Obasanjo: Things are not what they should be but we thank God
Former President Olusegun Obasanjo says those who are live to witness the 56th independence anniversary of the country should give thanks to God.
Acknowledging that there is hardship in the country, the elder statesman advised Nigerians to pray that next year should be better.
He spoke on Saturday at the 2016 Independence Day programme organised by the Useful Youth, Owu Baptist Church, Abeokuta, Ogun state.
“Whoever that has lived to witness the celebration of today, we should thank God, things are not what they should be but we should pray that next year will be better than this year,” he said.
“We thank God for those who are alive, we prayed for the souls of those who have laboured for these country and who have passed on rest in perfect peace.
Obasanjo, who spoke on the topic ‘Nigeria Development for Nigerians by Nigerians’ said agric business is key to the development of the country.
He said through agriculture, the nation could beat development and generate millions of employment.
“Agric business also includes manufacturing because when you take cassava and you turn it to starch, that’s manufacturing and when you take your starch and you turn it to glucose that’s manufacturing,” he said.
“When you take your Cocoa and you turn it to Cocoa powder, that’s manufacturing, when you turn Cocoa powder to chocolate, that’s also manufacturing.
“That’s part of the value chain in agric-business and that is a very key aspect of our development, agric business adding value to whatever commodities we produced and creating job for millions of our people particularly the youths.”
He also identified security, transportation, communication, information trade, peace and employment as elements of development in any nation.
Obasanjo said all these items had to be taken seriously for the growth of the nation, adding that the development of the country should be a collective responsibility.
It could just be wiser for Obasanjo, (the greatest beneficiary of the Nigerian status quo (all that is wrong with one Nigeria Unity)) to permanently keep his mouth shut. After controlling single handedly the affairs of the Nation for roughly one fifth of the country’s 56 years of existence both as military dictator and as elected president, not to talk of his influence in successive governments, he could have known if he has reasoning at all that he naturally single handedly bears one fifth of all blames of what went wrong with Nigeria.
Just as a reminder Obasanjo as the military head of state with Buhari as his oil minister, during the oil boom of the 70s could have without any distraction laid the solid foundation for the diversification of the Nation’s economy or rather industrialization, but rather they chose to spend the accumulated oil proceeds in celebrating FESTAC. Today as we can all see, that is money well spent, thanks to our self-acclaimed patriots and lovers of their country Nigeria.