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There's nothing subjective about stating that Murtala Mohammed was a military ruler of Nigeria. Blandly stating that he was simply "Head of State" grants his rule a spurious air of legitimacy by papering over what was a naked power-grab by one self-appointed national savior from another.

It was not seen as a naked power grab, but a reaction to the postponement of the return to civilian rule, and the blatant corruption of the state governors. There was a real sense of optimism that Nigeria would return to civilian rule soon, that corruption would be seriously challenged, and that the bloating of the military & governmental services would be reduced. Bendel boy 13:06, 9 February 2007 (UTC) reply

It is worth noting that Murtala and all of the other military rulers before and after him were actually guilty of betraying their oaths to uphold the Nigerian constitution, which has never, in any iteration, endorsed the seizure of power by soldiers, for any reason whatsoever. It is also worth noting that Murtala's 1975 coup was by no means the first time he'd been guilty of such disregard for constitutional proprieties - he was also the ringleader of the July 1966 coup that brought Gowon to power. Abiola Lapite 16:03, 28 Mar 2004 (UTC)

The most questionable coup was the January 1966 coup. After that Nigeria no longer had a constitutional government. The July 1966 coup was bloody, and lead to many problem. The 1975 coup was a response to Gowon's announcement that the reversion to civilian government was on hold, and so this can be seen as Mohammed and others acting in defense of the (future) legitimate, constitutional, government. At the time the coup was fairly popular, and of low bloodshed. (Was there any?) Bendel boy 13:06, 9 February 2007 (UTC) reply

Well, I was the one who added that he was a military ruler in the first place. It is conventional to go with terms like "head of state" or "president" over terms like "military ruler" or "dictator" in the intro, however, so that's why I changed it. But I have no sympathy for military coup leaders, so I don't have any strong objections if you want to leave it as military ruler. Everyking 18:55, 28 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Whether he seized the office, the fact remains that he was, for a time, the Chief Executive of the country. We are not glossing over how he came into the office, but it needs mentioning. His team (him, Obasanjo, Yar'adua) was also the only one to put in place and execute an orderly transfer to a civilian government, by the way.-- iFaqeer 02:01, Sep 28, 2004 (UTC)

What was his rank at the time of the first coup? At other times? The man was a Brigadier at 36.-- iFaqeer 01:59, Sep 28, 2004 (UTC)

From http://lcweb2.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?frd/cstdy:@field(DOCID+ng0115)

In February 1976, Murtala Muhammad was killed in an unsuccessful coup led by Colonel Bukar Dimka and officers from the middle belt; the coup appeared to be an attempt by middle-belt officers to bring back Gowon from his self-imposed exile and reinstate him as head of state. Obasanjo, a Yoruba and southerner, became head of state. Although unfavorably compared with Murtala Muhammad initially, he succeeded in many areas of his administration where the more intransigent Murtala Muhammad might have failed. Obasanjo became an adept political ruler, determined not to exacerbate north-south and Muslim-Christian schisms in the country.

It was never proven that Gowon was behind the coup, and it never made sense that Gowon would be involved. In the UK, out of the rat race, family safe, nice pension. I remember the belief that the allegations were being made more to ensure that Gowon would never want to come back - and, out of them, he lost his pension. Dimka was believed to have been driven more by Mohammed's desire to cut the size of the Nigerian military - at that time, for its GDP, only countries like North Korea spent more on the military than did Nigeria. What military threat did Benin, Cameroon, Niger or Chad really pose? Bendel boy 13:06, 9 February 2007 (UTC) reply

I think the name should be incorporated into the article.

What name? Dimka? Gowon?

Name Spelling: Can someone please provide the correct spelling of his name? Every "official" site I have found referring to either him or the airport in Ikeja, uses numerous spellings. Which is it? Mohammed, Mohammad, Muhammed, Muhammad or Mahammad? Please advise! Thanks

http://www.dawodu.com/siollun2.htm might be useful (doing something else, will integrate it later if no one has first). Picaroon (t) 23:12, 27 December 2007 (UTC) reply

I think the writer is very very subjective and I am disappointed. Even Murtala's foes in the army admit that he was a very brave and disciplined soldier. His attempt to cross the river was out of sheer bravery as explained by many over the years, and yet here is this writer "saying" Murtala crossed the river because he did not want to be denied the glory. Nothing can be further from the truth. Murtala was clearly one of the heroes of the civil war and risked his life to keep Nigeria together. When he took over as leader of the country, he took steps to keep his promise to Nigerians, before his unfortunate sponsored assassination. He was very disciplined but because he did not tow the US line and tilted a bit towards the Russians, efforts are being made to distort his history. Remember, we have no other country but Nigeria. Yours Reason —Preceding unsigned comment added by 115.135.85.109 ( talk) 13:01, 29 September 2010 (UTC) reply

How could the 1973 census have been "weighted in favor of the north"? 101.98.74.13 ( talk) 04:00, 5 December 2015 (UTC) reply

At the time (in the south) it was stated that to be counted in the south you had to be seen by the census takers. But in the North you had only to see the male head of the household, and could accept his word for the number of wives / children without seeing them. If true, then there you have a weighting in favour of the North. Bendel boy ( talk) 15:40, 16 January 2019 (UTC) reply

The spelling in the title of the article is MOHAMMED; in the body of the article it is MUHAMMED. Sources vary re MOHAMMED vs. MUHAMMED, but the name should be spelled consistently throughout the article and in the main title. I'm not sure how to change the title of the entry.

A certain user has used the "Statesman" label for the subject. This is problematic. I called out the fact that this user only used the Statesman label for a select group of former military rulers (Babangida, Abacha, etc). After calling this out, said user quickly used the label on all former leaders of Nigeria. This is disingenuous. I think the test for this is simple: credible media assignment of the statesman label can put the debate to rest.

I check pages listed in Category:Pages with incorrect ref formatting to try to fix reference errors. One of the things I do is look for content for orphaned references in wikilinked articles. I have found content for some of Murtala Muhammed's orphans, the problem is that I found more than one version. I can't determine which (if any) is correct for this article, so I am asking for a sentient editor to look it over and copy the correct ref content into this article.

Reference named "Executed-Today":

• From Buka Suka Dimka: "1976: Lt. Col. Bukar Dimka and six coup confederates". Executed Today. Retrieved 11 January 2015.
• From 1976 Nigerian coup d'état attempt: "1976: Lt. Col. Bukar Dimka and six coup confederates". Executed Today. Retrieved 11 January 2015.

I apologize if any of the above are effectively identical; I am just a simple computer program, so I can't determine whether minor differences are significant or not. AnomieBOT ⚡ 17:51, 25 January 2022 (UTC) reply