Taylor: It's Matter of Honour, Says Obasanjo
By Moses Jolayemi
President Olusegun Oba-sanjo yesterday said Nigeria's commitment to the continued stay of former Liberian President, Charles Taylor, was a matter of honour.
Taylor came to Nigeria last year on asylum as a condition for peace in Liberia. He has since been living in Calabar, Cross River State.
Obasanjo, however, used the occasion of a book launch marking the 70th birthday anniversary of his Foreign Affiars Minister, Ambassador Oluyemi Adeniji, to react to the campaign by some western countries and rights groups that Nigeria should release Taylor to face trial in a UN-backed war crimes tribunal in Sierra Leone.
The President said if the country promised to provide security to an asylum seeker, it should honour that pledge.
"We must tell the world we are a country of honour. If we say come here we'll give you security we should be able to do so," he said.
"If we had not brought Charles Taylor here, there would have still been bloodbath in that country," he added.
Taylor who has been living in Calabar, since July last year is believed to have been responsible for the death of over 50,000 Liberians through his National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL) which unleashed terror on Liberia and later its neighbouring countries.
For more than seven years, NPFL reportedly kept Liberia under fear, with its trademark atrocity of amputating the arms and legs of its civilian victims and raping thousands of women, young and old.
Taylor is also accused of aiding the rebels in other neighbouring countries including Sierra Leone in exchange for diamonds.
Taylor, however, bowed to international pressure mounted by the United States last year when he agreed reluctantly to step aside and take up asylum in Nigeria.
Without keeping the world in doubt of his desire to participate in the future politics of Liberia, Taylor on his departure had among other things said "God willing, I'll be back."
He was later accused of meddling in Liberian affairs from his Nigerian base, a development which attracted strong warning from the Nigerian government.
Just two days ago, two Nigerian victims of Taylor's atrocities, David Anyaele and Emmanueal Egbuna were reported to have called for his extradition to face the Sierra Leone based war tribunal.
Both Anyaele and Egbuna said they were attacked, tortured and mutilated by rebels under Taylor's command in Sierra Leone in 1999 during a business trip.
Anyaele's arms, according to a BBC report, were severed while those of Egbuna were also mutilated.
Obasanjo has, however, consistently maintained that Taylor's asylum was part of an international consensus to bring peace to then war-torn Liberia.
President George Bush of the United States and other world leaders had in the aftermath of Taylor's exit from Liberia commended the Nigerian government for its intervention in restoring peace to the war-torn country.
Obasanjo told the gathering of eminent Nigerians gathered at the Nigeria Institute of International Affairs (NIIA), in Lagos that there was need to re-define what should be the role of Nigeria in Africa. The president said he was interested in seeing how Africans in diaspora relate to Nigeria.
Defending Nigeria's big-brother role, Obasanjo who thrilled his audience by his humour-filled speech, pointed out that Nigeria had provided asylum to a number of troubled African leaders in the past. He cited the example of the former Chadian leader, Felix Maloum, who spent 23 years in the country and was so comfortable that by the time he was leaving, he had 22 children.
The president disclosed that just before he came for the book launch, he received a message of appreciation from the ousted Haitian president, Jean Betrand Aristide, thanking him and the entire country for an asylum offer. Though the offer was not taken by Aristide who opted for South Africa, Obasanjo said Nigeria should continue to pursue the emancipation of Africa which he pointed out has been on the nation's agenda since he was military head of state in 1976.
The African Union, he said, must be seen as a new organisation which has "brought total emancipation of Africa." He added that "we can make the next century the century of Africa. I believe we can do it. I am sure we can do it."
Commending the book is entitled: Nigeria's Foreign Policy Thrust: Essays in Honour of Ambassador Oluyemi Adeniji, CON compiled by Professor Bola Akinterinwa, Adeniji said his views on foreign policy tally with those of the United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan who wrote the forward to the book.
Nigeria's role in the international stage, as noted by Annan, has been inseparable from its domestic progress.
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