Nigeria, May 11 -- Abdulkadir Sani, one of the six defendants facing coup charges before the Federal High Court in Abuja, has explained how he offered spiritual consultancy for the leader of last year's failed plot to overthrow President Bola Tinubu's government.

Mr Sani, a Zaria, Kaduna State-based Islamic cleric, said this in a video recording tendered by the prosecution and played during Monday's proceedings in the coup trial before the Federal High Court in Abuja.

The defendant said in the video, which captured moments of his interrogations by military investigators, that he knew the alleged coup ringleader, Mohammed Ma'aji, a serving army colonel, for less than a year. He said Mr Ma'aji approached him through a man identified as Sa...