I won’t keep quiet over Nigeria – Obasanjo

Yenegoa

Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has declared that he won’t keep quiet when things are not done properly or are not going the way it should in Nigeria.
The former president was apparently response to criticism that trailed his Public Statement to President Muhammadu Buhari which he concluded by urging Buhari not to recontest the 2019 presidential election.
Speaking in Yenegoa, Bayelsa State over the weekend, Obasanjo failing to address whatever problems Nigeria has would be like postponing the evil day hence the need to speak up so that observed problems could be corrected.
“We have a problem that we have to address and if we don’t address that problem, we are postponing the evil days”, he said noting that he did his best for Nigeria when he was elected president.
Recalling the shock that visited everyone following the assassination of late Murtala Muhammed, his immediate boss and Head of State 1976 said, “I was shocked to the marrow. I was so shocked that I said I don’t want to have anything to do with the government but my colleagues persuaded me and I continued.
“Those who were responsible for Murtala’s death were mainly Christians and it was very easy to interpret it as Christian Moslem affair but we were able to ride over that”.
Narrating the difference between military leadership and that of democracy he said “For military government, I didn’t have a party to contend with. No national assembly to contend with.
“No opposition to contend with but in democracy, I had to contend with my party which I must satisfy. I had to contend with ASUU and the labour unions”, he said that democracy though beautiful has its many constraints.
Acknowledging his shortfalls, Obasanjo said he did not claim perfection adding he offered his best to the country following his democratic election as president. “I did not have regret when I was in government or in any leadership position that I have held.
“If I believed that Nigeria has no hope, I will find some way of committing suicide and I will ask myself ‘What am I living for. I’m an incurable optimist about Nigeria?’
“There are many things that we should have done that we have not done but that doesn’t mean that Nigeria has no hope because hope is what drives any human being”.
The former president was in Yenegoa to commission projects mainly in the health sector for the six years anniversary of Governor Seriake Dickson’s Restoration Government.
Meanwhile, Governor Seriake has said a leader that did not give his people knowledge would not only impoverish them but perish with them.
“Our vision from the beginning was very clear that all the insecurity, instability, all the militancy, criminality whatever that has gone on in the state in our region and in parts of our country is rooted in insufficient investment in education”.

 

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