Viral Obasanjo’s farewell letter, false

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Cole Praise

Claim: A Facebook user claims Obasanjo has shared a farewell letter to Nigerians, hinting at his imminent passing.   

Verdict: False. While the letter has no source, no news outlet reported its publication by the former president. Obasanjo’s PA also told DUBAWA that the letter is not linked to him. 

Full Text

A Facebook user, Sanusi Bature D-Tofa, on June 23, 2026, shared a farewell letter allegedly from former Nigerian president, Olusegun Obasanjo. 

The letter, which largely reflects the former president reminiscing about the adventurous opportunities he lost in time past, counsels Nigerians to always take advantage of every passing moment. 

Summarily, the Facebook user suggested that Obasanjo was probably witnessing his last days on earth as he wrote the letter. 

“My fellow countrymen, people tell you that life is very long…I am ninety-four years old as I write these lines, and I say with complete certainty: that is not true,” the opening paragraph reads.

A similar claim was made by another Facebook user here. 

As of Tuesday, June 23, 2026, the post has attracted over 1400 likes, 258 comments, and 626 shares. 

While some Facebook users doubted that the letter came from Obasanjo, others only reflected the essence of its message.

“It’s a great motivational read, but the story behind it is entirely fabricated,” Mashalud Abdullah Dawaki wrote.

“Beautifully written fake letter linked to Obasanjo,” Jamilu Haruna commented.

“We must learn to live every moment. There’s no time, and nobody promises us tomorrow or even the next hour,”  Faruk Abdullahi CH wrote.

“It is not a motivation but a preech,” Mudassir Sadi Danbala expressed. 

Due to the personality linked to the letter, and to forestall disinformation, DUBAWA decided to verify the post.

Verification

DUBAWA checked the letter’s content and found that no source was cited. Furthermore, we also noticed that the Facebook user mentions Obasanjo’s age as 94. In contrast, The Guardian and Punch newspapers in  March 2026 reported how political stakeholders honoured the former president as he celebrated his 89th birthday.

We conducted a keyword search to check if other news outlets had reported the letter allegedly written by Obasanjo. We, however, found no reported on such a letter. 

Related keyword search results indicate that the last time the former president wrote a letter to the public was on Jan. 1, 2023, as published by the International Centre for Investigative Reporting (ICIR) and Punch.

In the content of the letter, Obasanjo asked Nigerians to vote for the then-Labour Party (LP) candidate, Peter Obi, during the 2023 general election.

We also contacted the Personal Assistant (PA) to Obasanjo, Kehinde Akinyemi, who dismissed the letter as “wrong” and not linked to the former president. 

Conclusion

The claim that Obasanjo shared a farewell letter to Nigerians is false. The letter has no source, and the PA to the former president told DUBAWA that the letter did not come from Obasanjo.