How Jimmy Carter stuck his neck to save my life from Abacha - Obasanjo - NEWS FRONTIER DAILY

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Sunday, January 12, 2025

How Jimmy Carter stuck his neck to save my life from Abacha - Obasanjo






By Adeniyi Adedoyin 


Former President Olusegun Obasanjo on Sunday paid glowing tributes to the late former American President, Jimmy Carter, whom he described as a “titan and man of peace.”

Obasanjo, who paid the tribute at a memorial service held in honour of late President Carter, held at the Chapel of Christ the Glorious King, Olusegun Obasanjo Presidential Library, Abeokuta, Ogun State, recalled how Carter stuck out his neck to save his life by seeking his release from prison under the late Head of State, General Sanni Abacha.

Carter, the 39th president of the United States and the recipient of the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize for his post-presidential work, died at 100, on December 29, 2024, at his home in Plains, Georgia.

He said, “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.

"In the evenings of our lives, I became a victim of a militarialist man – Sani Abacha – who wanted to rule Nigeria perpetually till end of his life.  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.  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".  

"I would remain ever grateful to all who worked for my release from Abacha’s gulag.  Abacha ensured that I would not be released.  Within a week of his death though, I was released by his successor, General Abdulsalami Abubakar, who also facilitated my going round Africa and the rest of the world to thank all those who worked for my release".

"In the US, I called on President Jimmy Carter who told me all the efforts he made with other leaders and Abacha remaining unyielding for my release.  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’”.  I was touched and moved to tears.  I immediately went to Ted who expressed to me the same sentiment that President Carter expressed.  He proved his generosity and I kept going back to President Carter anytime I could spare to express my gratitude to him".  

"For me, I would miss a great and true friend but I know we shall meet again in Paradise".

"One great lesson I learned from President Carter was that in his leadership, he carried along an army of co-workers that shared the ideal and the burden of the work with him.  He led by example and in humility and that made success to attend his way".  


Speaking on the attributes of the late President Carter, Obasanjo described him as "a simple, humble, honest man of God-, he would prefer nothing better than a simple but significant service in his memory.  He was a humble man of simplicity".

"But why should I decide to have a service in memory of an American President who lived and died almost 5000 miles away?  It is because he was a great world leader, he was a righteous man whose righteousness spread over the whole world; he was a lover of humanity, a man of God; and he was a great and true friend of mine".

"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 rural village of Ibogun-Olaogun in Ogun State".  

"He grew up under a father and mother who were disciplinarians, who instilled in him 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 pipe water, no electricity just as it was in Plains, Georgia, while Jimmy Carter was growing there.  He beat me though in one respect, there was road to his settlement, there was no road to my village.  We walked to every place or, at best, we were carried on bicycle". 

"President Carter had 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".  

When I became Nigeria’s military Head of State, one major issue that Africa was facing, among others, was removing the last vestiges of colonization and getting rid of apartheid all in Southern Africa".  

"The then policy of the US Government under President Gerald Rudolph Ford Jr. courageously implemented by Secretary of State, Dr. Henry Kissinger, was, to put it mildly, unsympathetic to African interest in Southern Africa.  We stood uncompromisingly on our policy of Africa being the centre-piece of our foreign policy and could not get along well with the US Government of President Ford and his Secretary of State on their constructive engagement with Southern Africa"

"We were hoping and praying for a change in the US Government leader as elections came up in November 1976 in America.  In preparation for the change that we hoped for, if it would come, we looked for and reached out to a close collaborator of Presidential Candidate Jimmy Carter in Andy Young.  Our prayer was answered as Jimmy Carter won the election and Andy Young was a Cabinet member of the Administration and US Permanent Representative at the United Nations, UN.  The Secretary of State, Cyrus Vance, was a direct opposite of Kissinger.  
Obviously, Andy had prepared the ground for the new relationship between Nigeria and the US on one hand and, by extension, between the US and Africa.  As soon as Carter was sworn in, I wrote him a letter of congratulations expressing our hope and aspiration for close and amicable relationship.  On January 26, only 6 days after his assumption of office, President Carter wrote me a delightful letter which in part reads: 
“As I begin my duties as President of the United States, I want you to know that my administration will join all friends of Africa to help achieve real independence and further economic and social progress for all peoples of that continent. I recognise that Nigeria has a special role to play, justified not only by her size and economic importance, but also through the special dedication of her leaders to the ideals of freedom, self-determination, equal rights, and development".

Nigeria’s efforts to achieve these ends at home and abroad are widely known and respected. As a matter of immediate attention, I want to assure you that the United States remains deeply concerned about the situation in southern Africa. We are fully committed to continue the search for peaceful solutions to the problems of Rhodesia and Namibia. My administration will carry on the efforts already begun to bring about peace and justice in the region. In the future, we will use our influence and good offices wherever they may be best applied to accomplish this goal".  

The United States does not assume that the search for peace in southern Africa will be an easy one. Despite these difficulties, we believe that it is important to give diplomacy every chance to work. I have asked Secretary of State, Cyrus Vance, to be in touch with you separately to consult on future steps we might take, and ways in which we can work together to achieve solutions for southern Africa’s difficult problems.”

"With less than a month in office, President Carter told us to begin our walking and working together with the US Administration under President Carter leading to my State Visit to the US on October 11, 1977, and culminating in President Carter’s State Visit to Nigeria on March 31- April 3, 1978, the first of such State Visits to any country in Africa by a sitting American President.  From then on, whatever the US was doing in Africa, we were carried along".

"Since 1948 that there had been disagreement and conflict in the Middle-East between Israel and Palestine, President Carter was the only American President that had been able to bring about durable peace between Israel and Egypt.  But not only did he bring peace and reasonable security between Israel and Egypt which had implications throughout the Middle-East, he also wrote a book on Israeli-Palestinian problems that gave clear insight on the history and background and also set out fair, just and equitable solutions that could be followed.
Carter was a man of peace and a man for peace".  

"He brought decency to the presidency after ‘Watergate’ scandal, which was a major political scandal in the United States involving the administration of President Richard Nixon which began in 1972 and ultimately led to Nixon's resignation in 1974".  

"His work for peace, resolution of conflict, human rights and so on should have made him a two-term President but his goodness was misconstrued for weakness and both the US and the world especially Africa lost the opportunity for his services in the US Government for another four years".  

"In a perverted world, people’s goodness may not be often appreciated.  But Carter was unstoppable in doing good whether he was in government or out of government.  He chose the Carter Centre, the usual and mandatory Presidential Library System, to be the centre of activities for his humanitarian, humanist and humane activities of fight against guinea worm and polio in the health area, observation of elections in the political area, enhancement of agriculture in food and nutrition security area which was carried with Sasakawa, a Japanese billionaire, and Norman Borlaug, a plant breeder specialist and Nobel Laureate.  President Carter made sure that he got me to participate along with him in all these activities".

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