My Watch Volume 3

Olusegun Obasanjo, soldier, statesman, author and farmer was born in Ibogun-Olaogun in what was then Abeokuta Province of 1930s colonial Nigeria. His career in the Nigerian Army would see him serve in the UN Peacekeeping Mission to the Congo in 1961, see him rise to the position of General Officer Commanding the 3rd Marine Commando Division of the Nigerian Army during the Civil War, and culminate in his appointment of Head of State, and Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces. He handed over power to a democratically-elected civilian administration in 1979 and retired to a life of farming. As a statesman he was called upon by the international community, in one instance to serve as co-chair of the Commonwealth Eminent Persons' Group constituted to work on negotiated settlement for the ending of the South African Apartheid policy in 1985. He was also a candidate for the office of Secretary-General of the United Nations in 1991. A fearless critic of bad government, he was jailed from 1995-1998 by the Abacha government. Obasanjo was sworn-in as President of the Federal Republic of Nigerian on May 29 1999. He stepped down from the presidency in 2007 at the end of his second term and returned to his farm. He is currently the chief promoter of the Olusegun Obasanjo Presidential Library. Olusegun Obasanjo has authored several books, significant amongst them, My Command, about his experiences in the Nigerian Civil War; Not My Will, about his service to the nation as Military Head of State; This Animal Called Man, a philosophical reflection on the nature of man written during his time as a political prisoner; and Nzeogwu, about his friend and key figure in the January 1966 coup.