During his first eleven years after leaving office, Obasanjo published four books covering his military career and looking forward to Nigeria's future. They were his most important publications. All were valuable contributions to the history of the period, but they were also controversial works related to contemporary politics.

Obasanjo's account of the civil war, My Command, was written in 1980 when he was a Distinguished Fellow at the University of Ibadan, perhaps a convenient base while preliminary work took place at Ota. After recounting the war's origins and his role during its first two years, the book dealt chiefly with his command of the Third Marine Commando Division during the final months of conflict. His pious hope that the war was sufficiently distant to prevent the opening of old wounds proved vain, but his wish that this first war memoir should stimulate others was abundantly fulfilled.

My Command first alerted the Nigerian public to Obasanjo's role in ending the civil war. This had received little publicity at the time. The Third Marine Commando Division was linked in the public mind with its first commander, Benjamin Adekunle. Gowon had occupied the centre stage at the end of the war. Obasanjo had conducted his final campaign in a news blackout and had then disappeared back into routine soldiering. The first extensive account of the war from the Biafran side, also published in 1980 by Alexander Madiebo, Biafra's Army Commander, did not mention Obasanjo. The claims asserted in My Command were therefore all the more provocative.