While presenting a keynote address yesterday at the first international conference of the African Studies Association of Africa (ASAA) titled, “African Studies in the Twenty-First Century, Past, Present and Future” which took place at the International Conference Centre of the University of Ibadan, former President Olusegun Obasanjo said that when he was President, he derived a form of pleasure whenever he was insulted by his critics.
He said he enjoyed the insults so much that he kept published insults in the archives in his presidential library.
He said:
“If you visit the Olusegun Obasanjo Presidential Library in Abeokuta, you will find thousands of archived newspaper comics and columns meant to spite and insult my person even as a sitting President.
No individual or group of people was ever queried or jailed or repressed for expressing this freedom. Rather, I encouraged them because I derived fun and pleasure from the humour as I know who I am and nobody needs to tell me who and what I am not”.
