Olusegun Obasanjo, the former President of Nigeria, has taken a swipe at groups of people fighting for regional self-determination. Obasanjo said he believes in one Nigeria above all ethnic affiliations while speaking at a retreat on inclusive security hosted by the Global Peace Foundation in collaboration with Vision Africa....CONTINUE READING
As I always say, we all have solutions to Nigeria’s problems, but we’re all wrong when we put our own in and think it’s perfect; now listen to the other man. But there is one thing I believe we all share: Nigeria.
I have never used the term Yoruba nation and will never use it because I believe that my Nigerianness is greater than my Yorubaness and that no one should stand in the way of the other.
“My Nigerianness is important to me because I am more than what I should have been as a Nigerian than as an Oduduwa Republic man, and I believe that should be the case for each of us.” Why should my birthplace be a hindrance to me as a human being, first and foremost, and as a Nigerian?
” If I was born in Sokoto, my chances of becoming a Muslim are probably 99:1. If the Sultan was born in Abeokuta, the odds of him being a Christian are 55:45.
Where I was born, by whom I was born, and perhaps when I was born have all changed, so why should that be a deciding factor for me as a human being? So I believe we’re making a mistake when we only consider ourselves in terms of where, when, and how we were born.
“I owe no apology to anyone because I believe that what God has given to us in Nigeria belongs to all of us in Nigeria, and whoever believes otherwise is out of luck.”
“The point is that we must aggregate; if you were born in a place with a specific treasure, you must enjoy it more than others in other parts of Nigeria.”
And that, I believe, whether it is the stone with which the Nigerian railway and Lagos board were built, which came from Abeokuta and for which no one paid anything in colonial times, or the coal in Enugu, some of which was used to drive the locomotive, or whatever, it is all a gift of God to all Nigerians, humanity, and the gift of God, I believe we must understand and know how we truly manage them.
