Abacha told people that Yar‘Adua, MKO and I wouldn‘t come out of prison alive - Obasanjo


Though former President Olusegun Obasanjo was in a hurry to catch a flight, he spared a few minutes to talk about his experiences. He spoke to Juliet Bumah and Ademola Oni. Photos: ODUTAYO ODUSANYA

Why did you choose to go into the military? What was your motivation?

Actually, I did not choose to go into the military; I have always said this to people. Some people will say, ‘Oh I got an inspiration,’ or, ‘My father was in the army,’ or ‘I was attracted by the uniform,’ or ‘I went for a parade and I saw them.’ No. In my case, what happened was that at the time I was studying, if I had the money, I would have gone straight to the university, but I was working and reading. In those days, the United Nations gave scholarships to students from Non-Self-Governing territories and I won that scholarship to read geology outside Nigeria in 1957. And then I took the Daily Times (newspaper) one day and I saw an advert for joining the army. What interested me was not joining the army, but taking the exam because I was reading, I wanted to try myself. So, I applied. After the application, I got a reply to go to the provincial office in Ibadan to collect a warrant to travel by railway for the examination in Lagos. It was an opportunity to travel to Lagos at no cost to me. I travelled to Lagos, took the exam and surprisingly, the result came and I passed. I was again asked to go to the provincial office and take another warrant to Lagos for an interview. What could have been better than that? I went again, I collected the warrant, I went for the interview. Then, the result came that I passed, I was in a dilemma.

I had an admission to Fourah Bay College in Sierra Leone. I had a scholarship to study geology in UCLA as a student from Non-Self-Governing territory and now, I had admission to go to Teshie in Ghana for military training as an army officer. What would I do? I thought that taking up the scholarship could be delayed. So, I wrote for it to be delayed for one year and then I went to the military training, which was for six months. My belief was that if the army did not work out, I would take up my scholarship with the UN. I went and the army thing worked out. After 22 weeks, we had an interview and I was selected and I became a soldier. It was when I got into the army that I developed the interest; it wasn’t before joining them.

What was your experience in the army?

I was first of all shocked. When we got to Teshie near Accra, on our first day, there was this British sergeant-major present as we alighted from the bus that took us there. He shouted, ‘Common, carry your heads left right, left right.’ This wasn’t what I bargained for and two of our members, within the first three days, opted out and went back home. Although the idea of going back never occurred to me, I wasn’t prepared and I didn’t know that the aim of that exercise was to break you and then rebuild you or remould you. That was how one became recruited into the military community. I endured it; that was my first experience. Then we started going on parade. This same sergeant-major, who was part of the team, would look at any of us and say, ‘Obasanjo, you are deformed!’ And I would look at myself and wonder if I was really deformed. Or he would say to any of my colleagues, maybe a Sierra Leonean, Ghanaian or Nigerian, ‘Look at him, look at him! He is not fit to be my servant and they sent him here to be an officer!’ It was all part of the idea to break us, but then we got used to it. We later knew Sergeant-Major Cameron for what he was; we lived with him.

Can you remember some of your course mates then?

Yes, of course. From Nigeria (Benjamin) Adekunle was my course mate, Adegoke, Henry Igboba, Sotomi, Patrick Amadi, U.J.Esuene, Udeaja. On the Ghanaian side, Kabore, Yani, Ignatius Kutu Acheampong, who later became the head of state of Ghana. From Sierra Leone, Kaisamba, Toure.

During your training in Ghana, did it occur to you that you had a bright future ahead, becoming a leader one day?

The totality of the training you receive in the army as an officer is to make you a leader. That is not in doubt, but that I would rise to command the Nigerian Army? No. I have got this job and I would do it to the best of my ability (was my aim).

You said your parents were not rich, that you had to look for some options. What was growing up like?

I enjoyed my life in the village in Ibogun Olaogun. One good thing about village life is that it is simple. It is communal, everybody knows everybody else. Everybody was everybody else’s keeper. Our requirements were simple. There were no worries about electricity, about radio and of course, what to eat was available – nice and fresh. You don’t even have to pay for food. It was a pleasant life, maybe it was also a life of ignorance. When you are ignorant, everything is good.

Did your growing up in the village inform your idea of going into farming?

Oh yes, if you grow up in the village, you are very close to nature. There is nothing like it. You see maize almost growing in your eyes and after you have weeded your maize and your maize farm is about three weeks old, and you look at it, oh what a wonderful sight! You do the same thing with cassava and rice; it is very good.

