Nigeria charges six people with ‘terrorism’, treason over 2025 coup plot

Nigerian authorities have charged six people, including a retired major-general and a serving police inspector, with “terrorism” and treason, over an alleged plot to overthrow President Bola Tinubu, according to documents filed at the Federal High Court in Abuja.

The six were all in custody on Tuesday while the seventh suspect, former Bayelsa State Governor Timipre Sylva, who is accused of helping to conceal the plot, is still at large.

The government had initially denied the existence of the alleged coup, before announcing in January that the military would try several officers for planning “to overthrow the government”.

They were part of a group of 16 military officers arrested in 2025 over what military authorities described as “acts of indiscipline and breaches of service regulations”, prompting rumours of a coup plot, which was initially denied by the government.

Shortly after denying the alleged coup plot, President Tinubu reshuffled the country’s top military generals.

In the 13-count charge sheet, authorities said suspects “conspired with one another to wage war against the state to overthrow the president of the Federal Republic”.

The charges named retired Major-General Mohammed Ibrahim Gana, retired Captain Erasmus Ochegobia Victor, Inspector Ahmed Ibrahim, Zekeri Umoru, Bukar Kashim Goni and Abdulkadir Sani.

The six were also accused of conspiring “with one another to commit an act of terrorism” and of “indirectly” but “knowingly” rendering “support” to Colonel Mohammed Alhassan Ma’aji and others “to commit an act of terrorism”.

Ma’aji has been named as the “mastermind” of the coup in previous Nigerian media reports.

Africa’s most populous nation experienced five coups in the 20th century but has not seen one since it became a formal democracy in 1999.

This alleged coup plot comes after a surge in coups and attempted coups in West and Central Africa in recent years, the latest in Benin and Guinea-Bissau late last year.

These military takeovers, experts say, follow a pattern marked by disputed elections, constitutional upheaval, security crises, and youth discontent.