Chief Olusegun Mathew Okikiola Ogunboye Aremu Obasanjo GCFR was born on March 5, 1937. He is a retired military General and statesman 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 from 1998 to 2015.

Obasanjo was born in the village of Ibogun-Olaogun to a family of the Owu branch of Yoruba people. Obasanjo was educated largely in Abeokuta, Ogun State. He joined the Nigerian Army and specialised in engineering.

Following the assassination of General Murtala Muhammed in a military coup on February 13, 1976, General Obasanjo reluctantly stepped into Muhammed’s shoes and did not go back on the administration’s goal and objective, which he successfully achieved.

In 1977, he formed the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), organized the second World Black and African Festival of Arts and Culture (FESTAC ’77), established the Egbin, Ughelli and Afam thermal power stations; set up the Corrupt Practice Bureau; and through his government’s efforts, independence was achieved for Angola and later Zimbabwe.

He introduced the National Pledge to stoke up Nigerian nationalism and indigenized the lyrics of the national anthem. He set up the Constitution Drafting Committee and the Constituent Assembly; introduced the N20 currency in honour of his friend and predecessor, the Late General Murtala Muhammed and introduced the controversial Land Use Decree on March 29, 1978. General Obasanjo also confirmed the movement of the Federal Capital from Lagos to Abuja in accordance with the Murtala-Obasanjo policy programme.

General Obasanjo was the first Head of State and Government on the African continent to ever relinquish power to a democratically elected government peacefully and voluntarily.

In 1995, this former Head of State became a very important prisoner when the military dictator, General Sani Abacha, clamped a phony coup plot charge on him. It is believed that General Obasanjo who was abroad at the time when the alleged coup plot was uncovered and was warned by friends that he had been fingered by the regime as an accomplice, boldly returned home. As was widely expected, he was found guilty and banished to a regional local prison in Yola where it was intended that he would die.

Olusegun Obasanjo has been described by many as the father of modern Nigeria due to his contribution to national development during his two-term tenure. General Obasanjo upturned his earlier record – first African military Head of State to handover power to a civilian government, when he successfully handed-over the mantle of power to a democratically elected government following on May 29, 2007, a feat unrivaled in the 47 year history of the country.

Today, General Olusegun Obasanjo has retired to his farm in Ota.

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.

Oluremi and Obasanjo divorced in the mid-1970s. He also has two children with NTA reporter Gold Oruh.

He married his second wife, Stella Abebe, in 1976, having met her on a visit to London and had three children.

Obasanjo's other partners include businesswoman Lynda Soares who was murdered by car thieves in 1986.

On 23 October 2005, the President lost his wife, Stella Obasanjo, First Lady of Nigeria the day after she had an abdominoplasty in Spain.

MyNigeria/Wikipedia