Nigeria’s Army Chiefs Who Died in Office form a remarkably short list. Across more than six decades of Nigerian military history, three men died while serving as the professional head of the Nigerian Army or in the directly preceding office from which the modern Chief of Army Staff position developed: Colonel Joseph Akahan, Lieutenant General Ibrahim Attahiru and Lieutenant General Taoreed Abiodun Lagbaja.
Their deaths occurred in very different circumstances. Akahan died in a helicopter crash during the opening phase of the Nigerian Civil War. More than five decades later, Attahiru was killed with ten other people when a Nigerian Air Force aircraft crashed near Kaduna International Airport. Lagbaja, the most recent case, died in Lagos after a period of illness.
Together, their stories reflect changing eras of the Nigerian Army, from the upheavals of the 1960s to the complex internal security challenges of the twenty-first century.
Nigeria’s Army Chiefs Who Died in Office: Why the Number Is Three
The category concerns men who died while serving as the professional head of the Nigerian Army. It does not include every Nigerian military service chief who died while holding command.
Colonel Shittu Alao, for example, died in an air crash in October 1969 while serving as head of the Nigerian Air Force. His death belongs to the institutional history of the Air Force rather than to a list devoted specifically to Army chiefs.
The category also excludes former Army chiefs who died after leaving office. General Andrew Owoye Azazi served as Chief of Army Staff and later Chief of Defence Staff, but he had retired from military service by the time he died in a Nigerian Navy helicopter crash in Bayelsa State on 15 December 2012.
The three relevant cases are therefore Joseph Akahan, Ibrahim Attahiru and Taoreed Lagbaja.
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Colonel Joseph Akahan: Nigeria’s Wartime Army Chief
Joseph Akahan’s story belongs to one of the most turbulent periods in Nigerian history.
Born in 1937, Akahan rose rapidly through the Nigerian Army during the political upheavals that followed the military coups of January and July 1966. He became the Army’s senior professional commander as relations between the Federal Military Government and the Eastern Region deteriorated towards armed conflict.
The Nigerian Civil War began in July 1967 following the declaration of the Republic of Biafra by Lieutenant Colonel Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu and the Federal Government’s decision to restore its authority over the secessionist territory.
Akahan was therefore directing the Army during the first weeks of a conflict that would last until January 1970.
His tenure ended abruptly in a helicopter disaster.
Contemporary newspaper reports published in early August 1967 announced that Colonel Joseph Akahan, then Army Chief of Staff, had been killed in a helicopter crash. A surviving Daily Times report dated Monday, 7 August 1967 stated that he had died on Saturday, 5 August.
International reporting at the time also described the 30-year-old Army chief as having died when his helicopter crashed near Makurdi.
Accounts of Akahan’s final movements have associated him with the developing Civil War front around Nsukka and with a visit to his home area before travelling towards Makurdi. The helicopter carrying Akahan and two pilots crashed, killing those aboard.
His death came at an exceptionally difficult moment for the Federal Military Government. The war was still in its opening stage, military operations were expanding, and the Nigerian Army was undergoing rapid wartime transformation.
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The Conflicting Dates in Joseph Akahan’s Record
Joseph Akahan’s death is associated with one of the most unusual chronological contradictions in Nigerian military history.
Newspapers published in August 1967 reported his death at that time, with the Daily Times account specifying 5 August 1967. However, a later Nigerian Army institutional chronology has been cited as placing the end of his tenure and his death in May 1968.
The two dates have continued to appear in accounts of his life.
The August 1967 date is supported by newspaper reporting produced immediately after the helicopter crash, while the May 1968 date appears in later institutional material. The discrepancy remains part of the documentary history surrounding Akahan.
His rank at the time is clearer. Contemporary reports referred to him as Colonel Joseph Akahan and Army Chief of Staff. The title used during this period differed from the terminology later standardised as Chief of Army Staff, but Akahan occupies a recognised place in the succession of officers who headed the Nigerian Army.
His death made him the first of the three men in Nigerian Army history associated with dying while occupying its highest professional command.
Lieutenant General Ibrahim Attahiru: A Brief Tenure at Army Headquarters
More than five decades passed before another serving head of the Nigerian Army died.
