Obasanjo claim “Nigeria Has No Business With Poverty, Political Division and Insecurity”
Dr. Olusegun Obasanjo, a former president of Nigeria, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, the Director General of the World Trade Organization, and Olisa Agbakoba, a former president of the Nigeria Bar Association, among other well-known Nigerians, all proposed remedies to the problems the nation was experiencing.
They talked on Saturday at King’s College’s 113rd birthday celebration. The King’s College Old Boys’ Association sponsored the anniversary talk with the theme “Building the Nigeria of our Dreams.”
Obasanjo, who presided at the King’s Week 2022 colloquium at Kings College in Lagos, claimed that Nigeria’s choice of leaders was to blame for the nation’s poverty, insecurity, and other problems.
‘‘We are politically divided, economically disunited we are nowhere, we are down the drain. Diplomatically, Nigeria is not at the table. Before we had sent troops to Sudan, Serria Lone but today, we can’t send troops to the Republic of Benin. There are three races in the world, white, yellow, and black. For now, America is leading the whites, the Chinese is leading the yellow race, and Nigeria with 225m people is created by God to lead the black race. When we stop disappointing ourselves we can take care of the continent and the black race. Nigeria has no business with poverty, insecurity, or political division.
‘‘It is the advertently or inadvertently choice of our leaders. It is not God’s choice for us. If God hasn’t chosen that for us we can do better. For Nigeria, we have done a few things right but we have not continued to do it right.’’
Nigeria needs a social contract, in Okonjo-Iweala’s opinion, that would direct the country in the management of its resources.
Dr. Iweala remarked: ‘‘Nigeria can fight poverty, Improve people’s life if it is properly managed. Our revenue sources are not diversified we depend only on one revenue. Nigeria lacks a sacrosanct social contract in the country; there should be a guideline that dictates certain things that should be sacrosanct. We should have guiding principles to decide how we manage, save, spend and take vigorous actions on our revenues. As a country, we need to have certain indicators of how our economy should be governed. If we do this, we have so much to gain.”
Agbakoba also make statement that, ‘‘We have been to a lot of conferences it is time for us to face the real question, we will never come out of this if we don’t sit and ask ourselves if we are really one until the infractions are tackled.’’
Another guest speaker, Prof. Attahiru Jega, a former INEC chairman, urged Nigerians to participate in the political and electoral processes in order to raise the caliber of candidates that political parties put out for elective offices.
‘‘Since 1999, till date, there has been a remarkable decline in the quality of leaders. This is caused by the lack of appropriate selection and criteria in Nigeria’s leadership and electoral process’’ Jega stated.
