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How Jimmy Carter saved me from Abacha’s ‘Gulag’ — Obasanjo

Former Nigerian President, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, has recounted how former United States President, Jimmy Carter, played a pivotal role in securing his release from the clutches of late General Sani Abacha’s regime.

Obasanjo made this revelation on Sunday during a memorial service held in honour of the late Carter, who passed away at the age of 100 in December last year. The event took place at the Chapel of Christ The Glorious King in Abeokuta, Ogun State.

The former Nigerian leader highlighted that Carter’s visit and intervention with Abacha were instrumental in his transition from detention to house arrest, adding that Carter was the only non-African leader who personally visited Abacha to plead for his release.

“President Carter was one of my foreign friends who stuck their necks out to save my life and to seek my release from prison. On President Carter’s visit to Nigeria, he got Abacha to agree to take me from detention to house arrest on my farm. But that did not last for too long,” Obasanjo said.

He acknowledged the efforts of other global leaders and friends who worked towards his release, expressing particular gratitude to Carter.

“Many other friends and leaders intervened, but President Carter was the only non-African leader, according to my information, that paid a visit to Abacha solely to plead for my release,” he added.

Obasanjo also reflected on how Carter later informed him of the role played by Ted Turner, the founder of Cable News Network (CNN), in seeking his freedom.

“But the most surprising thing Carter said to me was, ‘Please see Ted Turner and thank him for his generosity. He came to me and asked me to get his friend, Obasanjo, released from prison. “I will take care of him and his family here or wherever he chooses to live.”

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“I was touched and moved to tears. I immediately went to Ted, who expressed to me the same sentiment that President Carter expressed,” Obasanjo recalled.

While describing Carter as a “titan and a man of peace,” Obasanjo reflected on the similarities in their backgrounds, both having grown up in farming communities.

“In terms of early life background, I shared similarity with President Jimmy Carter. He was born into a farming family in Plains, Georgia, and I was born into a farming family in the rural village of Ibogun-Olaogun in Ogun State,” he said.

Obasanjo detailed the values instilled in him by his parents, which he noted mirrored those Carter learned from his own upbringing.

“He grew up under a father and mother who were disciplinarians, who instilled in him the essence of discipline, morality, hard work, integrity, kindness and humility, compassion for the poor, and strong belief in God. My parents inculcated similar attributes in me as I was growing up in a rural area that had no piped water, and no electricity just as it was in Plains, Georgia, while Jimmy Carter was growing up there.”

He further shared a lighter note about their differing access to infrastructure.

“He beat me though in one respect, there was a road to his settlement; there was no road to my village. We walked to every place or, at best, we were carried on bicycles,” Obasanjo said.

Obasanjo also pointed out their shared military backgrounds, noting that they first met when he was Nigeria’s military Head of State.

“President Carter had a military background which I had, and, in fact, we met when I was a military Head of State. But if not that we were both in politics, our paths may not have crossed,” he said.

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Reflecting on his time in office, Obasanjo noted that one of the pressing issues during his tenure was addressing the remnants of colonisation and apartheid in Southern Africa.

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