Twenty years after the end of the General Sani Abacha junta, shocking revelations have continued to emerge about the horror visited on the media and civil society during the infamous regime.
The Special Adviser to President Muhammadu Buhari on Political Matters, Babafemi Ojudu, on Thursday recounted how he spent nine months in prison during the era and would have been assassinated.
Ojudu, who was with The News magazine at the time, made this known at a colloquium organised in honour of Kunle Ajibade, another The News journalist who was jailed for three years.
He said the constant help of Abacha’s deputy, Gen. Oladipo Diya prevented him and other journalists from being assassinated.
Diya was himself arrested in December 1997 for plotting to overthrow the Abacha regime.
Ojudu said, “I had just arrived Nigeria from London. Two days after, I got this message from General Diya, saying, ‘Femi get out of the country, you have been ordered to be executed.’
“That night, I left home, I went through the border to Ghana, and from Ghana to Kenya with all kinds of fake identities.
“I received offers to go and live in London and America with all kinds of covert identities, I said ‘No, I didn’t tell my wife and colleagues who are in Nigeria that I was leaving.’
“I went back to Ghana, the Ghanaian Union of Journalists appealed to me to stay in the country. As I was entering the border, they arrested me and that was the beginning of my nine months journey in prison.”