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HE President Olusegun Obasanjo GCFR
Chief Olusegun Obasanjo
President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria
He was born on 5 March 1937 in Abeokuta, Ogun state, Nigeria.
In 1958, after High School, General Obasanjo enlisted into the Nigerian Army and was trained at the Mons Officers Cadet School, Aldershot, England. He also underwent military training at various institutions including the Royal College of Defence Studies, London; Indian Army School of Engineering; Indian Defence Staff College; School of Survey, Newbury, England; Royal College of Engineering; Regular Officers Special Training School, Teshie, Ghana.
He served with the United Nations Peace-Keeping Force in the Congo, 1960-1961;
Commander, Engineering Corps, 1963;
General Officer Commanding, Third Marine Commando Division during the Nigerian Civil War;
Led the Division to end the war and accepted surrender of Biafran forces in January 1970;
Commander, Nigerian Army Engineering Corps, 1970-1975;
Federal Commissioner for Works Commissioned into Nigerian Army in 1959;
Service with the United Nations Peacekeeping and Housing, 1975;
Chief of Staff, Supreme Headquarters, 1975-1976;
Member, Supreme Military Council, 1975-179;
Lieutenant-General, 1976 and General, 1979;
Head of the Federal Military Government of Nigeria and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, 1976-1979;
He presided over the voluntary transition to civil democratic rule in 1979;
He contested and won the 1999 presidential election on the ticket of the PDP;
He holds the national award of Grand Commander of the Order of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (GCFR) among other laurels.
General Obasanjo is a respected international statesman, distinguished leader, writer and farmer. A man who believes that action is at the heart of leadership, and a strong advocate of world disarmament, democracy and agricultural development General Obasanjo is a voice for Africa and has, for so many years, represented Africa candidly and with vision.
As head of state of Nigeria, General Obasanjo worked to steer his country away from its dependence on oil exports and towards agricultural production. His agricultural development movement, "Operation Feed the Nation," served to increase the number of farmers and to raise the people's awareness of the key role agriculture plays in the economy.
In 1979, after just three years as head of state, General Obasanjo kept the promise he made to his people and returned his country to civilian government. On retiring from the army and politics, General Obasanjo took up farming as a career and as an example to the nation. He currently manages a large-scale model farm in Nigeria which has, among other things, more than 600,000 chickens.
General Obasanjo served as the co-chairman of the Commonwealth Eminent Persons Group on South Africa, which has contributed to the current dialogue and the peace process in South Africa. More recently he was a member of the UN secretary-general's expert group on commodities, whose charge it was to find for Africa, fair and profitable alternatives to the present international commodities exchange system. A skilled and experienced mediator, General Obasanjo played a major role in arranging the Angola-Namibia peace talks in May 1988.
General Obasanjo's visionary leadership was demonstrated in 1988 when he inaugurated the Africa Leadership Forum - a forum designed to empower young and promising Africans for the demands, duties and responsibilities of leadership in an interdependent world.
In 1995, following a secret trial, General Obasanjo was imprisoned by the Abacha regime. He was imprisoned for three years until Abacha's death in 1998.
He was awarded the LI Prize for Freedom 1997, whilst in prison.
He had been sentenced in 1995 under the rule of General Sani Abacha for an alleged coup plot.
He was a four-star General and former President being jailed in his own country as a prisoner of conscience. The Prize was therefore presented to his wife Stella, who accepted the award on his behalf.
In October 1998, Olusegun Obasanjo was released.
He decided to run for the Presidency on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). At the elections in February 1999, he won a landslide victory of 62.8% against his opponent Chief Olu Falae. The elections were closely monitored by the USA. Large-scale fraud was observed, but it occurred on both sides.
Olusegun Obasanjo is a source of great hope for the democracy in Nigeria. At the end of his first presidency in 1976, he became the first military ruler to willingly hand over leadership to a civilian government, thus setting an example for Abdulsalami Abubakar, who would hand leadership back to Obasanjo more than twenty years later.
One of his most important future challenges will be to overcome the violent ethnic clashes in Nigeria.
Obasanjo comes from South Yoruba, to whom North Yoruba and Ibo traditionally are opposed. Further, there is the risk of military take-overs. Obasanjo's military experience may help to to keep the balance and prevent coup attempts. Another important issue is the problem of his economic mismanagement in the 1970s during his fist term in office.
As President, Obasanjo has energetically opposed wide-spread corruption. Right after the elections, he also travelled to the USA, where he met with representatives from both the US and the United Nations, and where he appears to have established close links.
Institute of Directors
Forbes
HE President Ibrahim Babangida GCFR,GCB
D.Akinsanya Juliuson KGCMR,HonDBA,IOM
HE President Yahya J. Jammeh
HE VP Atiku Abubakar GCON
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