At least 16 Nigerian military officers are being secretly detained by the Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA) in Abuja over an alleged coup plot, multiple sources have told SaharaReporters. The officers have been held for more than three weeks without access to their families or legal representation, sparking widespread concern among relatives and security observers. Family members said they initially feared their loved ones had been kidnapped before learning of their detention through informal channels. “It’s been 18 days since those 16 officers were detained in an undisclosed location. At first, we thought our brother was kidnapped before finding out what transpired from his friend who works in the NSA office,” one family member told SaharaReporters. “No official explanation from the military till date. None of the families has been allowed to visit or even call them. Everyone is scared about their present condition.” The Defence Intelligence Agency, which operates under the Ministry of Defence, is primarily tasked with intelligence gathering and counter-espionage. However, sources say the agency’s role in detaining and interrogating military officers accused of misconduct is unusual and possibly outside its legal mandate. Normally, such cases are handled directly by the relevant service authorities — the Nigerian Army, Navy, or Air Force. A former military officer and security expert told SaharaReporters that the DIA’s involvement raises questions about due process and transparency. “In the military, if an army officer offends, he is to be charged by the Nigerian Army directly. The same applies to the Navy and Air Force,” he said. “We want to know when the DIA started handling cases of indiscipline. When did it become a military court?” He added that the selective detention of 16 officers, allegedly drawn from all three military branches, points to a deeper political motive. “Why only 16 officers? Why pick from all three services and then hand them over to the DIA? This doesn’t follow standard military procedure,” he said. The source also criticised the response of the Director of Defence Information, Brigadier General Tukur Gusau, accusing him of evading direct questions from journalists. “Only two questions about why the officers are with the DIA and why they’re being denied family access would have been enough to clarify things, but he avoided them,” he noted. Reports of the alleged coup plot first emerged in an earlier SaharaReporters exclusive published on Saturday, which revealed that the suspected officers were attached to the Office of the National Security Adviser (ONSA). The office is headed by Nuhu Ribadu, a retired police officer and lawyer serving as National Security Adviser to President Bola Tinubu. While the military has downplayed the situation — claiming the arrests were due to “repeated failure in promotion examinations and perceived career stagnation” — sources maintain that the ongoing detention is directly linked to a suspected coup plot. The secrecy surrounding the officers’ whereabouts and the lack of official communication have only deepened public anxiety about the true nature of the case.