It followed you up till the time you started Operation Feed the Nation?

Yes, whatever you imbibe as a child doesn’t easily leave you. I was more into farming and rural community; going to school was an accident. Joining the army, was an accident; becoming the head of state was an accident. But being born into a farming community and a rural area is natural. Of course, you may be taken from that village area but the element of rural life would still remain in you.

One of your friends said when you were in Baptist Boys High School, Abeokuta, that you normally played football and you were not too good, but that whichever side you played for usually won. Was it a coincidence or was there more to it?

I don’t know, people believe my father must have cooked me in some special pot. Even when we were in school, I was taking the first position. These are coincidences in life. As I said, it is coincidence that I went to school, coincidence that I joined the army, and these coincidences, I also believe God has a hand in the progression of one’s life. I believe that you can do a lot to attempt to derail God’s plan for your life but if you allow God to make it and you follow it, it will happen. I had three choices – to study in America, to go to a university in Sierra Leone. I didn’t wait for the one in Nigeria and there was also the choice to join the army.

When you started the farm, did you think it would grow so big, into what it is today?

No. I have never planned elaborately for myself, but I have never also stopped planning. I’ve never planned and said, this is what it is going to be – a gigantic plan. I started modestly, moderately, but I never stopped adding to it. By adding to it, you keep on making progress.

Do you still go to the farm now?

(Exclaims) I am a farmer. What do farmers do? They sow, they weed and they reap. Now what do I do? I plant, I sow, I direct and I reap. Right now, we have about a little over 7,000 people working on all our farms and that is more important to me than anything else.

Do you know some of your customers?

Well for instance, KFC are our customers, they buy our chicken. They are good customers.

Do you know how many farms you have?

Of course! It is like asking me if I know the number of children I have.

So, how many children do you have?

In my part of the world, if you don’t have children at all and you should have had, you will say many. If you have one, you will say many; if you have 200, you will say many. When I started keeping cattle in Mambila, initially we bought 76 herds of cattle. The Ado, that is the chief, would give you a hand to look after the cattle. He gave me a hand and I went there after one year. I said to my hand, ‘How many cattle? He said 76. I went away. Second year I went, I asked, ‘How many cattle?’ he said 76 and I was furious. I went to the Ado and complained that my hand was a thief. The chief asked what he had stolen and I told him, ‘Last year, he said my cattle was 76 and this year, he said 76 again.’ The chief laughed and said a Fulani man would never tell you the number of cattle he had. He said, ‘If I ask you how much money you have in the bank, will you tell me?’ He said, to the Fulani man, the cattle is his money. He told me I had to go count them myself if I really wanted to know the number I had. When I went to count, I had almost 120.

How old are you?

I will tell you when the time comes. It is no controversy. There is a certain unknown around my past, which I will have to clarify.

What is your thought on coups? Are coups necessary?

I have never participated in any coup, but I have been a beneficiary of a coup. I believe, for instance, that we in Nigeria, on the whole, we would have been better off without coups. We keep learning, and we keep improving. I believe that this is the third election we have in this dispensation. I believe we are improving in the quality of people that are coming up. The first election in 1999, many people didn’t believe it would work, so, they kept away. Some even told me I was a fool.

You were the Head of State between 1976 and 1979, how did you feel when you had to replace the late Gen. Murtala Muhammed, who was there for some months?

Murtala and I worked very closely together and there was nothing we did that we didn’t do together. That was why after Murtala’s demise, people came to me and said, ‘This is my own time, I should elongate my tenure.’ I did not see the point in doing that. That was why I was also ridiculously amused when people said I was campaigning for a third term. There is nobody, alive or dead, in Nigeria that will say that I called him to say I am gunning for third term.

Perhaps your aides were, ?

I don’t know. Many people were in it for their own different reasons. Some governors because they would also be beneficiaries. I never had a hand in the third term agenda; I’m not saying that some people close to me, like ABC, ministers and some others were not involved in it. The procedure is simple. If I was the one that wanted the third term, I would have sent a bill to the National Assembly for a constitution amendment. The constitution amendment of 2006 was from the National Assembly and not from me. So, my aides might have been involved, but definitely, not me.

And you started laughing,

I am still laughing. As I said, sometime ago, you know, not every accusation or allegation against you you can respond to. Because if you start doing that, there will be no end to it. Some you laugh off and wait for the right time to answer them. Some may not even need an answer because you see that it is the ranting of a fool. As I said, I love those two passages of the Bible – Proverbs 26 verse four and verse five. Do not answer a fool so that you won’t be like him. Then answer a fool, so that he won’t get away, believing that he is wise.

