Obasanjo and the making of Nigerian enterprise

By Wale Osofisan
I first met Chief Olusegun Obasanjo in 1990, when my mother was a Fellow of the Africa Leadership Forum at his farm estate in Ota, Ogun State. My brother Yemi and I joined him for lunch. I remember the pounded yam and efo riro, his warmth and the witty jokes he made as he called the two of us the future of Nigeria.
I was too young then to appreciate the significance of the man sitting across the table. He had been Nigeria’s military Head of State and had handed power to a civilian government in 1979. He had since established the Africa Leadership Forum, bringing people together to discuss leadership and the future of the continent.
I met him again in 2004, when he ...