How vehicle partïculars saved me from Benin coup – Dele Momodu

Politician and Publisher, Dele Momodu, has revealed that but for last-minute issues with his vehicle’s papers he would have been caught in the Benin Republic attempted coup.

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According to him, the setback with particulars “was what saved us” as it halted the journey he planned to start at 5 a.m., which would have had him in Benin Republic at the exact period the coup was unfolding.

Momodu narrated his experience on Channels Television’s Sunrise Daily on Monday.

He said: “Yesterday, to me, was very surreal. I was going to wake up in the morning at 5 a.m., 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.

“Unfortunately, the night before I had all my international papers. But then I asked my driver for the vehicle particulars, and he only had the photocopies. 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.

“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.

“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, at the time this melodrama was ongoing.”