On 26 January 2021, President Muhammadu Buhari appointed Major General Ibrahim Attahiru as Chief of Army Staff during a major change in Nigeria’s military leadership. He replaced Lieutenant General Tukur Yusuf Buratai.
Attahiru was an infantry officer with extensive military experience. Among his earlier appointments, he had commanded Operation Lafiya Dole, the military operation against Boko Haram and associated insurgent groups in north-eastern Nigeria.
His appointment came at a difficult period for the Nigerian military. The country faced continuing insurgency in the North-East, banditry and mass kidnappings in the North-West and parts of the North-Central region, as well as other internal security challenges.
Attahiru’s tenure as Army chief would last less than four months.
On 21 May 2021, he departed Abuja aboard a Nigerian Air Force Beechcraft King Air 350 aircraft bound for Kaduna. He was travelling on official duty and was expected to attend a passing-out parade for Army recruits the following day.
The aircraft crashed near Kaduna International Airport while attempting to land.
Attahiru and all ten other people on board were killed.
The dead included senior military officers, members of Attahiru’s staff and the aircraft crew. The scale of the loss made the crash one of the most significant Nigerian military aviation disasters of the period.
The Investigation into Attahiru’s Air Crash
Initial reports following the accident referred to adverse weather conditions around Kaduna as the aircraft approached the airport.
A formal investigation followed.
The Nigerian Air Force worked with the Accident Investigation Bureau on the inquiry into the crash. On 15 September 2021, an interim report was submitted to the Chief of Air Staff, Air Marshal Oladayo Amao.
The interim investigation produced 27 initial findings and eight immediate safety recommendations.
The inquiry examined matters including aircraft operations and procedures, and further work was expected to include information from the aircraft’s flight data recorder.
In May 2022, the Accident Investigation Bureau announced that its further participation in the investigation had been suspended after it completed the work requested by the Nigerian Air Force.
By the second anniversary of the disaster in May 2023, a final report establishing a definitive cause had not been publicly released.
Attahiru’s death therefore remains recorded as a fatal military aviation accident near Kaduna International Airport on 21 May 2021. The early reports of difficult weather form part of the history of the accident, while the complete causal findings of the military investigation have not been made part of the public historical record.
Lieutenant General Taoreed Lagbaja: From Infantry Officer to Army Chief
Lieutenant General Taoreed Abiodun Lagbaja belonged to another generation of Nigerian military leadership.
Born on 28 February 1968, Lagbaja entered the Nigerian Defence Academy as a member of the 39 Regular Course. He was commissioned into the Nigerian Army Infantry Corps in September 1992.
His military career lasted more than three decades and included numerous command, operational and staff appointments.
Lagbaja served in the United Nations Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and held several important commands within Nigeria. Among his appointments were command of the 72 Special Forces Battalion, 9 Brigade and 2 Brigade.
He later served as General Officer Commanding 82 Division and subsequently General Officer Commanding 1 Division.
His operational experience included assignments connected with several Nigerian military operations against insurgency, armed groups and other internal security threats.
Lagbaja also attended the United States Army War College and earned a master’s degree in Strategic Studies.
On 19 June 2023, President Bola Tinubu appointed him Chief of Army Staff as part of a broad change in Nigeria’s security leadership.
The Senate subsequently confirmed the new service chiefs, and President Tinubu formally decorated them with their new ranks on 31 July 2023.
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Lagbaja assumed command of an Army engaged simultaneously in operations against Boko Haram and Islamic State West Africa Province in the North-East, armed bandit groups in parts of the North-West, kidnappers and other violent organisations across several regions.
Lagbaja’s Illness and Death in Lagos
During the latter part of 2024, Lagbaja was absent from major public engagements for an extended period.
His absence generated widespread public discussion about his health and his continued leadership of the Army.
On 30 October 2024, President Tinubu appointed Major General Olufemi Oluyede as Acting Chief of Army Staff pending Lagbaja’s return. Lagbaja remained the substantive Chief of Army Staff.
Less than a week later, the Presidency announced his death.
Lieutenant General Taoreed Lagbaja died in Lagos on the night of Tuesday, 5 November 2024. He was 56.
President Tinubu’s announcement stated that Lagbaja had died after a period of illness. The statement did not identify the particular illness.
