[5] He was involved in the coup of 27 August 1985, having just returned to 245 Recce Battalion (where he had previously been the Commanding Officer) from a course at the US Armour School, Fort Knox.

[7] On 17 November 1993, escorted by a detachment of the National Guards under Colonel Gwadabe, three senior army officers arrested Ernest Shonekan, the interim civilian president of Nigeria who had been appointed by General Ibrahim Babangida.

On his return to Nigeria after the July 1994 Yahya Jammeh coup in Gambia, he was briefly Principal Staff Officer to General Sani Abacha before being appointed Commander of 23 Armored Brigade in Yola.

On 1 March 1995, he was arrested on a charge of plotting a coup against the Abacha government, and was jailed, tortured and later convicted of treason along with others.

[7] Years later, Abacha's chief of staff Lt-Gen. Oladipo Diya said that he considered that the claimed coup plot was non-existent.

[14] As a board member of MTS First Wireless, in January 2005, Gwadabe alleged that the chairman had been involved in fraudulent allocation of shares and misdeeds in importation of telecommunications equipment.