Former President Olusegun Obasanjo, will on Sunday, August 6, tell Nigerians the influence of his Christian experience on his military and political careers.
Obasanjo will be speaking on “God in my Life” at the Archbishop Vining Memorial Church Cathedral (AVMCC), Ikeja GRA, in an event organised by the Torchbearers’ Society of the church.  He will be received at the event by Rt. Rev. James O. Odedeji, Bishop of the Diocese of Lagos West and the Venerable Adegoke Agara, Dean of AVMCC. Obasanjo began his primary education at St. David’s Ebenezer Primary School, Abeokuta, in 1948, and proceeded to the Baptist Boys’ High School, Abeokuta, in 1952. Six years later, he graduated with the West African Examinations Council’s Secondary School Certificate.
He joined the Nigerian Army in 1958 and was commissioned the following year. He was promoted to Lieutenant in 1960. Shortly after Nigeria’s Independence in 1960, he was sent to the Democratic Republic of Congo on a United Nations’ peace-keeping force assignment. In 1963, Obasanjo was promoted to the rank of Captain in the Nigerian Army, after which he served at the Area Command in Kaduna as the Chief of Army Engineers. Two years later, he was sent to the Indian Army Engineering School at Kirkee, India, after a promotion to the rank of Major.
In 1965, Obasanjo attended the Defence Services Staff College, Wellington, India, and was then promoted to Lieutenant-Colonel in 1967, and appointed Commander, Second Area Command of the Nigerian Army. Subsequently, he was Commander, Ibadan Garrison between 1967 and 1969.
Obasanjo’s promotion to Colonel came in 1969, when he was appointed as General Officer Commanding 3rd Infantry Division, Nigerian Army between 1969 and 1970. He was later appointed the Commander, Third Marine Commando Division, South-Eastern State, during the Nigerian/Biafran civil war. In that position, he succeeded late Brigadier Benjamin Adekunle, popularly called the Black Scorpion.
In 1970, he had the honour of receiving the instrument of surrender from his brothers on the other side of the war front, thus, bringing the Nigerian civil war to an end.
After serving both as Commander of the Nigerian Army Engineering Corps and as Federal Commissioner of Works and Housing between 1970 and 1975, on February 13, 1976, he was targeted for assassination in the aborted Col Dimka insurrection. He escaped, but his friend and Commander-in-Chief, Gen. Murtala Mohammed, was killed.
As Head of the Federal Military Government of Nigeria and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces (1976-1979) he signaled his preparedness to return Nigeria to democracy by adopting the Second Republic Constitution and modeling it after the Constitution of the United States of America, and presided over the voluntary transition to civil democratic rule in October 1979.

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