FORMER presidential aspirant of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and Publisher, Dele Momodu, says a last-minute disruption to his planned road trip to Cotonou may have saved him from being caught in the failed coup attempt in Benin Republic.
Momodu stated this on Channels Television’s Sunrise Daily on Monday monitored by News Point Nigeria, explaining that he was originally scheduled to be inside Benin Republic at the exact period the coup scare was unfolding.
He said the unexpected setback that stopped his 5 a.m. departure “was what saved us.”
Momodu narrated that the entire episode felt unreal, noting that he had already mapped out a familiar travel route.
According to him, “Yesterday to me was very surreal. I was going to wake up in the morning at 5 am to head straight to Cotonou, have a quick breakfast, and then head out to Lome, and then from Lome head out to Ghana. I had done that trip too many times, and it’s something I love to do, especially on Sundays, because there would be no traffic.”
He, however, said trouble began the night before the journey when he discovered that his driver only had a photocopy of the vehicle particulars. The missing document triggered a frantic search.
Momodu said, “Unfortunately, the night before I had all my international but then I asked my driver for the vehicle particulars, and he only had the photocopy. I wasn’t comfortable with that. I searched everywhere, my two offices in Lagos. I searched in the night, and maybe around 11 or thereabout, I decided that look, we must have botched the trip.”
He explained that he immediately called his travel partners to cancel the journey. “I called my friend Rotimi… whom we were travelling together with, along with another friend… I called everybody in the middle of the night and said I’m sorry we won’t be able to make the trip, and that was what saved us,” he said.
Linking the experience to his faith, Momodu said he believes divine intervention prevented him from being inside Benin Republic during the unrest. “I was born in an Aladura church. So I believed in spirituality, and I believe that somehow God must have intervened because we would have been right inside Benin Republic, as at the time this melodrama was ongoing.”
He added that his Nigerian-registered vehicle could have made him easily noticeable. He welcomed the news that the coup was foiled, recalling his long history of resisting military rule.
Momodu also drew parallels to his 1995 escape from Nigeria. He said, “When I escaped from Nigeria on July 25, 1995, I escaped through the Seme border into Cotonou from where I went to Lome… from there crossed the Aflaou border to Ghana and from Ghana into England where I would live for the next three years.”
He said the failed coup attempt brought back painful memories and raised concerns about democracy in Africa, adding, “I thought democracy had taken root in Africa, but it seems we are going backwards, which is very unfortunate. Let’s thank God it was quickly aborted.”
Benin’s government on Sunday said that it had thwarted an attempted coup, after a group of soldiers announced on state television that they had ousted President Patrice Talon.
West Africa has experienced several coups in recent years, including in Benin’s northern neighbours Niger and Burkina Faso, as well as Mali, Guinea, and, most recently, Guinea-Bissau.