Former President, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo celebrated his 84th birthday on Friday at the Olusegun Obasanjo Presidential Library (OOPL), Abeokuta, Ogun State.
Obasanjo was born in a village of Ibogun-Olaogun in southwest Nigeria on March 5, 1937.
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.
He served as Nigeria’s 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 People’s Democratic Party (PDP) from 1999 to 2015 and again from 2018 onward.
