Opeyemi Bamidele: I fled Nigeria in a canoe as Abacha’s men raided my office

Opeyemi Bamidele, senate majority leader, says he fled Nigeria in a canoe to escape persecution by the Sani Abacha military government.

Abacha was head of Nigeria’s junta from 1993 to 1998.

Bamidele said his escape was orchestrated by his wife, Yemisi Bamidele, who smuggled him out of Abuja in an ambulance belonging to Garki General Hospital, where she worked as a registered pharmacist.

He said the incident followed an invasion of his law office in Wuse II, Abuja, by security operatives who claimed they were searching for arms and ammunition.

The senator spoke in Abuja on Wednesday during an event to commemorate the 2025 National Democracy Day in memory of MKO Abiola, winner of the annulled June 12, 1993 presidential election.

Bamidele said he was in court representing 11 student union leaders expelled by the University of Abuja when he received a warning that his law office had been surrounded by security operatives.

“I was in court when one of the court registrars informed me about the invasion of my law office in Wuse II,” he said.

“There was no GSM then. We only relied on landlines. One of the lawyers in my office had called my wife from NUJ secretariat because they had her office line at Garki General Hospital where she was working as a registered pharmacist.

“He called my wife’s office line just to let me know that when he went to buy something around my office, by the time he was returning, he saw that security officers had taken over the entire place.

“As one of the people who managed to come out of the street, he heard that the security agencies said they were looking for arms and ammunition in that office. It was that bad to come and look for arms and ammunition in a law office.”

‘A WHISPER IN COURT’

Bamidele said his wife contacted an assistant court registrar who quietly delivered the message to him.

“My case had not been called because there were other senior lawyers in court,” he said.

“So, the assistant registrar came to whisper what happened in my law office to me. I managed to inform one of my colleagues to stand by and represent me.

“I walked across to the law office of another colleague. I stayed there until I was able to reach my wife through her office line.

“My wife brought an ambulance from Garki General Hospital to convey me to another location. It was the ambulance we used to go to a place where a friend could convey me in his car.

“We then drove out for almost three days before we got to a safer place.”

He said flying was not an option as airports were under military surveillance.

“I could not fly during the period because the military junta had placed the airport under strict monitoring,” he said.

“The journey took almost three days. I could not go to my house in Lagos. I was told that just as they were searching my office in Abuja, they were also searching the offices of Dr Beko Ransome-Kuti and Chief Femi Falana on the same day in Lagos.

“I think they were just picking people randomly. That was the beginning of my journey to flee Nigeria.”

NADECO ESCAPE ROUTE

Bamidele said there was a NADECO escape route through Badagry to Cotonou, which involved a dangerous boat ride.

“They put a little boat on the water that connects to the international route. They paddled a canoe at night,” he said.

“A number of us went through this route to get out of Nigeria. From Accra in Ghana, we began to look for people who could send us a ticket. That was how I ended up in the US.

“In the US, I was granted political asylum by the government of the United States, which gave me a platform to assist other comrades to leave the country where we continued our struggle against the military junta in exile.”