babangida’s pronouncements from August 27th invalid. Then, he later rescinded Dogonyaro’s appointment as Chief of Defence Staff, arguing that three northerners should not ‘unfairly’ monopolise top jobs in Defence. The three northerners were Abacha himself as the Secretary of Defence, Dogonyaro as Chief of Defence Staff, and Gusau as Chief of Army Staff. Abacha then offered the position of Chief of Defence Staff to Lt. General Oladipo Diya, Commandant of the National War College and a Yoruba from Abiola’s home state of Ogun State. This was a cynical move by Abacha, who had little regard for Diya personally and most Yoruba officers in general. But Abacha needed to isolate Dogonyaro and had larger designs on the political class, particularly the Yoruba leaders of thought whom he was going to use Diya to pacify. Therefore, the “Yoruba” strategy was useful – for now. #historyville Full story: https://youtu.be/PJtV83vgwS0