The constitution limited presidents and state governors to two four-year terms of office. There was no limitation for legislators. Nigerian politicians began to prepare for the next election on the day after the last one. By September 1999, less than six months after Obasanjo's initial victory, a shadowy group called Forum 37 was in being to ensure his re-election in 2003, with Vice-President Atiku as grand patron. The organisers, it was said, were ‘cashing in on the high performance rating of the administration and the mass support being enjoyed by it from most Nigerians’.

Obasanjo was initially very popular. The restoration of democracy after sixteen years of military rule raised high – indeed, unrealistic – expectations. In January and February 2000, after about nine months of Obasanjo's administration, the American-financed Afrobarometer organisation carried out the first of four rounds of public opinion polls conducted during Obasanjo's presidency. Some 90% of those interviewed disapproved of military rule, 81% supported democracy, 84% were satisfied with the democracy existing in Nigeria, and 81% believed they could choose leaders who would improve their lives. A similar proportion, 81%, rated the government's performance as good or very good, while 90% said they trusted the president. His military purge, his attack on corruption, and his obvious energy and determination all won respect. ‘President Obasanjo still commands popular acclaim’ at the end of his first year in office, a journalist wrote, adding, however, that ‘he has lost the critical acclaim.’