Former president, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, yesterday, said Nigeria’s security challenges could be resolved within two years with the right person willing to take tough decisions at the helm of leadership.
Obasanjo said Nigeria required a visionary, passionate and innovative leader who also has adequate knowledge about the challenges confronting the country.
Lamenting that the situation was not only agonising for him but for other Nigerians who desire a better country, he tasked citizens to brace up and be ready to make sacrifices to put the country back on the right path.
He spoke when he hosted Mohammed Hayatu-Deen, PDP presidential aspirant at the Olusegun Obasanjo Presidential Library (OOPL) in Abeokuta, Ogun State.
“And you talk about security and people ask me about it and I said I know that we can put all insecurity in Nigeria behind us within a space of two years. That we have not done or that we are still in the situation we are in is a choice that has been made by our leaders, not the way God wants us to be.”
Obasanjo said he had no apology for his “mad passion” for Nigeria, saying the country’s challenges required the collective efforts of all citizens. “… I want to emphasise the point that the Nigerian situation, bad as it is, will only be put right by Nigerians at the forefront of our situation. So, Nigerians have to brace themselves up to do what needs to be done to put Nigeria back on the right path. And you are right in saying that wherever you go now, one of the things you hear is that Nigeria is not on the table, but why shouldn’t Nigeria be on the table?
“What does it cost Nigeria to be on the table? I will say four things, of which I was reminded this morning. One is knowledge. If Nigeria is not at the table, may be the knowledge that we should have of ourselves, of our situation, of our continent and indeed of the world is not that adequate. If that knowledge is adequate, we will do what is right, when it is right and how it is right. The second is vision. What is the vision that we have? And if you have no vision, you may have eyes but you are blind. And I believe that is part of our situation. The third is passion. And when you said that you are involved in this with a passion… and I was telling some people this morning that passion means madness, that you are mad about Nigeria, I am and I have no apologies for that because I have no other country I can call my own and I have no other country I can go to and say, yes, I have come to live here. Passion means being mad about Nigeria, having a touch of madness and I look at you (Hayatu-Deen) and say yes, you are mad about Nigeria too. Fourth one is innovation. We cannot be doing the same thing that we have done in the past that did not pay us and continue to repeat it and expect any change, we have to move out it, we have to innovate, we have to re-strategise.
“Like you said, I couldn’t agree with you more that no individual in Nigeria, no political party, no single person or individual can make a critical mass that will resolve the situation that we are today. It has to be an all Nigerians’ hands on deck. No section of the Nigerian community should be left out. So, I believe you have knowledge. From what you have said, you have the vision. Also, you told me that you have the madness and you have innovation but let me add, Nigeria is a complex country. And we need to understand the complexity of Nigeria and that complexity if we take care of it, Nigeria is not a difficult country to rule or to manage, but we must all be ready,” Obasanjo said.
Earlier in his remarks, Hayatu-Deen declared that, Nigeria is “decomposing and dissolving very fast.”
He, however, said he would work for a better Nigeria if elected as the next president.
