Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has declared that Nigeria is not difficult to manage, blaming the country’s woes on a lack of quality leadership.
He maintained that the country is a complex one that must be well understood to be managed properly.
The former president spoke on Wednesday in Lagos at the maiden memorial lecture in honour of the late Akintola Williams, themed, “Leadership Dynamics: Current Realities and Way Forward.”
The lecture was organised by the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria, ICAN, in Lagos.
“I always say Nigeria is a complex country. You must understand that. But Nigeria is not a difficult country to manage. You have to be honest with yourself, Nigeria and your God,” Obasanjo said.
He said while in office, he did his best to move the country forward.
He recounted his time as president, asserting that he served the country with the resources available at his disposal, claiming the country enjoyed good economic fortunes.
Obasanjo said: “When I was there, I did everything I should do for Nigeria and I can beat my chest and say that.
“I took over the affairs of Nigeria as elected president with N3.7 billion in reserves and we were spending N3.5 billion to service debt, so I decided we must seek debt relief and I went out for it, even though we were the fifth country in all exporting in the world and we got debt relief.
“Not only did we get relief from a quantum debt of N3.36 billion, we came to a quantum debt of N3.6 billion and I left with over N25 billion in what we call excess crude, that is, the money we saved from the budget and what we actually received and we had a reserve of over N45 billion,” he said.
He described the late Akintola Williams as a sage who served humanity during his lifetime.
“He deserves every honour that we can confer posthumously, not for what he did for this country but what he did politically, socially and economically,” he said.