In a dramatic revelation that sheds fresh light on the high-stakes political maneuvers that birthed Nigeria’s current democratic era, former military Head of State, General Abdulsalami Abubakar (retired), has disclosed that he personally attempted to dissuade former President Olusegun Obasanjo from contesting the historic 1999 presidential election.
The retired general revealed that his intimate counsel was rooted in deep concern over the grueling and traumatic experience Obasanjo had just endured as a political prisoner under the Draconian regime of the late General Sani Abacha. Abdulsalami explained that, at the time, he firmly believed the former military ruler should prioritize his health, family, and the comprehensive reconstruction of his personal life rather than plunging directly back into the volatile and unpredictable theater of Nigerian politics.
The startling historical disclosure is contained within the pages of Abdulsalami’s newly published autobiography, titled Call of Duty. The book was formally unveiled to a distinguished audience of statesmen, historians, and political actors in Abuja as part of the official activities commemorating the retired general's 84th birthday. The expansive text offers an unprecedented, firsthand account of the delicate transition from military dictatorship to civilian rule, providing crucial, previously unrecorded details about the structural events that shaped the birth of the Nigerian Fourth Republic.
According to the autobiography, the pivotal interaction occurred shortly after Obasanjo was granted his freedom from state detention in 1998, following the sudden demise of General Abacha. Abdulsalami, who had assumed the mantle of Head of State with a mandate to return the country to democratic governance, recalls that Obasanjo paid him a private visit to deliberate on two profound dilemmas weighing heavily on his mind.
The first issue centered on Obasanjo’s firm intention to initiate a massive legal battle against the Federal Government to seek formal redress and damages for what he maintained was an entirely fabricated treason charge and subsequent illegal imprisonment. The second dilemma involved the immense, relentless pressure being mounted on him by founding fathers of the newly formed Peoples Democratic Party, who viewed him as the ideal consensus candidate to heal national fractures and lead the incoming civilian administration.
Abdulsalami writes that he acted as a blunt, frank counselor to his senior military colleague on both fronts. Regarding the proposed litigation against the state, the Head of State strongly advised Obasanjo to abandon the pursuit of legal warfare. He argued that the Nigerian judicial architecture was notoriously slow, warning that a confrontational court battle could drag on fruitlessly for several years with absolutely no guarantee of a favorable outcome.
Instead, Abdulsalami promised that his transitional administration would administrative explore alternative avenues, such as discretionary state compensation, to help resuscitate Obasanjo’s severely degraded business interests and commercial farms. Confronted with the harsh realities of an uncertain and prolonged judicial process, Obasanjo ultimately capitulated to the advice and chose to forego the litigation option.
However, Abdulsalami was even more direct and uncompromising when the discussion shifted to Obasanjo’s potential return to executive power. The memoir recounts the exact nature of the exchange, highlighting the profound skepticism felt by the transitional military leadership regarding Obasanjo's readiness for high office immediately following his incarceration.
On the invitation by the PDP that he should run in the presidential race, I advised him to return home and thank God that he was still alive after all he had gone through in four years, General Abdulsalami notes in his book. I told him point-blank that he should forget about contesting to be President. He took a deep sigh and said he was going to think about it and revert. He never got back to me. He can confirm this encounter.
Despite Obasanjo’s subsequent victory at the 1999 polls and his eventual inauguration as a civilian president, Abdulsalami uses his autobiography to vehemently dismantle a long-standing, persistent historical narrative. For nearly three decades, political analysts and critics have argued that the Abdulsalami administration intentionally engineered the transition process, manipulating the state apparatus and leveraging national resources to ensure Obasanjo’s ascension to the presidency as part of a hidden military succession plan.
The former Head of State rejects these claims entirely as mere conjecture and unsubstantiated rumor. He maintains that his government adhered strictly to a broad, transparent policy aimed at releasing all political detainees and granting unconditional state pardons to balance the national ecosystem, without ever favoring or showing prejudice toward any single individual.
Abdulsalami asserts that the intense public focus on Obasanjo’s release was simply a byproduct of his immense global profile and his subsequent political trajectory, rather than the result of any subterranean favoritism from the provisional ruling council.
I tell people till today that my administration had nothing to do with the presidential ambition of General Obasanjo, the retired general writes defensively. It may be hard to believe, but we did not endorse him, and we did not work for him. It was a conjecture.
While acknowledging that a highly influential network of retired military officers, traditional rulers, and wealthy civilian powerbrokers were actively working behind the scenes to finance and propel Obasanjo’s candidacy, Abdulsalami emphasizes that these operations were strictly private, independent initiatives driven by partisan interests, completely divorced from official government policy or state sanction.
Beyond the personal anecdotes involving Obasanjo, Call of Duty provides crucial insights into the pragmatic and sometimes controversial calculations made by the military high command to guarantee national stability. In a particularly revealing section, Abdulsalami confesses that his administration consciously manipulated and loosened the official guidelines governing political party registration to ensure that the Alliance for Democracy was not disqualified from the transition process.
During the preliminary local government polls, the AD—which enjoyed near-monolithic support across the Yoruba-dominated South-West—failed to meet the strict national geographical spread requirements mandated by the electoral body for formal registration. Recognizing that excluding the political vehicle of the South-West would alienate a highly volatile and aggrieved region still reeling from the annulment of the June 12, 1993 presidential election, Abdulsalami chose political pragmatism over rigid legalism.
The military government creatively altered the regulations, decreeing that whatever political association finished in third place nationwide would automatically receive formal registration, regardless of whether it met the original criteria. This deliberate policy intervention allowed the AD to scale through, an adjustment Abdulsalami defends as a necessary act of statesmanship designed to foster inclusivity, preserve national unity, and prevent the fragile country from fracturing along ethnic fault lines during a highly sensitive historical turning point.
The autobiography also resolves historical questions regarding the transition timeline. Abdulsalami explains that the decision to hand over power on May 29, 1999, rather than the initially contemplated date of October 1998, was borne out of a formal request from the nation's judiciary. Legal authorities had argued forcefully that the transition timetable must incorporate an adequate, unhurried window to allow the tribunals to comprehensively hear and resolve all inevitable election-related disputes before any winners were officially sworn into executive office.
Furthermore, the retired General reveals that he faced intense, continuous pressure from various quarters to deliberately extend his stay in power. This pressure emanated not only from ambitious military colleagues eager to retain the perks of governance, but curiously also from certain foreign diplomats and even prominent members of the domestic pro-democracy movement, who guided that the country required a longer, more stabilized interim transition period to properly re-engineer its broken institutions.
Abdulsalami insists that he was never for a single moment tempted by the allure of extended power. He states that by the time he assumed control of the state following Abacha's death, Nigeria had become a global pariah, suffocating under severe international sanctions, crippled by domestic unrest, and sitting dangerously on the absolute precipice of a systemic collapse.
Reflecting on his brief but epochal tenure with a sense of profound fulfillment, the elder statesman concludes that he harbors absolutely no regrets regarding his hasty exit from power, expressing enduring satisfaction that his administration successfully delivered on its core mandate to restore democratic governance, exit the political stage, and secure the survival of the Nigerian nation.
