Dare Babalola
Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has admitted he doesn’t know his exact age, instead estimating it by comparing with the ages of his surviving schoolmates.
During the “Toyin Falola Interviews: A Conversation with His Excellency, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo” on Sunday, Obasanjo shared that six of his secondary school classmates are still alive, all well over 90 years old, and he uses their ages as a reference point for his own.
“I don’t know my exact age but I could judge from those who were in school with me. So I leave it to you to guess what my age could be,” Obasanjo said.
Speaking about the Presidential Library he established to preserve history and institutional memory, Obasanjo said, “We have digitised over 3 million materials. We still have about the same, 3 million, to digitalise.
“The idea is that when these materials are digitalised, people can have access to them… As document preservation, we preserve the past, take note of the present and we want all these to inspire the future.”
He highlighted that the library houses a diverse collection, including his primary and secondary school records, letters written during his prison days, even personal ones to his wife and a poignant letter to the late General Sani Abacha after his son’s passing, manuscripts of his books, and surprisingly, records of the crops he cultivated while in prison.
“Why the Presidential Library? I believe 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.
Despite this revelation, Obasanjo marked his 88th birthday in March.
