Former President Olusegun
Obasanjo, has lamented over the current state of disunity in Nigeria.
Obasanjo said that Nigeria was
not as divided as this during the civil war in comparison to the worst
situation of things as they are now.
The former president said this
while Speaking at a one-day ‘2019 annual retreat/conference and general
meeting’ of members of Association of Chief Audit Executives of Banks in
Nigeria (ACAEBIN) held at Park Inn, Abeokuta in Ogun State yesterday, Obasanjo,
The former president urged
Nigerians to partner one another at home, within communities, states,
countries, sub-African region and African continent, adding that Nigeria was in
danger if “we don’t take partnership seriously.”
“When we look at this country
today, even during the civil war, we were not as divided as we are now. Today,
we are in danger if we don’t take partnership serious. That partnership should
be within our people, Africa and the rest of the world.
“As chief audit, it is defined by
virtue of what you are doing as a profession. If the audit is awry, banking
business will not be right.
“What I want to emphasise is that
it is a must as Nigerians and Africans that we have certain elements that we
have to take very seriously which I put as 5Ps.
“The first is politics which is
governance. Unless we get governance right, any other thing we are trying to do
will not be right.
“The second is population. Our
population at independence was estimated to be 45 million, but today we are
almost 200 million. By the year 2050, we will be over 400 million. Normally,
population should be an asset but looking at the condition we are in now, when
in the North-east of Nigeria, the percentage of adult literacy is about 53
percent, and education being the basic of all human development, you can see
that we have a problem.
“How do we think of setting
education to be useful? Those people who will make our education over 400
million people in many years’ time are already born, and you cannot unborn
them. So the problem is here, what do we do?
“We must provide education for
them, housing, healthcare and most importantly, employment for them.
“One thing that I believe will
help us is to provide employment is agricultural business. And you in the
banking business must pay attention to how we build the agriculture sector. I
am not talking of horticulture, I am talking of the whole value chain, from
land preparation to the end product. And if we are able to get that right, maybe
we will be able to get the issue of employment for our teeming youths right as
well as rural development right.
“The next one is prosperity. I am
not being bothered about Nigeria or Africa’s poverty. We have everything to
generate wealth. We have God-given resources under our soil. We also have human
resources. If we bring these together, then we will definitely get prosperity
“Another one is security. People
must be protected in all aspect. Protection of lives and property is most
important.”
Click to signup for FREE news updates, latest information and hottest gists everyday
Advertise on NigerianEye.com to reach thousands of our daily users
Thank you sir. You are major culprit when it comes to the elements of division in this nation
ReplyDelete