Yet, we ended up with Obasanjo, the whole process ended up producing another general as president and people keep saying that you generals actually found a way to organise this transition. He was in prison and somehow he was brought out, dressed up as a civilian candidate, and became president. There is this believe that this is all arranged by the leading generals of the period.


Thank you for asking that question. I always smile and laugh when I am accused or my Government is accused of imposing Obasanjo.

Now of course we released Obasanjo and other prisoners and pardoned them. So when Obasanjo was released he came to see me, saying he was going to take the Government to Court. “Why are you going to do that?” He said his business was crumbled by the military, his human rights have been violated, that he did not commit any coup and so on and so forth. I said “Sir, please let bygone be bygone, thank God you are alive today, forget about these things. Some of the issues you mentioned, within my power I will look into that, so we left it at that”.

The next time he came to see me was to tell me that he had been approached by this group of people, they want to make him the candidate to stand for election.

I said “Sir, if I were you, please disregard this people, Sir, go home and rest and sort your health out and so on and so forth”. He said “Okay, General thank you for your advice, I will get back to you”. He never got back to me. The next I hear was that he was one of the presidential candidates.

https://trendyblog.com.ng/abdulsalami-abubakar-trust-tv-interview-i-advised-obasanjo-not-to-join-politics/