How Respect For My Father Made Me Slap My Teacher – Obasanjo Reveals

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How Respect For My Father Made Me Slap My Teacher – Obasanjo Reveals

The former president, Olusegun Obasanjo, has narrated how the deep respect he has for his father made him slap his teacher on his first day in school.

Speaking on Sunday, August 6 at the at Diocese of Lagos West, Archbishop Vining Memorial Church Cathedral in , the former president said he slapped his teacher he was asked about his father’s name which he found insulting, Vanguard reports.

Narrating the events that culminated in the incident, Obasanjo said: “I do follow my father to farm but one day, he asked me what I wished to do and I told him I would prefer to be a mechanic. But he suggested education and I bought into it.

“We both went to Abeokuta and visited five different schools of which they rejected me because the school season was already in the middle.

“Later, I was taken to another school in the beginning of a new season. But, on my first day in school, they asked of my name and I gave them but when they asked of my father’s name, I found it irritating.

“By my own training in the village, to mention your father’s name is an insult and for him to ask for my father’s name is an insult. So, I slapped him and I was punished for that.”

According to the former president, that altercation he had with the teacher could have ended his educational career but for God’s intervention.

According to the former leader, Gowon’s reluctance to hand over power to a civilian government prompted the coup.