From the Farm to the Cell: The Day Abacha’s Police Came for Obasanjo

Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has recounted how he rejected an offer of political asylum from the United States, despite being warned that he would be arrested if he returned to Nigeria, and how he was subsequently imprisoned under the regime of General Sani Abacha.

The Obasanjo US asylum account, given in an interview with the BBC, offers a personal recollection of one of the most turbulent periods in Nigeria’s political history, ValidViewNetwork reports .

THE WARNING

Obasanjo said he was travelling when the American ambassador to Nigeria contacted him. “When I was returning, the American ambassador to Nigeria called me and said, ‘My country has offered you political asylum because they know that you will be arrested if you return home,'” he said .

Obasanjo said he found the offer difficult to accept. “It was difficult for me because I had done nothing wrong. What did they want to arrest me for? I did not want political asylum”.

THE ARREST

Upon his return, his passport was seized, and he went to his farm in Ota, Ogun State. At the gate of his farm, his security detail waved him down and told him that security operatives had surrounded the farm.

Within 15 minutes, a policeman in mufti approached him and said he had been invited by an Assistant Inspector-General of Police. “I said, ‘You are a fool. If the AIG wants me to help him, he will not be inviting me. He will come here,'” Obasanjo recalled. “So it was my own car that I used to take myself to the police station. We saw the AIG, and the AIG said, ‘I have been instructed to arrest you’ “.

THE PRISON

Obasanjo said he was initially confined at an undisclosed location, but after former US President Jimmy Carter intervened and pleaded with Abacha, he was placed under house arrest.

Then, one night, at about 1 a.m., while he was playing squash, they came for him.

“They came and said they were taking me away. And they took me away, and from there, I went to prison,” he said.

Obasanjo was arrested on March 13, 1995, following allegations that he was involved in a coup plot against Abacha’s government. He was imprisoned until Abacha’s death in June 1998, when he was released.

He later became Nigeria’s president in 1999, serving two terms until 2007.

WHY IT MATTERS

Obasanjo’s account is a reminder of the price of courage. He was offered a way out. He could have gone to America, lived in exile, and waited for the storm to pass.

Many Nigerians in his position would have taken the offer. He refused.

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His reason was simple: he had done nothing wrong. He believed in his innocence, and he was willing to pay the price for it. The price was imprisonment, isolation, and the uncertainty of not knowing whether he would ever be free again.

Obasanjo survived. He went on to lead Nigeria again. But the years in prison left their mark. And his decision to reject asylum, to stay and face the consequences, is a testament to a kind of courage that is increasingly rare in Nigerian politics. ValidViewNetwork reports.