General Sani Abacha (20 September 1943 – 8 June 1998) was a Nigerian military dictator and politician. He was the de facto President of Nigeria from 1993 to 1998. His regime was tied to human rights violations and allegations of corruption.

A Kanuri from Borno by tribe, Abacha was born and brought up in Kano, Nigeria. He attended the Nigerian Military School and Mons Officer Cadet School before being commissioned as a 2nd lieutenant in 1963.

Abacha was commissioned in 1963, after he had attended the Mons Defence Officers cadet Training College in Aldershot, England. Before then, he had attended the Nigerian Military Training College in Kaduna. He took part in the countercoup of July 1967, from the conceptual stage, and may have been a participant in the Lagos or Abeokuta phases of the January 1966 coup. He was also a prominent figure in three coup d'etats of later decades, the first two of which brought and removed General Muhammadu Buhari from power in 1983. When General Ibrahim Babangida was named President and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the Federal Republic of Nigeria in 1985, Abacha was named Chief of Army Staff. He was later appointed Minister of Defence in 1990.

Augustus Akhabue Aikhomu (20 October 1939 – 17 August 2011) was an Admiral in the Nigerian Navy, who served as the de facto Vice President of Nigeria during the Ibrahim Babangida-led military junta from 1986 to 1993. He hailed from Idumebo-Irrua, Edo State, in southern Nigeria. As a student, Aikhomu spent various periods of his early life studying at Irrua Government School, Yaba College of Technology, Royal Britannia Naval College in Dartmouth, England, Long Gunnery Specialist Course, India and the National Institute of Policy and Strategic Studies, Kuru, Nigeria.

Aikhomu was the Commanding Officer, Shore Patrol Craft, commanding officer, NNS Dorina, chief of naval personnel, naval headquarters, chief of naval operations (1983–84), and chief of naval staff (1984–86). Aikhomu is survived by his wife, Rebecca, and six children.

Aikhomu will be remembered for the act that he was a highly detribalised Nigerian who displayed professionalism and loyalty while serving as chief of Naval Staff, Chief of General Staff and later, in the regime of General Ibrahim Babangida, as Vice President. Aikhomu in his later years was a key player in the politics of Nigeria. He was at a time the Chairman of the Board of Trustees of All Nigeria Peoples Party, an opposition party in the country. As a nation builder, Aikhomu in the various tributes by his associates was described as a national hero, a dependable ally, an uncommon statesman, a great naval officer, a highly disciplined gentleman and a respected mentor to most of his subordinate officers during the Babangida Administration. Aikhomu left his footprints in his native town of Irrua, where he bequeated many developmental projects to his name, especially the Irrua Specialist Hospital, the referral hospital for lassa fever in the country.

Akinwande Oluwole "Wole" Soyinka (born 13 July 1934) is a Nigerian writer, notable especially as a playwright and poet; he was awarded the 1986 Nobel Prize in Literature, the first African in Africa and the diaspora to be so honoured.

Soyinka was born into a Yoruba family in Abeokuta. After study in Nigeria and the UK, he worked with the Royal Court Theatre in London. He went on to write plays that were produced in both countries, in theatres and on radio. He took an active role in Nigeria's political history and its struggle for independence from Great Britain. In 1965, he seized the Western Nigeria Broadcasting Service studio and broadcast a demand for the cancellation of the Western Nigeria Regional Elections. In 1967 during the Nigerian Civil War, he was arrested by the federal government of General Yakubu Gowon and put in solitary confinement for two years.

Soyinka has strongly criticized many Nigerian military dictators, as well as other political tyrannies, including the Mugabe regime in Zimbabwe. Much of his writing has been concerned with "the oppressive boot and the irrelevance of the colour of the foot that wears it".^{[citation needed]} During the regime of General Sani Abacha (1993–1998), Soyinka escaped from Nigeria via the "Nadeco Route" on motorcycle. Living abroad, mainly in the United States, he was a professor first at Cornell University and then at Emory University in Atlanta, where in 1996 he was appointed Robert W. Woodruff Professor of the Arts. Abacha proclaimed a death sentence against him "in absentia". With civilian rule restored to Nigeria in 1999, Soyinka returned to his nation. He has also taught at Oxford, Harvard and Yale.

Oluṣẹgun Mathew Okikiọla Arẹmu Ọbasanjọ, GCFR (/oʊˈbɑːsəndʒoʊ/; Yoruba: [olúʃɛ̙́ɡũ ɒ̙básandʒɒ̙́]; born circa 5 March 1937) is a former Nigerian Army general and former President of Nigeria. A Nigerian of Yoruba descent, Obasanjo was a career soldier before serving twice as his nation's head of state, as a military ruler between 13 February 1976 to 1 October 1979; and as elected President from 29 May 1999 to 29 May 2007.

His current home is Abeokuta, the Capital City of Ogun State, where he is a nobleman as the holder of the titles of the Balogun of the Owu Lineage and the Ekerin Balogun of the Egba clan of Yorubaland.

Ọbasanjọ was born in Ogun State; and grew up in Owu (Abeokuta). His first name, Olusegun, means "The Lord is victorious".

As a young man of 21, he enlisted in the Nigerian Army in 1958. He trained at Aldershot, and was commissioned as an officer in the Nigerian Army. He served at 1 Area Command in Kaduna. Promoted to Chief Army Engineer, he was made commander of 2 Area Command from July 1967, which was redesignated 2 Division Rear, and then the Ibadan Garrison Organisation. He was also trained in DSSC, Wellington. During the Nigerian Civil War, he commanded the Army's 3 Marine Commando Division that took Owerri, effectively bringing an end to the civil war.

Fela Anikulapo Kuti (15 October 1938 — 2 August 1997), or simply Fela ([feˈlæ]), was a Nigerian multi-instrumentalist musician and composer, pioneer of Afrobeat music, human rights activist, and political maverick.

Fela was born Olufela Olusegun Oludotun Ransome-Kuti in Abeokuta, Ogun State, Nigeria into a middle-class family. His mother, Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti was a feminist activist in the anti-colonial movement and his father, Reverend Israel Oludotun Ransome-Kuti, a Protestant minister and school principal, was the first president of the Nigerian Union of Teachers. His brothers, Beko Ransome-Kuti and Olikoye Ransome-Kuti, both medical doctors, are well known in Nigeria. Fela was a first cousin to the Nigerian writer and Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka, the first African to win a Nobel Prize for Literature.

Fela was sent to London in 1958 to study medicine but decided to study music instead at the Trinity College of Music. While there, he formed the band Koola Lobitos, playing a fusion of jazz and highlife. In 1960, Fela married his first wife, Remilekun (Remi) Taylor, with whom he would have three children (Femi, Yeni, and Sola). In 1963, Fela moved back to Nigeria, re-formed Koola Lobitos and trained as a radio producer for the Nigerian Broadcasting Corporation. He played for some time with Victor Olaiya and his All Stars.