Nigerian Chief Of Army Staff Attahiru Was Assassinated In May 2021 Plane Explosion, Not Accident, Retired General AllegesA retired Nigerian Army General has alleged that the late Chief of Army Staff, Lieutenant-General Ibrahim Attahiru, was assassinated in a mid-air explosion and did not die in a routine military air crash as officially presented by authorities. The former army chief died alongside other senior officers on May 21, 2021, when a Nigerian Air Force aircraft crashed near Kaduna airport, an incident the government blamed on bad weather and classified as an accident.The retired General, speaking in a recent media interview, claimed that the aircraft carrying Attahiru did not go down due to poor weather but was destroyed by an explosion while airborne. He alleged that the nature of the wreckage and the condition of the victims’ remains suggested a blast had occurred before impact, insisting that what happened was a “mid-air explosion” consistent with a deliberate attack rather than a conventional crash.He further linked the incident to what he described as “terror financiers” and powerful interests threatened by Attahiru’s actions and planned reforms in the fight against insurgency and insecurity. According to him, these forces allegedly orchestrated the operation to remove the army chief, raising questions about internal sabotage and deep-seated conspiracies within and around Nigeria’s security architecture.Despite the fresh claims, the official narrative has not changed, as the federal government and the military have continued to maintain that the incident was an accident caused by adverse weather conditions during the aircraft’s approach to Kaduna. The full technical investigation report into the crash has not been widely and transparently published, a gap that has helped fuel public suspicion, speculation, and conspiracy theories around Attahiru’s death.The retired General’s allegations are yet to be backed by publicly available forensic evidence or endorsed by any official investigative or judicial panel, and no government agency has reclassified the crash as a criminal act. However, his revelations have reignited calls for an independent, transparent probe, with security watchers and citizens urging the authorities to release detailed findings on the incident to restore public confidence and clarify whether Nigeria lost its then army chief to an accident or an orchestrated assassination.