I Once Slapped My Teacher, Why I Did It – Olusegun Obasanjo

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Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has revealed that he had at one point in his life slapped his teacher.

Speaking on his conduct and why he had to slap the teacher, the former Nigerian president revealed that the respect he had for his father pushed him into slapping one of his teachers.

Obasanjo recalled that the incident happened on his first day at school after the teacher asked for his father’s name.

While speaking on the topic: “God in my Life” at the Diocese of Lagos West, Archbishop Vining Memorial Church Cathedral in Lagos, the former president 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.”

He continued: “He said that would have been the end of his educational career but God’s plan made him rise to his present level.”

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