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Discloses how late US President saved him from Abacha’s firing squad
From Laide Raheem, Abeokuta
A funeral service was held on Sunday in memory of the late former President of the United States, Jimmy Carter, at the Chapel of Christ the Glorious King in Abeokuta, the Ogun State capital.
The service was organised by former President Olusegun Obasanjo at his Olusegun Obasanjo Presidential Library (OOPL) and was attended by the former president, his family members, friends, and associates.
Speaking at the event, Obasanjo explained that the service was in memory of the life and times of former President Jimmy Carter for his selfless service to humanity through his Carter Centre.
Obasanjo posthumously thanked Carter for saving his life from the late military Head of State, General Sani Abacha.
“By the morning of January 5, 2025, I received information that my friend and brother, Ambassador Andy Young, was looking for me. Of course, I knew that it would have been Andy’s desire that I should be at President Jimmy Carter’s funeral ceremony in Atlanta and in Washington DC, USA.
“I knew that other people were pressing for my attendance and later the family’s invitation was conveyed to me. But could I do something that could express my feelings of both loss of, and gratitude to, a friend? Immediately after President Carter’s death was announced, I made up my mind and decided that President Jimmy Carter should be honoured here in Nigeria by me through a memorial service in a church.
“Knowing him as I did—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.
“I, therefore, sought the permission of the Chaplain of the OOPL Chapel, Dr Femi Olajide, to have part of the Sunday service on January 12 dedicated to the memory of President Jimmy Carter. The chaplain granted my request. And Chaplain, I thank you again. Let me hasten to thank the President of the Nigerian Baptist Convention, Rev. (Dr) Israel Adelani Akanji, who was contacted to find a preacher for the occasion and he decided to take up the task himself at such short notice. I thank you also for the offer and for your being here to join us in honouring a great man who deserves to be honoured.
“But why should I decide to have a service in memory of an American president who lived and died almost 5,000 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,” Obasanjo stated.
The former president disclosed that, in terms of early life background, he shared a similarity with President Jimmy Carter.
He said: “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 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 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 a road to his settlement; there was no road to my village. We walked to every place or, at best, we were carried on a bicycle. 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. When I became Nigeria’s military Head of State, one major issue that Africa was facing, among others, was removing the last vestiges of colonisation 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 centrepiece 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 a close and amicable relationship. On January 26, only six 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 continuing 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.’
Obasanjo recalled that within 30 days in office, President Carter asked his administration to start collaborating with the US Administration under him, which culminated in his state visit to the US on October 11, 1977.
“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 from March 31 to 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,” he noted.
Reeling out late President Carter’s attributes further, Obasanjo said that “Since 1948, 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 into 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 the ‘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.”
“At one stage, Ted Turner, the Founder of CNN, conceived the idea of making the world a better place for all humankind and formed an organisation named Better World Society. He persuaded President Carter to join the Board of Trustees of the Society and Ted got President Carter to persuade me to join also. And once President Carter agreed, I did not need much persuading to agree to join. Unfortunately, the Chief Executive of the Society did not deploy optimum integrity and honesty in his work and Ted Turner, as the Chairman of the Board, summarily terminated the appointment of the CEO. The Society became moribund and dormant.
“Ted continued on the path of a better world and donated huge sums of money to the United Nations for the cause of making the world a better place. In the process of working with Turner and Carter to make the world a better place, great friendship developed between me and Ted Turner. He is another man of a warm heart, great passion for doing good and like Carter, he would like to see humanitarianism substituted for materialism and militarism.”
Former President Obasanjo further informed the congregation of how the former US president saved him from the hangman’s noose of late Abacha.
“In the evenings of our lives, I became a victim of a militarist man—Sani Abacha—who wanted to rule Nigeria perpetually till the 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 around 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 attend his way. May his soul rest in peace,” Obasanjo said.