How Daniel Etim-Effiong’s Father Escaped the Firing Squad

LAGOS – In a move that has sent ripples through the Nigerian entertainment industry and the national consciousness, Nollywood powerhouse Daniel Etim-Effiong has shared a raw, behind-the-scenes look at a family history marred by military tribunal and near-death.

​Appearing on the Diary of a Naija Girl podcast earlier this week, the award-winning actor revealed that his father, retired Lieutenant Colonel Moses Effiong, was once a heartbeat away from execution by a firing squad. The elder Effiong was ensnared in the infamous 1985 Mamman Vatsa coup plot against the military regime of General Ibrahim Babangida.

​A Loyalty Trap

​The actor, who was only a year old when his father was whisked away, described the case as a tragic dilemma of military brotherhood. “His best friend in the army told him of plans he had to kick Babangida out of power,” Etim-Effiong recounted. “The big question became: should he tell on his friend or not?”

​When the plot was inevitably leaked, the primary conspirators were rounded up. Under interrogation, his father’s associate admitted to sharing the plan with him. Under the military decrees of the era, “concealment of treason” was often treated with the same lethal severity as the act itself.

​From Death Row to a Presidential Pardon

​While Major-General Mamman Vatsa and ten other officers were executed in March 1986, Lt. Col. Moses Effiong’s death sentence was miraculously commuted to life imprisonment. He spent seven years behind bars before being released in 1993, but he remained a man without a country—stripped of his rank, his pension, and his honor.

​The family’s tragedy was compounded during those years; the actor’s mother tragically passed away in an accident while traveling to visit her husband in prison.

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​The long shadow of the conviction was only lifted in April 2020, when President Muhammadu Buhari granted a full presidential pardon to the retired colonel, alongside other historical figures like Anthony Enahoro.

​”The Colonel is back,” Etim-Effiong had celebrated at the time of the pardon. Reflecting on it now, the actor noted that it took 34 years for the state to officially recognize his father’s innocence and restore his entitlements.

​The revelation provides a sobering context to the actor’s rise to stardom, highlighting the resilience of a family that survived one of the darkest chapters of Nigeria’s military history.