On this day in June 1998, former President Olusegun Obasanjo was released from prison.
Obasanjo, a former general and military ruler was imprisoned on charges of plotting a coup to depose General Sani Abacha in 1995. He was released only after Abacha’s sudden death on 8 June 1998. While in prison, Obasanjo became a born-again Christian.
Obasanjo became President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria on May 29, 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. Most of his first term he spent travelling abroad.
In 2003, Obasanjo was re-elected in a tumultuous election that had violent ethnic and religious overtones. With high oil prices, Obasanjo’s government oversaw a doubling of Nigeria’s average economic growth rate to six percent. And as a result, he left Nigeria almost debt free.
Obasanjo was embroiled in controversy regarding his “Third Term Agenda,” a plan to modify the constitution so he could serve a third, four-year term as President. However, the bill was not ratified by the National Assembly. Later Obasanjo denied involvement in this so-called “Third Term Agenda.”
In 2008, he was appointed by the United Nations as a special envoy for Africa and had since overseen democratic elections on behalf of the African Union and Ecowas in countries across the continent.
His current home is Abeokuta, the capital city of Ogun State, where he is a nobleman as the holder of the chieftaincy titles of the Balogun of the Owu Lineage and the Ekerin Balogun of the Egba clan of Yorubaland.

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