Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has explained why he slapped his class teacher on his first day in school.

Obasanjo revealed this at the Diocese of Lagos West, Archbishop Vining Memorial Church Cathedral in Lagos.

He said his teacher had asked him for his father’s name and in his village it was rude to ask someone about their father’s name, hence his irritation which gave birth to the slap that landed on his teacher’s cheek.

According to him, that would have been an end of his educational sojourn but ‘God’s plan made him rise to his present level.’

Obasanjo said: “I do follow my father to farm but one day, he asked me what I wished to do and I told him I would prefer to be a mechanic. But he suggested education and I bought into it.

“We both went to Abeokuta and visited five different schools of which they rejected me because the school season was already in the middle.

“Later, I was taken to another school in the beginning of a new season. But, on my first day in school, they asked of my name and I gave them but when they asked of my father’s name, I found it irritating.

“By my own training in the village, to mention your father’s name is an insult and for him to ask for my father’s name is an insult. So, I slapped him and I was punished for that,” he said.