When Obasanjo renewed his presidential oath on 29 May 2003, he was at the peak of his power. Whereas his initial election in 1999 had largely been arranged for him by political sponsors, his victory in 2003 was essentially his own, especially his triumph among his Yoruba people. He now dominated the party and the country. Less preoccupied by separatism and violence in all corners of the land, he could hope in his second term to move from seamanship to navigation, from merely keeping Nigeria afloat to giving a lasting trajectory to the country and the continent.

He had no doubt what that direction should be. He remained a patriot dedicated to the ‘Nigerian project’, impatient of fashionable scepticism with the African nationstate and of those wishing to take Nigeria to pieces and reconstruct it according to their various fancies. ‘The measure of patriotism and dedication to common and collective good’, he declared in his Independence Day broadcast on 1 October 2003, ‘is not to become pessimistic and cynical, but to join hands to work hard for the nation, the community, family and individual. That is how to build a nation.’ ‘The task … of making Nigeria great’ required also a resolute commitment to the programme of economic reform and liberalisation that had begun to take shape during his first term. In pursuit of these goals, at the age of 66 and to the alarm of his doctors, Obasanjo still worked relentlessly, exhausting his staff, pestering them with enquiries at all hours of day or night, overawing them by his range of knowledge, seeking always to energise a country and a government that were exceptionally difficult to move.