Nigeria’s former President Olusegun Obasanjo has detailed how he survived the “evil plan” hatched by former Head of State, General Sani Abacha, to kill him, alongside General Shehu Musa Yar’Adua and the winner of the June 12, 1993, elections, Chief M.K.O. Abiola.
Obasanjo made the disclosure at Ogbor Uvuru in Aboh Mbaise, Imo State, last weekend while commissioning the state-of-the-art Assemblies of God Church, christened ‘The Noah’s Ark’.
He said Abacha had boasted that none of the trio would come out of prison alive, as that was the way he could perpetually retain power.
“When I was arrested, the man who arrested me, I thought he was making a mistake.
“He had decided that some of us must be liquidated if he has to be in power permanently. There I was, but then, initially, I was confused; I had not done anything wrong. Was it a mistake?
“When I realised that it wasn’t a mistake, I was full of prayers, including praying as Stephen prayed, but amended my own prayer somewhat.
I said whether they know what they are doing or they do not know what they are doing, God forgive them.
“I resigned myself into the hands of God, and the man who arrested us boasted that three of us will not come out of the detention or prison alive – that MKO Abiola will not come out alive, that Shehu Yar’Adua will not come out alive and that Olusegun Obasanjo will not come out alive.
‘’Two of the three he had planned not to come out alive did not come out alive, I did come out alive not because of my power but the special grace of God,” Obasanjo shared.