by Azeez Adeniyi

Former President Olusegun Obasanjo on Sunday narrated three things he did while in Yola and kirikiri prisons for coup charges by the late military dictator, Sani Abacha.

Obasanjo spoke at Shepherdhill Baptist Church, Obanikoro, Lagos, where the Lagos State Baptist Conference held a thanksgiving service to mark his 80th birthday.

Obasanjo while recalling said he built a church while in prison; started a farm and converted a hardened criminal into a pastor.

He narrated, “There’s a difference between joy and happiness. In prison, I had joy but it will be madness for me to say that when I was in prison I was happy. How can you be in prison and say you are happy? But I was having the joy of God with me, not for one day was I sad. And I am grateful to God for the experience that I had in the prison.

“I will mention three things that God made me to do when I was in Yola Prison. One, God made me to build a church. It’s very unusual, I asked the authorities for  land, they were reluctant, but eventually they gave me land and immediately, we started getting donations. It was started before I left Yola. Wherever you are, you can still be useful to the work of God.

“Secondly, there was a parcel of land, which was not being used for anything, so, I told the prison authorities that I wanted to farm. They were reluctant but eventually they granted me the permission to farm and I grew enough beans to feed all the inmates and the warders. Don’t remain idle, get something doing.”

The former President added that he took over as prison pastor at Kirikiri Prison in Lagos.

He said the prison authorities banned preachers from coming in, after a white garment church had helped prisoners escape during a visit.

He said, “They made sure we did not receive anybody from outside to come and preach to us or fellowship with us. So, I took over as the prison pastor. And there was a boy whom they had introduced to me, his nickname was Baba Ali. Baba Ali was the head of the armed robbers in the North. And if you were an armed robber and you came to the prison, you must first of all go and pay homage to Baba Ali. If you were going out, you must go to Baba Ali and ask him for instruction on what you had to do next.

“So, I called Baba Ali one day and said, ‘You are not coming to fellowship; I want you to be coming to the fellowship.’ He said, ‘Baba, don’t worry me; don’t worry me at all because God can never forgive me. I have killed so many people in my life; I have drunk the blood of so many people; I have eaten the flesh of so many people and God will never forgive me, so, don’t waste your time about me.’

“I left Baba Ali on that occasion, and I waited for some time before I went back and said, ‘Baba Ali, you know all you said that you are a murderer, whether you killed only one person or a thousand people, you are a murderer;  but have you forgotten that Moses was a murderer but God used him to bring the people of Israel out of Egypt? David was a murderer but God called him a man after my heart.

“By the time I was leaving the prison, I told Baba Ali that if he was able to make it and he would like to go to bible school, I would send him to bible school. Baba Ali came out of prison two years after me. By the time he came out I had become the President of Nigeria. It took him two years to get through to me, when he got to me, I reminded him  of our agreement and he said he was ready to go to the bible school. So, I sent him to the seminary. Baba Ali spent two years in the seminary, today Baba Ali is the pastor of a Baptist Church. What is more? Baba Ali’s junior brother took after him and has also become a pastor.”