🎧
Listen to this article
Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has revealed how he rejected an offer of political asylum from the United States government, choosing instead to return home despite explicit warnings that he would be arrested by the late military ruler, General Sani Abacha.
Speaking in an interview published by BBC News Pidgin on Tuesday, Obasanjo stated that while traveling abroad, the American ambassador to Nigeria personally notified him of the asylum offer due to intelligence that Abacha had marked him for arrest.
“This was difficult for me. I don’t— I haven’t done anything. What do they want to arrest me for? Um, I don’t want political asylum,” Obasanjo recounted.
The former military Head of State explained that after retiring from the Nigerian Army at 42 having reached the rank of a four-star general, he transitioned fully into commercial agriculture. However, his farming operations were disrupted following Abacha’s takeover in November 1993.
Upon his return to Nigeria, security operatives confiscated his passport at the airport. While heading back to his farm, security details informed him that government forces had surrounded the property.
“Within 15 minutes, this man came in mufti, not in uniform, a policeman, and he said, ‘Well, you have been invited by the AIG to come and help him.’ I said, ‘You are a fool. If the AIG wants me to help him, he will not be inviting me. He will come here,’” he said.
Obasanjo eventually drove to the police station in his own vehicle, where the Assistant Inspector-General of Police informed him that he was under official arrest.
Following high-level diplomatic appeals from former United States President Jimmy Carter, Abacha initially placed Obasanjo under house arrest. However, the military regime abruptly altered its approach during a late-night operation.
“Then President Jimmy Carter came. He pleaded, and then they put me under house arrest. Then they came one day; I was playing squash at about 1 am. They came and said they were taking me away. And they took me away, and from there, I went to prison,” Obasanjo stated.
Obasanjo remained imprisoned until Abacha’s sudden death in June 1998. He subsequently re-entered politics, winning the 1999 presidential election to become Nigeria’s first democratically elected president of the Fourth Republic, serving two terms until May 2007.
No Comments