Chief Olusegun Matthew Okikiola Ogunboye Aremu Obasanjo ( ; Yoruba: Olúṣẹ́gun Ọbásanjọ́ [ōlúʃɛ́ɡũ̄ ɔ̄básã̄d͡ʒɔ́] ; born c. 5 March 1937) is a Nigerian politician, statesman, agriculturalist, and former army general who served as Nigeria's Military Head of State from 1976 to 1979 and later as its president from 1999 to 2007. Ideologically a Nigerian nationalist, he was a member of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) from 1998 to 2015, and since 2018.
Born in the village of Ibogun-Olaogun to a farming family of the Owu branch of the Yoruba, Obasanjo was educated largely in Abeokuta, Ogun State. He joined the Nigerian Army and specialised in engineering and served in the Congo, Britain, and India, rising to the rank of Major. In the late 1960s, he played a major role in combating Biafran separatists during the Nigerian Civil War, accepting their surrender in 1970. In 1975, a military coup established a junta with Obasanjo as part of its ruling triumvirate. After the triumvirate's leader, Murtala Muhammed, was assassinated the following year, the Supreme Military Council appointed Obasanjo as head of state. Continuing Murtala's policies, Obasanjo oversaw budgetary cut-backs and an expansion of access to free school education. Increasingly aligning Nigeria with the United States, he also emphasised support for groups opposing white minority rule in southern Africa. Committed to restoring democracy, Obasanjo oversaw the 1979 election, after which he transferred control of Nigeria to the newly elected civilian president, Shehu Shagari. Obasanjo then retired to Ota, Ogun, where he became a farmer, published four books, and took part in international initiatives to end various African conflicts.
In 1993, Sani Abacha seized power in a military coup. Obasanjo was openly critical of Abacha's administration and in 1995 was arrested and convicted of being part of a planned coup, despite protesting his innocence. While imprisoned, he became a born again Christian, with providentialism strongly influencing his subsequent worldview. He was released following Abacha's death in 1998. Obasanjo entered electoral politics, becoming the PDP candidate for the 1999 presidential election, which he won. As president, he de-politicised the military and both expanded the police and mobilised the army to combat widespread ethnic, religious, and secessionist violence. He withdrew Nigeria's military from Sierra Leone and privatized various public enterprises to limit the country's spiraling debt. He was re-elected in the 2003 election. Influenced by Pan-Africanist ideas, he was a keen supporter of the formation of the African Union and served as its chair from 2004 to 2006. Obasanjo's attempts to change the constitution to abolish presidential term limits were unsuccessful and brought criticism. After retiring, he earned a PhD in theology from the National Open University of Nigeria.
Obasanjo has been described as one of the great figures of the second generation of post-colonial African leaders. He received praise both for overseeing Nigeria's transition to representative democracy in the 1970s and for his Pan-African efforts to encourage cooperation across the continent. Critics maintain that he was guilty of corruption, that his administrations oversaw human rights abuses, and that as president he became too interested in consolidating and maintaining his personal power.
Olusegun Obasanjo's father Obasanjo Bankole was one of the early settlers and founding fathers of Igbogun Olaogun village in the early 1920s. Although he was a well-to-do farmer and palm wine tapper, he was considered poor because he wasn't among the educated elites of Yorubaland. Bankole met Bernice Ashabi, a petty trader in Igbogun and both married. The couple had two surviving children out of six: Olusegun and Adunni Oluwola, his only sister. According to his passport, Olusegun Obasanjo was born on 5 March 1937 although there were no contemporary record and the date was a near estimate.
Olusegun was from the Owu Kingdom. He was raised a Baptist. His sister later converted to Islam in order to marry a Muslim man. At eleven, he joined the village primary school, and after three years, in 1951, he moved on to the Baptist Day School in Abeokuta's Owu quarter. In 1952 he transferred to the Baptist Boys' High School, also in the town. His school fees were partly financed by state grants. Obasanjo did well academically, and at school became a keen Boy Scout. Although there is no evidence that he was then involved in any political groups, it was at secondary school that Obasanjo rejected his forename of "Matthew" as an anti-colonial act.
Meanwhile, Obasanjo's father had abandoned his wife and two children. Falling into poverty, Obasanjo's mother had to operate in trading to survive. To pay his school fees, Obasanjo worked on cocoa and kola farms, fished, collected firewood, and sold sand to builders. During the school holidays he also worked at the school, cutting the grass and other manual jobs.
In 1956, Obasanjo took his secondary school exams, having borrowed money to pay for the entry fees. That same year, he began courting Oluremi Akinlawon, the Owu daughter of a station master. They were engaged to be married by 1958. Leaving school, he moved to Ibadan, where he took a teaching job. There, he sat for the entrance exam for University College Ibadan, but although he passed it he found that he could not afford the tuition fees. Obasanjo then decided to pursue a career as a civil engineer, and to access this profession, in 1958 answered an advert for officer cadet training in the Nigerian Army.
Early military career (1958–1966)
In March 1958, Obasanjo enlisted in the Nigerian Army. He saw it as an opportunity to continue his education while earning a salary; he did not immediately inform his family, fearing that his parents would object. It was at this time that the Nigerian Army was being transferred to the control of the Nigerian colonial government, in preparation for an anticipated full Nigerian independence, and there were attempts afoot to get more native Nigerians into the higher ranks of its military.
He was then sent to a Regular Officers' Training School at Teshie in Ghana. When stationed abroad, he sent letters and presents to his fiancé in Nigeria. In September 1958, he was selected for six months of additional training at Mons Officer Cadet School in Aldershot, southern England. Obasanjo disliked it there, believing that it was a classist and racist institution, and found it difficult adjusting to the colder, wetter English weather. It reinforced his negative opinions of the British Empire and its right to rule over its colonised subjects. At Mons, he received a commission and a certificate in engineering. While Obasanjo was in England, his mother died. His father then died a year later.
In 1959, Obasanjo returned to Nigeria. There, he was posted to Kaduna as an infantry subaltern with the Fifth Battalion. His time in Kaduna was the first time that Obasanjo lived in a Muslim-majority area. It was while he was there, in October 1960, that Nigeria became an independent country.
Shortly after, the Fifth Battalion were sent to the Congo as part of a United Nations peacekeeping force. There, the battalion were stationed in Kivu Province, with their headquarters at Bukavu. In the Congo, Obasanjo and others were responsible for protecting civilians, including the ethnic Belgian minority, against soldiers who had mutinied against Patrice Lumumba's government. In February 1961, Obasanjo was captured by the mutineers while he was evacuating Roman Catholic missionaries from a station near Bukavu. The mutineers considered executing him but were ordered to release him. In May 1961, the Fifth Battalion left the Congo and returned to Nigeria. During the conflict, he had been appointed a temporary captain. He later noted that the time spent in the Congo strengthened the "Pan-African fervour" of his battalion.
Return from the Congo: 1961–1966