by Dolapo Adelana

Before immediate former president of the United States, Barack Obama met Michelle, there was Sheila Miyoshi Jager.

Sheila was Barack’s love who rejected him twice, according to a new biography.

David Garrow, author of the new book, “Rising Star: The Making of Barack Obama,” says Obama met Jager in the mid-’80s when he was doing community organising in Chicago.

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She says in 1986 Obama asked her to marry him, but her parents were opposed because they thought she was too young. She said no, but they continued dating.

Jager, of Dutch and Japanese ancestry, told Garrow that Obama had always had a strong belief he’d someday become President of the United States. She also told the author Obama had “a deep-seated need to be loved and admired.”

Garrow says Obama’s presidential ambitions became the highlight of their relationship, causing a conflict because he worried a non-African-American spouse would do him political damage.

Garrow says Barack “felt trapped between the woman he loved and the destiny he knew was his.”

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In 1988, Obama proceeded to Harvard Law School and the relationship was still ongoing.

Jager says Obama again asked her to marry him before he left, but she was off on a research trip to Seoul and rejected his proposal.

During his first year in law school, Obama fell for Michelle but, according to Garrow, he was still occasionally seeing Jager.

Jager is currently a professor of East Asian Studies at Oberlin College. Her book, “Iraqi Security Forces and Lessons from Korea” was on Osama bin Laden’s bookshelf in the compound where Seal Team Six killed him.

Oludolapo Adelana

Dolapo is a writer and journalist who works with YNaija. He has interests in Christianity, politics and sports.