How my wife smuggled me out of Abuja in an Ambulance to escape Abacha’s agents – Bamidele

As Nigeria marks the 2025 National Democracy Day in remembrance of the annulled June 12, 1993 presidential election, Senate Leader Opeyemi Bamidele has shared a deeply personal story of survival, courage, and sacrifice during one of the country’s most turbulent political eras.

Speaking at a commemorative event in Abuja on Wednesday, Bamidele recounted how his wife, Mrs. Yemisi Bamidele, played a crucial role in saving his life during the dark days of military rule under General Sani Abacha.

According to him, Mrs. Bamidele, who was then working as a registered pharmacist at Garki General Hospital, risked everything to help him escape the deadly crackdown on pro-democracy activists.

In a daring move, she smuggled him out of Abuja hidden in an ambulance from her workplace, shielding him from the regime’s agents who were on a relentless hunt for voices of resistance.

Bamidele, in a statement, added that he was in a court session in Wuse II, Federal Capital Territory to defend 11 students union leaders expelled by University Abuja when he received information that security operatives had invaded his law office looking for arms and weapons.

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According to him: “I was in court when one of the court registrars informed me about the invasion of my law office in Wuse II. There was no GSM then. We only relied on land lines. One of the lawyers in my office had called my wife from NUJ Secretariat because they had my wife’s 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.”

He further narrated how his wife quickly called one of the assistant registrars she knew in the court, requesting her to inform him about the invasion of his law office by the agents of the military junta.

According to him: “My case had not been called because we were other senior lawyers in court whose matter would be mentioned before coming to junior counsels. 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.

“What I did was to walk 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.

“I could not fly during the period because the military junta had placed the airport under stick monitoring. So, we could not fly. The journey took almost three days. I could not go to my house in Lagos State. 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. We had a NADECO route where once you found your way to Lagos State, you would go to Badagry. From there, there was an arrangement on how they would take you to Cotonou, which was a very dangerous route for anybody.

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

(Nation)