GIANT IN THE TROPIC OF AFRICA: Chief Olusegun Obasanjo GCFR

• Born to a farming family of Owu descent in Abeokuta, Ogun State on Friday, 5 March, 1937. He was educated largely in Abeokuta.
He joined the Nigerian Army in 1958.

• Chief Olusegun Obasanjo is a Nigerian political and military leader who served as Nigeria’s head of state from 1976 to 1979 and later as president from 1999 to 2007.

• In the mid-70s, Nigeria faced declining agricultural production, a process caused by successive governments finding it cheaper to import food than grow it domestically.
In May 1976, Obasanjo launched Operation Feed the Nation, OFN, a project to revitalise small-scale farming and which involved students being paid to farm during the holidays. The project also involved abolishing duties on livestock feed and farm implements, subsidising the use of fertilisers and easing agricultural credit.

• In March 1978, Obasanjo issued the Land Use Decree which gave the states propriety rights over all lands. This was designed to stop land hoarding and land speculation. Obasanjo saw it as one of his government’s main achievements. The following year, 1979, he established Obasanjo Farms, Ota.

• In 2004, Obasanjo established the first private university of technology in Nigeria, Bells University of Technology (BUT), also known as Bellstech, in Ota, Ogun State.

• In 2017, Obasanjo became the first African president to establish a presidential library. Olusegun Obasanjo Presidential Library (OOPL) is one of the biggest educational tourism institutions in Africa, located in Abeokuta, Ogun State and serves as a tourist attraction in Nigeria.