Inside The Daring Ambulance Escape From Abacha’s Deadly Grip

Speaking in Abuja on Wednesday during the National Democracy Day events, Bamidele shared how he was smuggled out of the capital in 1997 inside an ambulance from Garki General Hospital — a daring plan orchestrated by his wife, Yemisi, a pharmacist at the hospital.....KINDLY READ THE FULL STORY HERE▶

The escape was triggered when military operatives stormed his law office in Wuse II, accusing him of harboring weapons. “I was in court when a registrar quietly informed me that my office had been invaded. There were no mobile phones then — we relied solely on landlines,” Bamidele recalled.

According to him, a colleague at the office managed to call his wife from the NUJ Secretariat using her direct line at the hospital. She swiftly alerted a court registrar who discreetly passed the message to Bamidele as he was representing 11 student union leaders expelled from the University of Abuja over political activism.

“Since my case hadn’t been called yet, I quietly asked a colleague to stand in for me and slipped out,” he said.

Instead of going home, Bamidele went to a nearby law office to hide and contacted his wife. She responded by arranging an ambulance to covertly transport him out of the area. “We used the ambulance to move me to a safer location, where a friend picked me up. We drove for almost three days to reach a more secure destination,” he narrated.

Leaving Abuja by air was impossible due to heavy military presence at the airport. Meanwhile, on the same day, security agents also raided the Lagos offices of leading pro-democracy figures like Dr. Beko Ransome-Kuti and Chief Femi Falana.

Eventually, Bamidele joined the NADECO underground escape route, commonly used by activists fleeing military persecution. “Once in Lagos, we headed for Badagry. From there, arrangements were made to cross into Cotonou by canoe — at night, and under dangerous conditions. Many of us went through this to escape Nigeria,” he said.

From Cotonou, he traveled to Accra, Ghana, where he secured a flight ticket. He finally arrived in the United States, where he was granted political asylum.

That asylum, Bamidele noted, gave him a platform to continue the pro-democracy movement from abroad. “It allowed me to help other comrades escape and to persist in our resistance against the military regime,” he concluded.