'We could hear some explosions and gunfire from the direction of the town, so needed no persuasion to stay put'

'We could hear some explosions and gunfire from the direction of the town, so needed no persuasion to stay put'

Mike Mahon recounts a political coup during his time in Nigeria.

Mike Mahon

Trinity College Dublin

1965

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Mike Mahon

Work and Employment

Life Story

Nigeria

1960s

As fate would have it I just happened to be on station at Christmas 1984 when the Nigerian Army decided to stage a military coup against their corrupt politicians. Two of us went out to Kano airport to operate the early morning flight to Lagos. As soon as we arrived we sensed something was amiss, but proceeded to the aircraft and started our preflight checks. Suddenly one of the traffic staff arrived in the cockpit and told us that there had been a coup in Lagos and all flights were cancelled . We told him to get the passengers off the aircraft immediately , but not to mention the coup, we did not want a riot on our hands. Tell the passengers the aircraft is unserviceable, gone sick, the flight is cancelled. The passengers were disembarked, but instead of going back into the terminal they were milling around the tarmac. This made us a bit nervous. We managed to contact our base in Shannon on HF informing them of the situation, but to tell our families that we were all ok. At this the traffic guy returned and informed us, 'I tink the army is coming. ' We needed no further persuasion, immediately jumped into the crew car and back to our hotel. We aroused the rest of the crews and gave them the good news. A strict curfew was imposed and we were confined to the hotel. We could hear some explosions and gunfire from the direction of the town, so needed no persuasion to stay put. Being Irish we got our priorities right. The bar in the hotel was always neglecting to keep the fridge stocked with cold beer,. So the first thing we did was to raid the bar and take crates of beer to our own fridges. The coup lasted about a week so we had a relaxing time sunning ourselves by the pool, playing cards and supping beer.

Irish Research Council for Arts, Humanities & Social Sciences (IRCHSS)

Dr Kathleen McTiernan (Trinity College Dublin)

Dr Deirdre O'Donnell (Trinity College Dublin)