Donaldson Oladipo Oyeyinka Diya GCON, LLB, BL, PSC, FSS, ; 3 April 1944 – 26 March 2023 was a Nigerian general and lawyer who served as Chief of General Staff, (de facto vice president of Nigeria) under the military head of state General Sani Abacha from 1994 until his arrest for treason in 1997. He served as Chief of Defence Staff and military governor of Ogun State from January 1984 to August 1985.
Donaldson Oladipo Diya was born on 3 April 1944 in Odogbolu, Ogun State, then Western Region, Nigeria. He was educated at the Methodist Primary School, Lagos, and the Odogbolu Grammar School.
Diya joined the Nigerian Defence Academy, Kaduna and fought during the Nigerian Civil War. He later attended the US Army School of Infantry, the Command and Staff College, Jaji (1980–1981) and the National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies, Kuru. While serving in the military, Diya studied law at Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, where he obtained an LLB degree, and then at the Nigerian Law School, where he was called to the bar as Solicitor and Advocate of the Supreme Court of Nigeria.
Oladipo Diya was Commander 31, Airborne Brigade. He was appointed Military Governor of Ogun State from January 1984 to August 1985. He became General Officer Commanding the 82 Division, Nigeria Army in 1985. General Oladipo Diya was Commandant, of National War College (1991–1993) and then was appointed Chief of Defence
He was appointed Chief of General Staff in 1993 and Vice Chairman of the Provisional Ruling Council in 1994. As Chief of the General Staff, he was Nigeria's de facto Vice President during the Sani Abacha military junta from 1994 until he was arrested for treason in 1997. His Principal Staff Officer during this period was Bode George.
In 1997 Diya and dissident soldiers in the military allegedly planned to overthrow the regime of Sani Abacha. The alleged coup was uncovered by forces loyal to Abacha, and Diya and his cohorts was jailed. Diya was tried in a military tribunal and was given the death penalty. Upon the untimely death of Abacha in 1998, Diya was pardoned by the late Head of State's successor, Abdusalami Abubakar.
Most people believed that the much-hyped coup was, in fact, a ploy by Abacha to do away with Diya, who was increasingly becoming popular among the elite and opposition parties, for his moderate views on the situation in Nigeria. Earlier on, Abacha's loyalists had twice attempted to assassinate Diya, once at the airport and then in the streets, using bombs. But most analysts said that whether motivated by a real coup plot or not, the arrest of General Diya signaled deep divisions within the Nigerian military and reflected rising tensions over General Abacha's apparent intention to remain in office by engineering his own election as President.
The fact that General Diya and almost all of the others arrested were ethnic Yoruba from the already deeply disaffected southwest was seen by some as a virtual provocation at a time when a country of powerful regional rivalries was entering into a period of renewed civilian politicking. General Abacha, like his inner core of senior officers and much of the army's rank and file, was a Hausa-speaking northerner of Kanuri origin.
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