Former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo has revealed that he turned down an offer of political asylum from the United States despite being warned that he risked arrest if he returned to Nigeria during the military regime of the late General Sani Abacha.
The former president also spoke about how he ventured into farming after retiring from the Nigerian Army at the age of 42.
Obasanjo shared the details while recounting his experiences under military rule in an interview published by BBC News Pidgin on Tuesday.
Reflecting on his retirement from the military, he said he had left government earlier than he expected and had not planned to leave the army at such a young age.
“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.
“Now I had to retire at the age of 42. At the age of 42, I had become a four-star general. There’s nothing else I can do in the army. I’ve become the military head of state. That’s the highest political office I could rise.
He explained that he turned to farming after leaving the military and that the business was doing well until Abacha’s government began targeting him.
Obasanjo said he rejected the American offer of asylum because he believed he had committed no offence that could justify his arrest.
“So what can I do? I decided I would go into farming. It really was going well, and it went 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, and the American ambassador in Nigeria called me and said his country had offered me political asylum because they knew that I would be arrested if I returned home.
“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.”
The former president said authorities later seized his passport, after which he headed to his farm. However, upon arriving, a member of his security team informed him that government security operatives had surrounded the property.
He recalled that a police officer dressed in civilian clothes subsequently approached him and claimed that an Assistant Inspector-General of Police (AIG) wanted to see him.
“And when I arrived, they seized my passport; I made for my farm. At the gate of my farm was my security. He waved me down. He said that security had surrounded the farm. And 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,” Obasanjo lamented, adding, “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.’”
Obasanjo further disclosed that former United States President Jimmy Carter intervened by appealing to Abacha on his behalf.
According to him, Carter’s intervention initially led to him being placed under house arrest after he had been detained at an undisclosed location.
“I didn’t know that it was a decision of Abacha that some of us must not be kept free; otherwise, he would feel unsafe. I was put in a place.
“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.
