Lagos was bright and sunny on Monday, February 16, 1976, just before noon. Middle-class Nigerians and foreign expatriates crowded the terraces of the Lagos Lawn Tennis Club. On center court, current Wimbledon champion Arthur Ashe was competing against fellow American Jeff Borowiak in his semi-final match. Black Africa’s first professional tennis tournament, the $60,000 Lagos Tennis Classic was part of the World Championship Tennis (WCT) pro circuit. In a tie-break, Ashe had just won the first set. Ashe was about to serve when the second set was tied at one game. Five men proceeded to enter the court through the players’ entrance as he threw the tennis ball into the air.
As the men got closer to Ashe, the spectators watched. The other men were dressed in military gear, with one of them wearing a brown suit. A captain in the army, the group’s leader, yelled, “What are you doing? We are in grief. You are getting paid. Are all of you mad? Go, please. Please leave. To get Ashe out of the court, one of the soldiers inserted the cold steel of his machine gun into the back of his sweat-soaked shirt. He left his gear behind as he left the court with both arms raised in the air. The Main stand, East, and West wing terraces were cleared by the remaining soldiers. Before the soldiers could get to the spectators, chaos broke out as they fled from their seats toward the main exit. In comparison to their confused foreign counterparts, the Nigerian spectators moved more quickly. They were well aware of the brutality of their neighbors. On the other hand, Ashe went to the changing room.
Ashe Arthur.
Dick Stockton, an American tennis player, had visited the WCT headquarters in Dallas, Texas, in January, a month before the Lagos Tennis Classic began. Traveling to Lagos to participate in the Lagos Tennis Classic concerned him. In the Dallas area papers, he had read about anti-American demonstrations in Lagos in front of the US Embassy. Stockton recalled, “I told them that if these reports about all these anti-American demonstrations are true, this could potentially be a very dangerous situation.” “We have been in touch with the State Department and they told us that everything is fine, there is no reason to worry,” WCT officials assured him.
WCT decided to move the event to Lagos thanks in large part to Arthur Ashe. As part of a US State Department goodwill tour, he had traveled to Nigeria in 1970 with Stan Smith, a fellow tennis player from the United States. He was motivated by this experience to promote tennis in Black Africa. The Lagos Lawn Tennis Club met every WCT requirement to host the event, including building a new center court and paying for the singles and doubles tournament prizes. The Lagos Lawn Tennis Club and World Championship Tennis reached a five-year agreement to host a series of annual WCT tennis tournaments in Lagos. Arthur Ashe (USA), Tom Okker (HOL), Dick Crealy (AUS), Harold Solomon (USA), Jeff Borowiak (USA), Brian Fairlie (NZL), Eddie Dibbs (USA), Ismail El Shafei (EGY), Wojtek Fibak (POL), Karl Meiler (GER), Bob Lutz (USA), Stan Smith (USA), Erik Van Dillen (USA), and Dick Stockton (USA) were the 14 WCT players selected to Lawrence Awopegba and Yemisi Allan, two of the best tennis players in Nigeria, received wild card entries to join some of the world’s best tennis players in the tournament.
When Ashe entered the Lagos Lawn Tennis Club dressing room on that fateful February 16, WCT International Director John McDonald was carrying a plastic bag containing the passports of WCT tennis players. To retrieve them, he had just traveled to Lagos International Airport. The majority of the players’ passports had been seized by Nigerian immigration officials upon their arrival from Barcelona due to the need to revalidate their visas. These players were upset that they had left their passports behind, but they were forced to do so if they wanted to leave the airport.
With a large stick, the man in the brown suit slammed the door open and entered the dressing room. A soldier was with him, and he told McDonald and Ashe to leave. To emphasize this order, the man holding the stick slammed it onto the table and struck the men as they fled. The street was full of people fleeing in all directions when the two men ran out of the stadium and onto it. John Parsons, a tennis correspondent for the Daily Mail who traveled with the WCT contingent to Lagos, was traveling in the opposite direction when McDonald noticed him. Parsons was confronted by an ebony-tipped soldier who asked, “Where are you going?” as he struck him in the back with a club. To report the breaking story to the Daily Mail, Parsons had been on his way to the local Reuters office; Instead, for his efforts, he received an 18-inch weal on his back.
