“I Don’t Know My Exact Age” – Obasanjo

Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has once again admitted that he does not know his exact age, though he offered some clues based on his surviving schoolmates. Speaking on Sunday during the Toyin Falola Interviews series, titled “A Conversation with His Excellency, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo,” he said, “I don’t know my exact age but I could judge from those who were in school with me. I have given you an example of Olubara (Oba Jacob Olufemi Omolade, the Olubara of Ibara) who is still alive. I believe there are six of my classmates in secondary school that I know are still alive and none of them is less than 90 years of age. So I leave it to you to guess what my age could be.”

The interview, anchored by renowned historian Professor Toyin Falola, Bishop of Sokoto Diocese Dr. Mathew Kukah, and former presidential candidate Professor Kingsley Moghalu, also focused on Obasanjo’s efforts to preserve Nigeria’s institutional memory through the presidential library he established.

“The idea is when these materials are digitalised, people can have access to them. That is number one. As document preservation, we preserve the past, take note of the present and we want all these to inspire the future,” he explained.

Obasanjo detailed the extensive collection housed in the library, including his primary and secondary school records, letters written to General Sani Abacha and to his late wife, manuscripts of books he wrote in prison, and even crops of maize he planted while incarcerated. “My school record card in primary school, I have been able to keep them and when I became President and I wanted to establish the library, they were available to be exhibited,” he said.

He stressed that the library addresses a critical gap in Nigerian society, where record-keeping and institutional memory have often been neglected. “One of the things we don’t do too well in our society is that we don’t keep records too well. Institutional memory is not what we do very well,” Obasanjo said, underscoring the importance of preserving historical documents for future generations.