Happy 85th birthday! Chief Olusegun Mathew Okikiola Aremwu Obasanjo born on the 5th of March 1937 is a Nigerian politician and Ex-military leader who served as Nigeria's head of state from 1976 to 1979 and later as its president from 1999 to 2007.
He was a member of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) from 1999 to 2015, and from 2018 has been a member of the African Democratic Congress party.
Chief Matthew Olusegun Aremu Obasanjo was born in Ibogun-Olaogun, a village in southwest Nigeria. His father was Amos Adigun Obaluayesanjo (Obasanjo) Bankole and his mother was Bernice Ashabi Bankole. The first of nine children, only he and a sister (Adunni Oluwole Obasanjo) survived childhood. He was born in the Owu district of the Yoruba people.
Chief Obasanjo was educated largely in Abeokuta. Joining the Nigerian Army, where he worked in the engineering department, he spent time in the Congo, Britain, and India, rising to the rank of major. In the latter part of the 1960s, he played a senior role in combating Biafran separatists during the Nigerian Civil War, accepting their surrender in 1970. In 1975, a military coup.
Committed to restoring democracy, Obasanjo supervised the 1979 election, after which he assigned control of Nigeria to the newly elected civilian president, Shehu Shagari. He then retired to Ota, Ogun, where he became a farmer, published four books, and took part in international initiatives to end various African conflicts.
Obasanjo was re-elected in the 2003 election. His main opponent, fellow former ex-military ruler General Muhammadu Buhari rtd, got 61.8% of the vote, Obasanjo defeated Buhari by more than 11 million votes
One of Obasanjo's major tasks, in which he succeeded, was to improve Nigeria's international reputation, which had been tarnished under Abacha.
He spent over a quarter of his first term abroad, having visited 92 countries by October 2002
Obasanjo lived a polygamous lifestyle.
Obasanjo married his first wife, Oluremi Akinlawon, in London in 1963; she gave birth to his first child, Iyabo, in 1967. Iyabo had a close relationship with her father.
They divorced in the mid-1970s.
That decade, Obasanjo began a common-law relationship with NTA reporter Gold Oruh who bore him two children.
He married his second wife, Stella Abebe, in 1976, having met her on a visit to London.
He married Stella in 1976, and she bore him three children.
Ex-President lost his wife, Stella Obasanjo, Ex-First Lady of Nigeria the day after she had an abdominoplasty in Spain. In 2009.
Chief Obasanjo is the holder of the title of the Olori Omo Ilu of Ibogun-Olaogun.
May God bless you on your birthday, and always.
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