The US ambassador, Donald Easum, was in the terraces watching the semi-final match with his security team, a young civilian marine guard. Outside the stadium, he found Ashe, Borowiak, and McDonald and secured vehicles to take them to the US Embassy. McDonald was moved to a different vehicle while Ashe and Borowiak were placed in one. A soldier was beating a Nigerian spectator in the middle of the road, which caused Ashe and Borowiak’s vehicle to become stuck in traffic. The players got out of the car and made their way on foot to the US Embassy. On his way out of the Lagos Lawn Tennis Club, the Hungarian ambassador offered them a ride in his limousine to their destination. When Easum and the marine guard decided to walk to the US Embassy, they had to go through a group of anti-American protesters who chanted “Down with the CIA” and “Yankee, go home” in protest. Some of them carried pictures of the Nigerian President and placards that praised him.
The Lagos Tennis Classic was supposed to conclude on the fourth day on Friday, the 13th. The Nigerian President, General Murtala Mohammed, was on his way to his office at the army headquarters in the Dodan barracks from his home in Ikoyi. Shortly after 8 a.m., his metallic-black Mercedes Benz was stuck in a traffic jam near the Federal secretariat. The General had his Aide-de-Camp beside him, and his orderly was sitting in front of the car with the driver. In contrast to his predecessor, General Gowon, he traveled without a security guard.
Machine-gun-wielding men approached the General’s vehicle and opened fire on it and its occupants. Both motorists and pedestrians trapped in the traffic jam fled for safety. After reloading and firing another magazine at the vehicle, one of the attackers fired a full magazine at it. The gunmen went to the Nigerian Broadcasting Corporation after leaving the car that was covered in bullets. The group’s leader was Lieutenant, who was in charge of the Nigerian Army Physical Training Corps. Colonel Bukar Dimka is a 33-year-old man with a deep tribal mark on each cheek and a waxed walrus moustache. From the radio station, he said that the “Young Revolutionaries” had overthrown the government and that there would be a nationwide curfew from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. (sic). He also asked listeners to stay by their radios for more announcements. Throughout the morning, his brief recorded broadcast with martial music interspersed played on the radio repeatedly.
When the hotel’s phone rang, Dick Stockton was asleep in his Federal Palace room. The manager of the WCT tour was Paul Svehlik. He informed Stockton of the attempted coup that resulted in the postponement of that day’s Lagos Tennis Classic matches. It was instructed to inform the other four American tennis players staying at the hotel, which shocked Stockton. Stay in the hotel until further notice was the directive. Eddie Dibbs, one of Stockton’s American callers, inquired, “What the hell is a coup?” as soon as he saw Stockton. When they heard about the attempted coup, the Brazilian soccer superstar Pele and his entourage were also staying at the Federal Palace hotel. To find out what was going on, they stayed in their hotel room next to the radio. He was in Lagos as part of a Pepsi-Cola-sponsored marketing tour to conduct soccer clinics and play an exhibition match.
The five tennis players took a break in the swimming pool area of the hotel around lunchtime. When 30 to 40 soldiers armed with machine guns surrounded the area, Eddie Dibbs, Harold Solomon, Bob Lutz, Erik Van Dillen, and Dick Stockton were by the pool. The panicked manager of the hotel went to the swimming pool and instructed the nearby guests to return to the hotel for their own safety. What the soldiers were going to do was unknown to everyone.
