Presidents Jimmy Carter and Olusegun Obasanjo had much in common; both were leaders of their countries in the 1970s, both were evangelical Christians of the Baptist denomination, and both were promoters of good governance and democracy. It was not much of a surprise when they became close-knit friends after they left power — Obasanjo as Nigeria’s military head of state in 1979 and Carter as US president two years later. But Carter did not allow the friendship to get in the way of his reservations about the 1999 presidential election that brought Obasanjo back to power as a democratically elected president.
