I am now too old to keep quiet and watch Nigeria’s seemingly clueless lurch into a dystopia
Emmanuel Ukudolo I Friday, April 7, 2023
ABUJA, Nigeria – Former President of Nigeria, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo during the week disappointed sycophants who desire him to keep quite at his age and watch the nation go downhill, when he declared that he is too old at this stage to keep quite and watch Nigeria’s seemingly clueless lurch into a dystopia.
Obasanjo who was speaking as a special guest at the public presentation of Prof. Tunji Olaopa’s The Unending Quest for Reform: An Intellectual Memoir at the Shehu Musa Yar’Adua Centre, Abuja on Thursday, 6th of April, 2023, decribed the 2023 general election as a ‘sickening and painful show of shame”.
He said the elections showed that Nigeria is ‘now even more divided and more corroded than we thought’.
For Obasanjo, all efforts are now required from all well-meaning and committed patriots to rescue the nation from the precipice.
“And that becomes my own personal obligation to continue in my relentless service as “The Letterman” dedicated, in my twilight years, to saying the truth as I see it so as to push Nigeria in the direction of our collective aspirations—a better society where all Nigerians can become what the Almighty God has destined them to be”, he said, stressing that at times like this, “some of us have to adopt the attitude of being known to be blind and not being afraid of the dark but we must continually work for the light for all”, he said.
Obasanjo congratulated Tunji his continuing labor on behalf of the Nigerian public service; and most importantly for adding the intellectual memoir to his huge corpus of publications, and to the annals of administrative reforms in Nigeria at a defining and auspicious moment like this.
“ This memoir must find its way into all federal and state ministries, as well as the national libraries in Nigeria. Of course, it must become one item in the fundamental reading list for all serious-minded Nigerian development workers, public managers, policy makers, development theorist and planners and administrative scholars”, he explained .
He also appreciated Patrick Okigbo’s Nextier and Ibadan School of Government and Public Policy, ISGPP, for putting this event together, and for inviting him to participate.
Nigeria more divided, corroded than we thought – OBJ
Drawing lessons from the 2023 general election adjudged as the worst in Nigeria’s history in recent time, the former President noted that given “what we saw during the elections, Nigeria is now even more divided and more corroded than we thought.
“This places a deep onus on any administration following the current one to urgently facilitate the process of national moral re-armament and national reconciliation that has the potential to enhance healing for aggrieved and bereaved persons across Nigeria and to assuage the youth.
“This must be done in sync with the imperative of national value reorientation that Nigeria requires to build a collective sense of enduring and noble values and national belonging”, he noted.
Obasanjo advised that governance in Nigeria now calls for thinking outside the box in terms of development financing.
“This has become inevitable in the face of Nigeria’s dwindling fortune in oil revenue, Nigeria’s huge foreign indebtedness, and the urgency of diversifying Nigeria’s monocultural economy.
We cannot be spending like drunken sailors on frivolities
“We cannot be spending like drunken sailors on frivolities and corruption and expect development and growth. Such situation cannot take us into the fourth industrial revolution already underway, or prepare us for the fifth”, he advised, stressing that his experience and understanding is that the money to develop and grow the economy is out there only in need for conducive environment for it to come and stay.
Besides, he argued that political action and administrative efforts must be invested on reforming the public service into a capability-ready institution that could enable Nigeria’s development agenda, beyond 2023.
“All these and more are necessary to correct and not to repeat the sickening and painful show of shame which the elections of 2023 degenerated into”, he said.
