Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has described the day he was sentenced to death over a phantom coup by military tribunal set up by late military dictator, Gen Sani Abacha, the saddest day of his life.
Obasanjo made the disclosure on Tuesday while leading morning devotion to mark Valentine’s Day at his Presidential Hilltop residence in Abeokuta, Ogun State.
“My saddest day was when I sat in front of a military panel set up by late former Head of State, Sani Abacha to try me over a phantom coup, and sentenced to death and later commuted to 30 years imprisonment,” he said.
Obasanjo was tried by the tribunal in 1996 alongside Gen Shehu Yar’Adua who was his former deputy when he was head of state from February 1976 to September 1979
Yar’Adua died on December 8, 1997 while serving his prison sentence.
Obasanjo was released from prison after Abacha died mysteriously in 1998. A year later, he was elected President when Nigeria returned to democracy and became the first person to lead the country twice.
the former President, who read from the Bible book of Isaiah 45:1-4, recalled that, following the jail term slammed on him, he had asked himself if he deserved the treatment meted to him, but that he left everything in the hand of God.
“God has always been giving me immense favour beyond my own expectations and what I deserve from Him. And I used to tell people that God has been partial to me from childhood,” he told his guests on Tuesday.
He said following pressure from international community leaders which included former American president, Jimmy Carter, the Abacha regime reduced his sentence to 15 years. He said had Abacha lived, he (Obasanjo) would have spent a minimum of 10 years in prison.
