Former President Olusegun Obasanjo yesterday called on Nigerians to support the President Muhammadu Buhari administration to end corruption.
Obasanjo, who said this while fielding questions from reporters at his residence in Abeokuta, Ogun State, said the country should destroy corruption before it destroyed the nation. Obasanjo, who spoke against the backdrop of the nation’s 55thindependence anniversary, said the country was not doing badly and was poised to attain greatness.
He warned the citizens against engaging in corruption, which he said is capable of destroying the nation. He said: “Corruption must not have a resting place within our society.
We must kick corruption out because it destroys almost everything and I am not talking about corruption of money; corruption of attitude, nepotism, favouritism they are corruption in different forms and all aspects of corruption must be kicked out of our society.” The former president urged Nigerians to work together to make the country realise its potentials.
Obasanjo said: “Fifty five years in the life of a nation is comparatively young. When you look at the life and history of those that you may call settled societies or reasonably matured countries, we are not doing too badly.
“They have had missteps just like we are having missteps. They have made mistakes and most of them have learnt from their mistakes. They have been dynamic in the way they have progressed and I believe that we are doing the same thing.
“What is important is that certain cardinal principles, cardinal features of our national life, values, should not be eroded. Then we should be willing to learn from our mistakes. “The president (Buhari) in his statement said Nigeria has the marks in making the potentialities of a great nation.
It’s just question of actualising our potentialities and that will require all hands on deck; men, women, Muslims, Christians, young and old, irrespective of our location, our tribe, our social standing, Nigeria needs all hands on deck.
“And we must also realise important issues that we must not play with; we must not play with the issue of education, we must not play with the issue of health for our people, we must not play with the issue of employment for our teeming population, particularly for our youths.
“We must not play with the issue of economy, we must not play with the issue of security and peace. We must not play with the issue of justice; justice and peace go hand in hand. We can’t have injustice and expect peace to reign supreme.”
Obasanjo, who just returned from the 70th session of the United Nations General Assembly held in New York, added that the international community is now satisfied with Nigeria. According to him, comments from notable world leaders, including former United States President, Bill Clinton and former United Kingdom Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, about Buhari were satisfactory.
He said: “It (the UN General Assembly) is an annual arena for leaders to vent their views either on issues of particular interest with them in their country or issues with them that are of regional interest or even of global interest and it is good that our own president was able to participate this year for the first time as elected president of Nigeria.
“I heard some of the comments of those he met, the comments that probably did not come back to him. He met Clinton for almost one hour and President Clinton, when I joined him for his global initiative, talked to me about the impression of our president, it was favourable. “Gordon Brown and I met him and we talked about issues. The few other leaders who met him gave me their impressions and his debut so to say, has been good. I think we are at the table; what they used to say that Nigeria was not at the table, now we are present at the table.”
