In March 1976, Mbeki, Albert Dhlomo and Jacob Zuma were arrested in Swaziland, but the trio managed to escape deportation to South Africa. Instead, a month after their arrest, they were escorted across the border to Mozambique. From there, Mbeki went back to Lusaka for a few months before being posted to Nigeria in January 1977. Before leaving Lusaka, Mbeki was appointed as deputy to Duma Nokwe in the Department of Information and Propaganda (DIP). Mbeki's mission in Nigeria was to establish diplomatic relations with Olusegun Obasanjo's regime, – a mission that proved to be quite successful as Mbeki was to build a lasting relationship with the Nigerian authorities, eclipsing the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC) in Nigeria. Zanele, who was running the Africa offices of the International University Education Fund in Lusaka, spent much of 1977 with her husband in Nigeria.