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Ex-president says he drove himself to police station after security men surrounded his farm
Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has said the late military ruler, General Sani Abacha, wanted him eliminated so he could rule without any challenge.
Obasanjo spoke in a video shared by the BBC. In the video, he looked back at his arrest under Abacha and the life he was living before it happened.
He said he left the army far earlier than he had planned. He was only 42 when he stepped down as military Head of State, and that did not sit well with him. He had not joined the army to retire at that age.
By then, he had already risen to a four-star general and had also led the country. In his words, there was nothing left for the army to give him. So he turned to farming, and the business was doing well until his arrest.
Obasanjo said he had no idea Abacha had marked him for elimination. He was outside the country when the American ambassador in Nigeria contacted him. The ambassador told him the United States was ready to offer him political asylum because Washington believed he would be arrested if he came home.
He rejected the offer. He asked what offence he had committed that would make him run for asylum.
When he returned to Nigeria, officials seized his passport. At his farm, his own security men told him armed officers had surrounded the place.
About 15 minutes later, a man in plain clothes, not uniform, walked in. The man said the Assistant Inspector-General of Police had invited Obasanjo to come and help the police with something.
Obasanjo refused. He said if the AIG truly needed him, the AIG should come to him instead of sending for him.
In the end, he drove himself to the police station in his own car. There, the AIG told him he had been ordered to arrest him. Obasanjo said he did not know then that the order came from Abacha, who wanted certain people kept out of circulation.
Obasanjo first ruled Nigeria as a military leader from 1976 to 1979, when he handed over power to a civilian government. Abacha ruled from 1993 until his death in 1998. Obasanjo was jailed in 1995 over an alleged coup plot, which he denied. He regained his freedom after Abacha died and was elected president in 1999, serving until 2007.