Nigeria Needs ‘Do Tanks’ Not Think Tanks – Obasanjo, The Optimist

President Olusegun Obasanjo marks 78th anniversary

Former President Olusegun Obasanjo said Nigeria’s peculiar challenges required leaders with requisite experience to tackle them while hosting guests inside the auditorium of his Olusegun Obasanjo Presidential Library, Abeokuta, during the celebration of his 78th birthday on Thursday and 2015 annual summit.

The former President, who looked resplendent in a white flowing agbada,   therefore prayed to “ God to give us leaders that occasion like this deserves.”

The Punch report continues:

Obasanjo said that West African countries and Britain were worried about developments in Nigeria. Reiterating his commitment to the country, Obasanjo said each time he travelled to these countries, he was usually inundated with inquiries about Nigeria’s security, political and socio-economic challenges.

According to him, people in those countries always warn that any turmoil in Nigeria may have dire consequences on its West African neighbours and even Britain.

He said, “We are about 180 million now, our brothers and sisters in West Africa are worried and when they talk to me and I ask why they were worried, they always reply that, ‘if half a million Nigerians go to Republic of Benin, we will overwhelm them.

“If two million (Nigerians) go to Ghana… Even Britain is worried, they are worried. They said their problem is that if one million Nigerians go to Britain, they said in 10 years, there will be 10 million Nigerians in Britain and they will rather keep us here.”

He said with enormous resources the nation was blessed with, no Nigerian child should lack access to education, food and employment.

Obasanjo lamented that the mismanagement of the nation’s resources had landed the country in the current mess.

He said, “My concern is that we have too many think tanks, we need more of do tanks. The point is, we can do and we have no reason why we can’t do and we have also seen that one individual can make a difference.

“There is no reason why any Nigerian child, at this point in time should not have a basic education, food and nutrition. Not only Nigerian child, no Nigerian should go to bed without food.

“We have the resources to achieve all that, that we are not achieving it does not mean we don’t have the resources. It is because we haven’t managed our resources well.

“Employment, if all other things are right, there should be no reason for any Nigerian who wants to be employed not to have the opportunity for employment.”

He noted that if the unemployment malaise persisted for the next 15 years, “and if all those things that all these young ones are expecting are not there, in 15 years’ time, they will be good recruits for Boko Haram or its equivalent.”