Abdullahi Mohammed: The quiet power behind Nigeria’s presidencies, 1936- 2025

Abdullahi Mohammed, a retired major general and one of Nigeria’s most influential presidential advisers, has died. He was 86.

He died in Abuja. Family sources confirmed the development to PUNCH, describing his passing as a huge loss to the Ilorin Emirate, the nation, and the military community.

Born in 1939 in Ilorin, Kwara State, Mohammed’s life traced the arc of Nigeria’s turbulent post-independence history from the barracks of Sandhurst in England to the corridors of Aso Rock, where he served as chief of staff to presidents Olusegun Obasanjo and Umaru Musa Yar’Adua.

His military career began at the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst, in 1958. By the mid-1970s, he was already one of the army’s brightest minds director of military intelligence and a key player in the 1975 coup that ousted Yakubu Gowon and brought Murtala Mohammed to power.

In the aftermath, he was appointed governor of Benue-Plateau state, a post he held until 1976, before being recalled to Lagos to head the National Security Organisation the forerunner of today’s Department of State Services. In that role, Mohammed became one of the most trusted figures in the Obasanjo military administration, overseeing internal security and intelligence at a critical moment in Nigeria’s history.

After retiring from the army in 1979, he turned to private business, running Atoto Press, a prominent publishing house in Ilorin. But his retirement was short-lived. In 1998, after the sudden death of Sani Abacha, General Abdulsalami Abubakar called him back to public service as National Security Adviser — a position that placed him at the centre of Nigeria’s transition from military to civilian rule.

When Olusegun Obasanjo returned to power as a democratically elected president in 1999, he turned again to Mohammed — this time as his chief of staff. It was a position Mohammed held for nearly a decade, earning a reputation as one of the most discreet and effective presidential aides Nigeria has ever known. He continued in the same role under Yar’Adua until his resignation in 2008.

Those who worked with him describe him as calm, disciplined, and fiercely loyal — a man more comfortable with quiet influence than public display. “General Mohammed played critical roles in Nigeria’s history,” the Ilorin Emirate Descendants Progressive Union (IEDPU) said in a statement. “He was a patriot who fought to keep the country united and later served as National Security Adviser and the first and longest-serving Chief of Staff to the President.”

The union described his death as “a monumental loss to the emirate and the nation,” adding that it came “at a time when Nigeria needs the wisdom of tested patriots to navigate its challenges.”

Mohammed’s career spanned five decades and crossed the lines between military and civilian rule. He was, as one senior aide once put it, “the man every president wanted by his side when things got complicated.”

A soldier, strategist, and statesman, Mohammed left behind a legacy of quiet power one defined not by headlines, but by his steady hand in moments that shaped the nation’s course.