Chief Olusegun Obasanjo’s Biography, Age, Political Party, Wife, Children, Home, INEC Election 2023 Chief Olusegun Obasanjo’s Biography, Age, Political Party, Wife, Children, Home, INEC 2023 Election
Olusegun Police Chief Matthew Okikiola Ogunboye Aremu Obasanjo, GCFR, Yoruba: Olúṣếgun Ọbásanj́́ (born 5 March 1937) is a Nigerian political and military leader who served as Nigeria’s head of state from 1976 to 2005. 1979 and then president from 1999 to 2007. Ideologically, a Nigerian Nationalist, he was a member of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) from 1999 to 2015 and from 2018 was a member of the African Democratic Congress (ADC) party.
Born in the village of Ibogun-Olaogun to a peasant family of the Owu branch of Yoruba, Obasanjo was largely educated in Abeokuta, Ogun State. Joining the Nigerian Army, where he specialized in engineering, he spent his time assigned to the Congo, Great Britain and India, rising to the rank of major. In the late 1960s, he played a senior role in fighting Biafran separatists in the Nigerian Civil War, accepting their surrender in 1970. In 1975, a military coup established the government with Obasanjo is part of the ruling trio. After the leader of the trio, Murtala Muhammed, was assassinated the following year, the Supreme Military Council appointed Obasanjo as head of state. Continuing the policies of Murtala, Obasanjo oversaw budget cuts and expanded access to free general education. Increasingly aligning Nigeria with the United States, he also emphasized support for groups opposed to white minority rule in southern Africa. Committed to restoring democracy, Obasanjo oversaw the 1979 elections, after which he handed control of Nigeria to the newly elected civilian president, Shehu Shagari. He later retired to Ota, Ogun, where he became a farmer, published four books and participated in international initiatives to end various conflicts in Africa.
In 1993, Sani Abacha came to power in a military coup. Publicly critical of Abacha’s government, in 1995 Obasanjo was arrested and found guilty of being part of a planned coup, despite protesting his innocence. While in captivity, he became a born-again Christian, with providentism strongly influencing his later worldview. He was released after Abacha’s death in 1998. Entering electoral politics, Obasanjo became the PDP candidate for the 1999 presidential election, which he easily won. As president, he has de-politicized the military, while expanding the police force and mobilizing the army to combat widespread ethnic, religious, and separatist violence. He withdrew the Nigerian army from Sierra Leone and privatized various public enterprises to curb his country’s mounting debt. He was re-elected in the 2003 election. Influenced by Pan-Africanist ideas, he was a staunch supporter of the creation of the African Union and served as its president since 2004 to 2006. Attempts by Obasanjo to change the constitution to abolish the presidential term limit were unsuccessful and criticized. In retirement, he obtained a doctorate in theology from the National Open University of Nigeria.
Obasanjo has been described as one of the great figures of the second generation of postcolonial African leaders. He has received much praise for overseeing Nigeria’s transition to representative democracy in the 1970s and for his pan-African efforts to encourage cooperation across the continent. Critics say he is guilty of corruption, that his administration oversees human rights abuses, and that as president he is too concerned with consolidating and maintaining personal power. mine.
Political ideology
Ideologically, Obasanjo is a Nigerian nationalist. He is committed to supporting a form of Nigerian patriotism and believes that Nigeria should be maintained as a single nation-state, rather than divided along ethnic lines. In 2001, he stated that his long-term goal was “to abolish all forms of identification except for Nigerian citizenship”. He argued that dividing Nigeria along ethnic lines would lead to ethnic cleansing and the violence that had occurred during the Yugoslav Wars of the 1990s. Ilife argued that Obasanjo’s Nigerian nationalism was suppressed. influenced both by his separation from the Yoruba elite and by his time in the military, where he worked alongside soldiers of various ethnic backgrounds.
Democracy may not necessarily guarantee rapid economic growth or wealth but at least it is the best form of government to date created to ensure the proper participation of the people. [the] the majority of people in the means and issues related to their governance. Democracy is the choice those ruled prefer…
In the case of Nigeria, democracy is the only integrative glue that can bind disparate groups of sub-states together into a nation of common destiny, equal status and common identity on a long-term basis. long.
— Olusegun Obasanjo on Democracy, 1999.
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Categories: Biography
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