Do you believe that it was because they said you participated in not allowing Gen. Ibrahim Babangida to become president that he is now getting at you?

I don’t know. IBB will have his reason. I do not know his reason. You can ask him. That statement is a little bit unlike IBB. So if he has come to say that, and he has, then he must have his reason.

You said joining the army and becoming head of state was an accident. You never said that your becoming the president was an accident; why?

Well, there’s an element of planning, if you will. I came out of the prison. I didn’t have any plan of becoming the president because my farm had been badly battered, even the non-governmental organisation I had, the African Leadership Forum, was chased out of the country; they had to go to Ghana. Some of my children couldn’t even pay their fees. So, when I came out, the first thing I wanted to do was to sort out my life and family. To that extent, there was an element of accident because I didn’t plan it. Then pressure started mounting and I was resisting. My first reaction was, ‘How many presidents do you want to make out of me?’ Three people told me that (Sani) Abacha told them that three of us would not come of prison alive – Shehu Yar’Adua, MKO Abiola and myself. Unfortunately, Abiola and Yar’Adua did not come out of detention alive; Shehu Yar’Adua did not come out of prison alive and I came out alive, not because of my good works, perfection or anything, but by the grace of God. So, I was resisting and one day, I was reading the Bible and I was reading the book of Esther where Mordecai told Esther that you are in the Persian palace, maybe because of a time like this when your people need you. I said to myself, ‘Oh maybe my life has been spared for a time like this.’ So I said, ‘Alright, let me pray about it.’ I prayed about it and gave in.

What role did IBB play?

IBB came to see me here when I came out of prison. And as he was going out, he just said to me, ‘Well, we thank God for your life. Nigeria still needs you.’ It’s similar to what MD Yusuf said to me during Dimka’s coup. And I believe that what well-meaning Nigerians were looking for at that time was somebody, who I felt what the country needed, was someone who would stabilise Nigeria. In fact, a number of people told me that I would be the last president of Nigeria, that after me, the country would break up.

You have this attraction for women; what’s the pull?

No no no, you should put it the other way round, that women have attraction for me. You should ask them what makes them keep coming.

Do they still come?

On a serious note, it is indeed a bad society or community that does not realise the value of women in terms of being 50 per cent of the population of that community and the contribution they make for the uplift and development of the community and society. I believe so much in women as developers as I believe in men and of course, my mother is a woman. My first two children are women and I love them.

But what makes them to keep coming to you?

You should ask those that have come.

How strong are you now?

Well, you can taste me (laughs).

Why were you so annoyed when a Nigerian artiste, Idris Abdulakareem, sang Nigeria Jagajaga?

How can anybody call his own country jagajaga? There are many things wrong with our nation, but so also are many things wrong with other nations. But I won’t call my own country jagajaga; it is wrong. If things are wrong, let us try and put them right. Those countries that we sing their praises now were not like that 100 years ago. When I first went to Britain in 1957, there was no motorway, none. What Hitler built for Germany, maybe 20 years earlier, none. And you could count the number of houses that had television but today, it is a different thing. So I won’t describe my own country as jagajaga. I will say yes, we have problems. We were talking earlier on about my early life, while I was growing up, there was only one university in Nigeria – the University of Ibadan. Today, there are more than 120. That is progress. Then you will say, if we have 120 universities and we have so many thousands coming, will they have job opportunities? That’s the challenge, a national one. It may even be a global one. But we are moving. We still haven’t got enough. The other day, I heard that about one million candidates passed JAMB, got the cut-off mark, which means that they could benefit from university education and the admission would be for about 600,000. About 50 per cent of them would not be able to go. So that also is still a challenge.




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Ebora Owu!!!

I always felt that he had nothing to do with the 3rd term agenda, and that it was the governors and Atiku that were promoting it on the pages of newspapers, each with his own agenda.

Seriously, Baba needs to talk more, and perhaps organise a forum to teach potential Nigerian leaders some of his quite commendable leadership skills.

@djustice
How can Atiku who wanted to succeed Obj be one of the people pushing for third term.

If I have to explain the merits of demonizing your major opponent in order to appear a saint to the general public to you, then, all is lost.

OBJ is quite a colourful character.

Ebora Owu can't simply stop amusing me, what an accidental and coincidental life.
I dey laff ooooooooooo