FELIX NWANERI 
With several national and international honours due to his contributions to national development and roles in resolving crises in Africa and beyond, former President Olusegun Obasanjo, who clocks 88 today, has been described by many as father of modern Nigeria, FELIX NWANERI reports
Like most great men of his kind, the height reached and kept by Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, a former Head of State and President, was not attained by sudden flight. Born on March 5, 1937, in Ibogun, Ogun State, Obasanjo had his early education at Baptist Boy’s High School (BBHS), Abeokuta (1952-56). His military career started when he enlisted in the Nigerian Army in March 1958.
His first formal training was at the Regular Officers’ Special Training School, Teshi, Ghana and later at Mons Officers’ Cadet School, Aldershot, England (1958-1959).
He further trained at the Royal College of Military Engineering, Chatham, England; School of Survey, Newbury, England; Indian Defence College, Indian Army School of Engineering, Poona; and Royal Defence Studies, London, among other military institutions. Following the quick succession of his military training opportunities and experience, he was commissioned into the Nigerian Army as Second Lieutenant in 1959.
He was attached to British Battalions in England and in Germany. A year later, he was promoted to the rank of lieutenant. As a soldier, Obasanjo held several command positions including service with the United Nations Peacekeeping Force in the then Congo. He transferred from the Infantry to the Corps of Engineering in 1961.
He was promoted to the rank of captain and appointed commander, Engineering Corps in 1963. In 1965, he was promoted to the rank of major, heading the Engineering Unit of the Nigerian Army. Between 1967 and 1969, he was promoted to the ranks: lieutenant colonel and colonel.
It was in these capacities that he served as commander, Second Area Command; commander, Second Division; commander, Army Garrison; commander, Third Marine Commando Division and General Officer Commanding (GOC) Third Infantry Division.
Obasanjo’s outstanding military moment came in 1969, when he took over the command of the 3rd Marine Command from the then Colonel Benjamin Adekunle and helped to bring the Nigerian civil war to an end.
In 1970, he served as commander of the Engineering Corps and was promoted to the rank of brigadier in 1972. On his return from a Senior Officer’s Course at Britain’s College of Defence Studies in 1974, Obasanjo was appointed Federal Commissioner for Works and Housing and he became the secondin-command to General Murtala Muhammed as Chief of Staff, Supreme Headquarters the following year after the coup of July 29, 1975.
Following the assassination of General Muhammed in a coup on February 13, 1976, Obasanjo became the country’s Head of State and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces. Unlike the trend across Africa then, he did not renege on the regime’s goals and objectives.
Obasanjo, as Head of State for three years, committed Nigeria fully to the anti-apartheid crusade, giving diplomatic, political and military support to freedom movements in southern Africa in line with Nigeria’s independence foreign policy that was anchored on Africanisation and non-alignment.
In doing this, he saw to Nigeria’s full participation in the then Organisation of African Unity (OAU), now African Union (AU); Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS); the Non-Aligned Movement, Commonwealth and the United Nations (UN).
He supported Angola’s independence struggle from Portugal in 1976 by mobilizing diplomatic support for the Popular Movement for Liberation of Angola (MPLA) and was instrumental to OAU’s recognition of MPLA.
In Namibia, Sam Nujoma’s South West Africa Peoples Organisation (SWAPO) struggle for independence could not have been realised if not for the huge support from Obasanjo.
When it was unthinkable and unfashionable to do so, the liberation movement in Zimbabwe was supported with a huge sum of $20 million, paving way for the country’s independence.
Obasanjo also sent military assistance to help the then new independent nation of Mozambique to suppress the South African backed Mozambican National Resistance (RENAMO) guerrillas that constituted a significant threat to the peace and survival of the country.
Obasanjo retired to his farm after leaving office in 2007, but he seems not yet tired even at 88. He has continued to play the role of a statesman and mediator
Through his Nigerian Enterprises Promotion Decree as head of state, a significant growth of indigenous middle class was witnessed, following transfer of wealth by means of nationalization and share ownership of hitherto predominantly foreign companies in various sectors of the economy.
On agriculture, he introduced the Green Revolution in 1978, a vintage programme, which triggered several transformational projects in the sector.
In the area of education Obasanjo’s vision was palpable, he saw very early, the advent of globalization, a world that would become knowledge based and therefore saw the necessity for a strategic investment in human capital development.
Starting with childhood education, he introduced the Universal Primary Education (UPE) nationwide and increased the number of government-owned universities from five to 13.
This achievement would be more appreciated, when juxtaposed with the fact that in 1975, there were only 53,000 university students in the country.
Many Nigerians still regard his brief interregnum as a period of exemplary good governance. Obasanjo crowned his achievements in office as a military leader with a single-minded pursuit of the transition back to civilian government. The transition was a difficult and challenging process.
Many thought that the death of General Muhammed would force a postponement of the handover date, but Obasanjo insisted on the original programme, handing over to an elected government as scheduled on October 1, 1979.
After his retirement, Obasanjo went into commercial farming. Alongside his farming business, he played active role in international politics.
He established the African Leadership Forum through which he organised international workshops on African problems. In 1995, the then Head of State, late General Sani Abacha, accused Obasanjo of plotting to overthrow his government. Obasanjo was found guilty and sentenced to death by a military tribunal.
However, international outcry against the trial persuaded Abacha to commute the sentence to 15 years imprisonment. Obasanjo had served three years of the sentence, when Abacha died on June 8, 1998.
Abacha’s successor, General Abdulsalami Abubakar, promptly released and granted him state pardon. As faith would have it, he was elected president on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in 1999 and he went on to serve for two terms (1999-2003 and 2003- 2007).
Fight against corruption was a major priority for him and this led to the establishment of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) as well as the Independent Corrupt Practices Commission (ICPC) and the strengthening of the Code of Conduct Bureau (CCB).
His administration also attracted some of the best technocrats of Nigerian extraction in the Diaspora. The Nigerian foreign reserve was only $2 billion, when he came to power, but by 2007, when he left, the reserve had risen to $43 billion.
Through fiscal discipline, deft management of the economy and diplomacy, he secured an $18 billion debt pardon from the Paris and London clubs and paid off another $18 billion to get the nation free of debt.
Another major achievement of the Obasanjo administration was the telecommunication sector’s deregulation and liberalization policy, which ushered in an era of unprecedented mobile phone communications, easy ICT access, associated investment and business activities with huge employment opportunities.
He also recorded appreciable achievements in the area of consolidation of the banking industry; institutionalization of transparency in the financial sector; liberalization of the education sector, opening up of space for private sector participation and investment in tertiary education; universal basic education and general improvement of infrastructure, among others.
Obasanjo retired to his farm after leaving office in 2007, but he seems not yet tired even at 88. He has continued to play the role of a statesman and mediator. Unlike the average politician, who thinks more about the security of his seat, Obasanjo’s major concern is the security and progress of the country.
