General Abdulsalami Abubakar (rtd), former Head of State, has explained the role he played after ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo was released from prison in 1998.
Obasanjo was among the leaders that the regime of General Sani Abacha threw into prison.
After Abacha died suddenly in 1998, Abdulsalami took over as head of state and released some prisoners, including Obasanjo.
In an interview, the elder statesman how Obasanjo and others were rehabilitated to make them bounce back.
“We released Obasanjo and other prisoners and pardoned them. So, when Obasanjo was released he came to see me, saying he was going to take the government to court. “Why are you going to do that?” He said his business was crumbled by the military, his human rights have been violated, that he did not commit any coup and so on and so forth. I said “Sir, please let bygone be bygone, thank God you are alive today, forget about these things. Some of the issues you mentioned, within my power I will look into that, so we left it at that”.
Asked if he rehabilitated Obasanjo after prison, Abdulsalami said, “Like I had all other prisoners! What do you mean by I had to rehabilitate him?
“Of course not only him, all people that were imprisoned in one way or the other, we tried to rehabilitate them; to help them in one way or the other.”
