Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has said he rejected an offer of political asylum from the United States, despite being warned that he would be arrested if he returned to Nigeria under the late military ruler, Gen. Sani Abacha.
Obasanjo also recounted how he turned to farming after retiring from the Nigerian Army at the age of 42.
He spoke about his experience under military rule in an interview published by BBC News Pidgin on Tuesday.
“When I was leaving government as military head of state, I was leaving too early. I didn’t join the army to retire at the age of 42,” he said.
“At 42, I had become a four-star general. There was nothing else I could do in the army. I had become military head of state. That was the highest political office I could rise to.”
Obasanjo said his farming business was doing well until Abacha’s government moved against him. He said he refused the asylum offer because he had committed no crime.
“So what could I do? I decided to go into farming. It was going well until I was arrested.
“Abacha had decided that I must be liquidated; otherwise, he would not be able to have his way. I didn’t know that. I was travelling and coming back when the American ambassador in Nigeria called me and said his country had offered me political asylum because they knew I would be arrested if I returned home.
“This was difficult for me. I hadn’t done anything. What did they want to arrest me for? I didn’t want political asylum,” he said.
Obasanjo said his passport was later seized and he went to his farm. When he arrived, one of his security personnel told him that government security operatives had surrounded the premises.
He said a police officer in plain clothes later approached him, claiming that an Assistant Inspector-General of Police had invited him.
“At the gate of my farm, my security guard waved me down and said security operatives had surrounded the farm. Within 15 minutes, a man came in mufti. He was a policeman, and he said, ‘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 invite me. He will come here,’” Obasanjo said.
He added that he drove himself to the police station, where the AIG told him he had been ordered to arrest him.
Obasanjo also said former United States President Jimmy Carter intervened on his behalf by appealing to Abacha. The intervention initially led to Obasanjo being placed under house arrest after he had been held at an undisclosed location.
“I didn’t know it was Abacha’s decision that some of us must not be left free; otherwise, he would feel unsafe. I was put in a place.
“Then President Jimmy Carter came and pleaded, and they put me under house arrest. One day, I was playing squash at about 1 a.m. when they came and said they were taking me away. They took me, and from there I went to prison,” he said.
