Why I rejected US offer of asylum despite threat of arrest — Obasanjo

MaTaZ ArIsInG
Dallas, Texas

Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has said he rejected an offer of political asylum from the United States because he had committed no offence to warrant fleeing Nigeria, despite warnings that he would be arrested if he returned to the country.

Obasanjo said he questioned why he should seek refuge abroad when he had done nothing wrong, even after the American ambassador informed him that the US government knew he was at risk of arrest under the regime of former military Head of State, late Gen. Sani Abacha.

The former president disclosed this while recounting his experience under Abacha in a video published by BBC News Pidgin on Tuesday.

He said, “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.”

Obasanjo said he eventually returned to Nigeria, where his passport was seized before he headed to his farm.

He recalled that one of his security details stopped him at the farm’s entrance and informed him that security operatives had surrounded the property.

According to him, a police officer dressed in mufti later arrived and told him that an Assistant Inspector-General of Police (AIG) wanted him to come and assist him.

Obasanjo said he rejected the invitation, insisting that the AIG should come to the farm if he needed his assistance.

He said, “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.’”

The former president also recalled how former United States President Jimmy Carter intervened in his detention by appealing to Abacha.

He said Carter’s intervention led to his placement under house arrest after he had initially been held at an undisclosed location.

Obasanjo, however, said security operatives later came for him at about 1 am while he was playing squash and took him to prison.

He said, “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.

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