When Federal Government troops attempted to reclaim the radio station from the coup plotters, the Nigerian Broadcasting Corporation went off the air around 3 p.m. During a brief exchange of fire between his men and Federal forces, Dimka escaped. Around four o’clock in the afternoon, the radio station resumed playing popular Highlife music. A spokesman for the Federal Military Government appeared on air at 6.20 p.m. to declare that the attempted coup had failed and that several people had been arrested. He stated that all borders and airports were closed until further notice and that a curfew was in effect nationwide from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. The Head of State’s fate was not brought up. The majority of Lagosians stayed inside by their radios, reducing the bustling city of Lagos, which is Black Africa’s busiest. The city’s security was extremely high. Soldiers were in charge of manning numerous roadblocks throughout the city with the responsibilities of maintaining security and capturing suspected coup plotters. That Friday, the Federal Military Government made no further radio announcements.
The US Embassy called the five American players that evening to tell them to pack their belongings and get ready to leave the hotel. There was no safety rating for the Federal Palace Hotel. A minibus was sent by Donald Easum to evacuate the players. On the way back, the minibus driver made a wrong turn and got into a fight with a soldier stationed at a roadblock. The tennis players thought they were going to die when the soldier fired his machine gun at the vehicle. After he was certain that they were safe, he eventually let them through. Ashe, Borowiak, and Tom Okker, a Dutch tennis player, were already staying at the residence of the US ambassador, so there were no additional rooms available for the five American tennis players. Because of this, an alternative lodging arrangement with an American family had to be made. Bob Lutz said, “We descended on this poor family.” He was employed by the US Embassy, and they were an elderly couple.
General Obasanjo, General Mohammed’s deputy, was named as his successor after his assassination was officially announced around noon on February 14. That Saturday, his body was flown to Kano and buried in his hometown according to Muslim customs. In honor of the murdered Head of State, the Federal Military Government announced seven days of national mourning.
The United States Government, through the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), was allegedly involved in the attempted coup and assassination of General Mohammed, according to widespread rumors. This was due to the well-publicized disagreements between the Nigerian government and the US government regarding Nigeria’s support for the People’s Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA), which is backed by the Soviet Union. Due to the national mourning, Saturday tennis matches were postponed.
John McDonald got into a big fight with some of the American players who weren’t willing to play in such dangerous conditions because he pushed for the tournament to go on. McDonald warned the players that they would not be permitted to leave the country if they did not participate. This was because Nigerian customs officers who had taken their passports for visa revalidation were still holding onto them at the time.
Stan Smith stated, “We were told that the last coup that had taken place was a bloodless coup and that no one was able to leave the country for a while.” We were worried that we wouldn’t be able to leave the country to attend the subsequent tournament.
McDonald was notified late on Saturday by representatives of the Lagos Lawn Tennis Club that the Federal Military Government had granted permission for the tennis tournament to resume on Sunday. Despite the closure of national borders and airports, the government also promised to provide a plane to take the players out of the country at the tournament’s conclusion. John McDonald notified the remaining eight players in the singles tournament that the competition would resume. In the quarterfinals, there were six Americans, one German, and one Australian. To make up for the two days that were missed, Friday and Saturday, the plan was to play the quarterfinals on Sunday and the semifinals and finals on Monday. Because there wasn’t enough time to fit it into the schedule, the doubles tournament that was in the semi-final stage was canceled.
On Sunday, February 15, the quarterfinal matches resumed at 11 a.m., and each of the four matches went off without a hitch. In straight sets, the four Americans Dick Stockton, Bob Lutz, Arthur Ashe, and Jeff Borowiak advanced to the semi-final stage. Players who lost the first set went on to lose the match because the heat in Lagos sapped their strength and motivation. The tournament organizers didn’t give the players any cold drinks, so they had a hard time. During game transitions, some of them sneaked into the air-conditioned room near center court for a few seconds to cool down. They were allowed to do this by the match officials. In the following year, February would be the hottest month in Lagos.
