Chief Olusegun Aremu Obasanjo needs no introduction in today’s Nigeria as his footprints dot everywhere on the political and social landscapes of the country since 1976 when he became the 4th military head of state of Africa’s most populous nation.
Born on March 5, 1937 in the present-day Ogun State, Obasanjo grew up in Owu district of Abeokuta and he enlisted in the Nigerian Army in 1958.
He fought the civil war between 1967 and 1970 on the side of the Nigerian troops and he retired from the Army as a General after becoming military head of state after the assassination of General Murtala Ramat Mohammed in a failed coup d’etat on February 13, 1976.
He achieved the feat of becoming the first military ruler to hand over power to a democratically-elected government in Nigeria when Alhaji Shehu Aliyu Shagari was sworn-in as the first executive President in 1979.
Obasanjo scored another first as providence smiled on him in 1999 when he was elected the second executive President of Nigeria on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) shortly after he was released from the prison, thereby becoming the first former military head of state to be elected as civilian president.
His far-reaching policies as democratically-elected President for eight years earned him accolades and the title of “Father of Modern Nigeria”. Although, ‘Baba’ as he is fondly called, also courted controversies along with his achievements.
After completing his two-term tenure in 2007, he retired to his country home of Abeokuta, the capital city of Ogun State, where he is a nobleman as holder of the chieftaincy titles of the Balogun of his native Owu kingdom and the Ekerin Balogun of Egba land at large.
Obasanjo is a member of Club de Madrid, an independent non-profit organization created to promote democracy and change in the international community. Its members are over 100 former democratically-elected Presidents and Prime Ministers from more than 60 countries around the world.
In March 2008, Obasanjo was indicted by a committee of the Nigerian parliament for awarding $2.2bn-worth of energy contracts during his eight-year rule, without due process. The report of this probe was never accepted by the whole Nigerian parliament due to manipulation of the entire process by the leadership of the power probe committee. It is not on any official record that Chief Obassanjo was indicted.
Obasanjo is a member of the Africa Progress Panel (APP), a group of 10 distinguished individuals who advocate at the highest levels for equitable and sustainable development in Africa. Every year, the Panel releases a report, the Africa Progress Report, that outlines issues of immediate importance to the continent and suggests a set of associated policies.
Obasanjo was once appointed Special Envoy by the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon to the then war-torn Democratic Republic of Congo. He has held separate meetings with DRC President Joseph Kabila and rebel leader Laurent Nkunda.
Also, during the Zimbabwean election of July 2013, Obasanjo headed a delegation of African Union election observers.
Back home, he wrote a letter to former President Goodluck Jonathan on May 2014, requesting that he should mediate on behalf of the Nigerian government for the release of the Chibok girls held by the Boko Haram militants, among other concerns he raised in a popular letter titled “Before It Is Too Late”.
Eventually on February 16, 2015, he quit the then ruling PDP and directed a party ward leader to tear his membership card during a press conference.
Earlier in the year, the publishers of this paper, LEADERSHIP Newspapers Group, named him as the winner of its star award, ‘LEADERSHIP Person of the Year 2014’, for “his famous exchange of letters” to challenge ex-President Jonathan’s government on corruption and insecurity.
President Muhammadu Buhari recently appointed him as special envoy saddled with the responsibility of resolving the political logjam in Guinea Bissau, which he did creditably to the administration of the President, who has also praised him for a job well-done.
Love him or hate him, Obasanjo is consistent in his style of speaking truth to power at all times.
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