Lagbaja was survived by his wife, Mariya, and two children.
His death made him the third documented head of the Nigerian Army to die while occupying its highest professional command or its direct institutional predecessor.
The Nigerian Army After Lagbaja
Olufemi Oluyede, who had served as Acting Chief of Army Staff during Lagbaja’s absence, subsequently became the substantive Chief of Army Staff.
Another major military leadership change followed in October 2025.
On 24 October 2025, President Bola Tinubu appointed Oluyede Chief of Defence Staff and named Major General Waidi Shaibu as the new Chief of Army Staff.
Shaibu was subsequently promoted to lieutenant general and continued to serve as Chief of Army Staff in 2026.
Lagbaja therefore remains the most recent Nigerian Army chief to have died while holding the office.
Three Deaths Across Three Different Military Eras
Although Akahan and Attahiru both died in aviation accidents, their deaths occurred in markedly different historical settings.
Akahan died during the opening stage of the Nigerian Civil War, when the country’s military institutions were still being reshaped by political instability, coups and the sudden expansion demanded by a major internal war.
Attahiru died in 2021 during a period dominated by counter-insurgency, terrorism, banditry, kidnapping and other internal security operations.
Lagbaja’s case was different again. He died following an illness while leading an Army facing several simultaneous security challenges across Nigeria.
What connects the three men is not the manner in which they died, but the responsibility they carried at the moment of their deaths.
Each was serving at the head of the Nigerian Army.
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Conclusion
Nigeria’s Army Chiefs Who Died in Office are Colonel Joseph Akahan, Lieutenant General Ibrahim Attahiru and Lieutenant General Taoreed Abiodun Lagbaja.
Contemporary newspaper reports place Akahan’s fatal helicopter crash in August 1967, during the opening phase of the Nigerian Civil War, although a later Nigerian Army chronology records a conflicting May 1968 date.
Attahiru died on 21 May 2021 when a Nigerian Air Force King Air 350 crashed near Kaduna International Airport, killing all eleven people aboard.
Lagbaja died in Lagos on 5 November 2024, aged 56, following a period of illness.
Their deaths, separated by nearly six decades, belong to three very different periods in Nigerian history. Yet each marked the sudden loss of the officer entrusted with the professional leadership of the Nigerian Army.
Author’s Note
The lives of Joseph Akahan, Ibrahim Attahiru and Taoreed Lagbaja reveal how the leadership of the Nigerian Army has evolved across changing periods of national history, from civil war and military government to democratic rule and modern counter-insurgency operations. Their stories also preserve the human dimension behind military command: each man reached one of the highest positions in Nigeria’s armed forces and died while carrying the responsibilities of that office. Remembering them in their proper historical settings offers a broader understanding of the institution they led and the difficult periods through which the Nigerian Army has passed.
References
Reuters, “Nigeria’s Army Chief Killed”, Lagos dispatch, 7 August 1967, preserved in The Royal Gazette archive.
Daily Times of Nigeria, 7 August 1967, contemporary reporting on the death of Colonel Joseph Akahan.
Nigerian Army, Chronicle of Command, institutional chronology of former heads of the Nigerian Army.
Nigerian Air Force, historical records of former Nigerian Air Force chiefs, including Colonel Shittu Alao.
Nigerian Air Force and Accident Investigation Bureau, interim investigation statement on the Nigerian Air Force King Air 350 accident involving Lieutenant General Ibrahim Attahiru, 15 September 2021.
Daily Trust, “AIB-N Suspends Kaduna Military Air Crash Probe”, 26 May 2022.
The Punch, “Two Years After, Cause of Ex-Army Chief’s Plane Crash Unknown”, 21 May 2023.
Presidency of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, announcement of new service chiefs, 19 June 2023.
The State House, Abuja, “President Tinubu Decorates New Service Chiefs, Charges Them to Maintain Teamwork”, 31 July 2023.
Associated Press, report on the death of Lieutenant General Taoreed Lagbaja, 6 November 2024.
The State House, Abuja, “President Tinubu Changes Service Chiefs”, 24 October 2025.
Army War College Nigeria, official material identifying Lieutenant General Waidi Shaibu as Chief of Army Staff, 2026.