After Friday’s turmoil, Sunday was relatively calm in Lagos, allowing Donald Easum, Arthur Ashe, Jeff Borowiak, and Tom Okker, along with Pele, to dine at the Brazilian ambassador’s residence. In contrast, the elderly American couple’s five American players had nothing to do. We were bored because they had a world-class dartboard and darts. Erik Van Dillen stated, “There were these huge lizards running around the property.” We made the decision to go on a huge safari hunt to see if we can find them. At the time, we lacked political correctness. Despite their best efforts, the players could not keep up with the lizards’ rapidity. So Eddie Dibbs throws a dart while I am moving in a different direction and it hits my leg right off the cement floor. It hurt for a short time. Bob Lutz chuckled as he thought back to the incident. When we thought about what was going on, we had a lot of fun.
Later, Dibbs and Lutz talked to some soldiers who were stationed at a roadblock down the street. The soldiers seemed friendly as they ate their food. They were informed by the players that they were in Lagos for a tennis tournament. Their Commanding Officer suddenly appeared and yelled at the players, “What are you doing here? Are you the CIA? Are you a spy? Get away from here! The players hurriedly returned to their homes.
In the early hours of Tuesday, February 17, the 18-man WCT contingent of 14 players, 2 WCT officials, and 2 English journalists headed for Lagos International Airport from their rendezvous point in Ikoyi. An armed police escort to the airport was provided by the Federal Military Government. The vehicles were able to get around the city’s roadblocks because of this. In addition, the government kept its word by providing a plane and removing flight restrictions so that the tennis team could leave Lagos’s airspace. After the attempted coup, they were the first foreigners permitted to leave the country. The day before, Donald Easum was contacted by the local manager of Pepsi-Cola to inquire about Pele and his entourage traveling with the WCT contingent. Official government permission was not obtained in time for this to occur. To prevent fugitives like Dimka from leaving the country, a significant military presence was present at the airport. In order to catch the AZ 837 Alitalia flight, which left Accra at 8.15 a.m. and arrived in Rome at 2.35 p.m., the plane took off at 7 a.m. As the aircraft took off from the runway at Lagos International Airport, the players let out a hail of cheers. They were glad that their ordeal had come to an end.
Harold Solomon recalled, “It was unfortunate.” We were traveling to a developing African nation for a major tournament, and it was unfortunate that we were there at the time of an unfortunate coup.
In order to accommodate the players’ tardy arrival, the Rome WCT tournament was postponed by a day. This tournament was eventually won by Arthur Ashe. When the Federal Military Government reopened the borders and airports a few days later, Pele eventually left Lagos. To hide his identity, the Brazilian ambassador insisted that he wear an aviator’s uniform. During his time in Lagos, Pele ran the greatest risk of losing money playing gin rummy in the Federal Palace hotel.
When Arthur Ashe, Jeff Borowiak, and Dick Stockton arrived in Rome, the WCT informed them that they were required to fulfill their matches in the Lagos Tennis Classic. They were required to complete the event to ensure that the singles tournament prize money and Hagger points were distributed appropriately. This could only have been accomplished at the Caracas WCT Open. Arthur Ashe defeated Borowiak on April 1, during the middle of the Caracas tournament, to win his semifinal match. He faced Stockton in the final on April 2, but he lost to him. Stockton won for the first time against Ashe, and the match was over in less than an hour. 6-3, 6-2 was the final score. Nigeria never saw another tennis tournament hosted by the WCT. A few days after his death, the Lagos International Airport was renamed the “Murtala Mohammed International Airport.” Prior to his capture on March 5, Dimka was on the run for three weeks following the attempted coup. On May 15, 1976, he was put to death. The military interruption of the Ashe vs. Borowiak semi-final match was never officially explained by the government.
This long-form narrative is the result of phone interviews with Tom Okker, Stan Smith, Harold Solomon, Dick Stockton, Bob Lutz, John McDonald, Ismail El Shafei, Paul Svehlik, and Erik Van Dillen, as well as archival newspaper research and biographical accounts of key characters.
