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Obasanjo @ 83: Nigeria’s Most Steadfast Statesman
By Augustine Adah
Olusegun Obasanjo is considered Nigeria’s luckiest and longest-serving leader.
In between his three year stint as military head of state from 1976 to 1979, and as President of Nigeria from 1999 to 2007, he was Nigerian leader for 11 years.
Born in the village of Ibogun-Olaogun to a farming family of the Owu branch of the Yoruba on March 5,1937, Obasanjo was educated largely in Abeokuta.
Joining the Nigerian Army, he spent time assigned in the Congo, Britain, and India, rising to the rank of major.
In the latter part of the 1960s, he played a major role in combating the Biafran insurrection and had the unique role of accepting the surrender of Biafra in 1970.
Following Murtala Mohammed’s ascension to power in 1975, Obasanjo was named as his number two man being designated, Chief of Staff, Supreme Headquarters of the military junta.
After Mohammed’s assassination the following year, it was not Obasanjo’s Will to become his successor, but the military hierarchy insisted on him.
At a time when it was the vogue for military dictators to extend their time in power, Obasanjo did the unusual as he fashioned out a civilian transition within three years leading to the enthronement of the Second Republic in 1979.
Out of power, Obasanjo came into his elements positioning himself as a guardian of the Nigerian project. From his farming outpost in Otta, Ogun State he from time to time sent out his missives to his successors both civilian and military.
He overtime has won the reputation as Nigeria’s most famous letter writer!
His interventions into the affairs of some of his successors were, however, not always welcome. Some indeed ignored him.
Gen. Sani Abacha, however, did not suffer him room to come into his elements. Not long after Abacha settled into power, the regime framed Obasanjo into a phantom military coup for which the former head of state was sentenced to death.
Abacha showed a rare generosity when he commuted the death sentence to a life sentence.
Obasanjo survived Abacha in the prison despite alleged attempts to snuff life out of him through devious schemes including lethal injections.
Once Abacha died in June 1998, his successors immediately released the conscience of the nation and positioned him for succession. It was a fitting cap to a story from prison to palace.
As the first civilian president of the Fourth Republic, Obasanjo enunciated economic and political reforms that positioned the country for ascendancy in the global space. His international goodwill helped to wipe off Nigeria’s foreign debts. A fitting testimony to Obasanjo’s stride in office was penned by his deputy, Atiku Abubakar ahead of his 83 birthday yesterday:
It is not an exaggeration to describe you as the preeminent political colossus in Nigeria, a nation that owes so much to you. Indeed, many Nigerians would read about your birthday on their GSM devices, which are one of your legacies to the Nigerian people.
Your love for Nigeria and commitment to her unity, good governance and stability has prevented you from retiring, a sacrifice that my family and I deeply appreciate.
From The Congo, to South Africa, to Angola, to Liberia and São Tomé and Príncipe, your democratic finger prints on the African continent is indelible. You have served and still serve as a beacon of democracy and a guardian of constitutionality.
Nigeria owes you a debt that we cannot pay, because you led us to pay the foreign debts that we could not imagine paying. By that singular action, you planted trees for generations yet unborn.
Atiku’s showering praise, however, belie the impression of deviousness put on him by his many traducers for which Atiku was at one time a leading champion.
Obasanjo’s democratic credentials were also sometimes infested with some brutish tendencies. That he applied such crude tactics against savages, however, did not in anyway endear him to some.
After leaving office his efforts to remain influential in the affairs of government were repeatedly rebuffed by those he helped to come to power including the incumbent president, Muhammadu Buhari.
But almost always everyone who went against him when they reached their wits end almost always returned to the Owu man.
After leaving office Obasanjo studied for and obtained a doctorate in theology and despite the huff and puff of some of his endearing critics, he can comfortably address himself as Dr.
Dr. Obasanjo on the occasion of his 83rd birthday has indeed accomplished as a military general, academician, politician, pastor among other laurels.
But Nigerians will ever honour him as Nigeria’s most steadfast statesman!
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