After echoing Nigeria’s socio-economic downward slope, former President Chief Olusegun Obasanjo reiterated hope for the country.
Obasanjo in his Keynote Address at the Chinua Achebe Leadership Forum, Yale University New Haven Connecticut, USA, at the weekend, lamented that the situation in Nigeria is bad.
In a press statement by his Special Assistant on Media, Kehinde Akinyemi, the former President in his address titled “Leadership Failure and State Capture in Nigeria” said, “The more the immorality and corruption of a nation, the more the nation sinks into chaos, insecurity, conflict, discord, division, disunity, depression, youth restiveness, confusion, violence and underdevelopment.”
Obasanjo, who was in the Democratic Republic of Congo, DRC but had the 25 minutes video recorded to the forum, noted that in a country like Singapore, “The government has also been responsive to the changing needs of its people and has invested heavily in areas such as healthcare, education, and social welfare.
“That’s the situation mostly in Nigeria in the reign of Baba-go-slow and Emilokan. The failing state status of Nigeria is confirmed and glaringly indicated and manifested for every honest person to see through the consequences of the level of our pervasive corruption, mediocrity, immorality, misconduct, mismanagement, perversion, injustice, incompetence and all other forms of iniquity. But yes, there is hope.”
On Achebe’s personality, Obasanjo hinted that the great author and writer has been known through “his work and his values for as long as our Nation has been in existence. He was a great and distinguished Nigerian.