Seeing Boko Haram Wax Stronger For 12 Years Is Heartbreaking – Obasanjo

Ex-President, Olusegun Obasanjo has pledged to keep fighting for Nigeria’s unity until he dies.

He said this yesterday at the first memorial lecture of the founder of Oodua People’s Congress, Dr. Fredrick Fasehun in Lagos.

According to him, he is fighting wholeheartedly to ensure his children and race are not second class citizens in the future.

He added that it is sad to see that Boko Haram has waxed stronger in our country for 12 years.

His words, “If Boko Haram can get external support, any group that decided to go will get support from within and outside. So we must address the issue now. The language we are using to address ourselves across the region now is uncouth and it must not continue.”

“When I was elected President the agitation was true federalism but now it is restructuring.

“If we don’t address it they may go from restructuring to self-determination and this will become a more serious problem.

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Chief Olusegun Matthew Okikiola Aremu Obasanjo, GCFR, is a Nigerian military and political leader who served as military head of state from 1976 to 1979 and later as President of Nigeria from 1999 to 2007. Ideologically a Nigerian nationalist, he was a member of the People’s Democratic Party.

Matthew Olusegun Aremu Obasanjo was born in the village of Ibogun-Olaogun in southwest Nigeria. His later passport gave his date of birth as 5 March 1937, although this was an estimate, and there are no records of Obasanjo’s birthdate from the time itself. He was the first of nine children; only he and a sister survived childhood. He was born to the Owu branch of the Yoruba people. The church in the village was part of a mission set up by the U.S. Southern Baptist Church and Obasanjo was raised Baptist. His village also contained Muslims and his sister would later convert to Islam on marrying a Muslim man.

In the 1999 elections, the first in sixteen years, Obasanjo decided to run for the presidency as the candidate of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP). Obasanjo won with 62.6% of the vote, sweeping the strongly Christian Southeast and the predominantly Muslim north, but decisively lost his home region, the Southwest, to his fellow-Yoruba and Christian, Olu Falae, the only other candidate. 29 May 1999, the day Obasanjo took office as the first elected and civilian head of state in Nigeria after 16 years of military rule, is now commemorated as Democracy Day, a public holiday in Nigeria. This was later changed to June 12 in honour of Chief M.K.O Abiola by the Muhammadu Buhari Administration in 2018. During Democracy Day, Nigerians host celebratory dinners and festivals around the country, having fun with family, friends and plenty of food.