Olusegun Obasanjo, erstwhile president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, has bared his mind on why the country still faces multiple problems since gaining independence from Great Britain in 1960.
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| Olusegun Obasanjo, former President of Nigeria |
He said, that Nigerians should blame themselves for the woes of the country and not God.
Obasanjo made the statements in Abuja during the launch of a book titled “The Letterman: Inside the ‘Secret’ Letters of former Nigerian President, Olusegun Obasanjo”, written by Musikilu Mojeed, the Premium Times Editor-in-chief.
Obasanjo referred to Nigeria as a “giant in the sun” while speaking on the country’s journey which is currently 62 years old, saying that Nigeria has performed way below the expectations of the world.
He said: “When Nigeria became independent, it was a giant in the sun. That was the expectation. Not a giant even in Africa. A giant in the sun. That was the expectation of the world about Nigeria.
“Have we lived up to it? No. If we haven’t, why haven’t we? I think we probably don’t appreciate what we have as a country and I believe if we do appreciate it and make good use of it, we would do better than we are now.
“I believe the right lessons must be learned. We have all that we need to have; God has given us all that we need to have. That we are not doing what we should do, God is not to blame and we should blame ourselves.”
