Former President Olusegun Obasanjo said yesterday that he would have found a way of committing suicide long ago if he had no hope in Nigeria. He added that he would continue to speak his mind by talking to those in power whenever he saw something wrong. Obasanjo stated this during an interactive session with students of The Ijaw National Academy tagged ‘A Day With Chief Olusegun Obasanjo’ in the outskirt of Yenegoa, Bayelsa State.
He was responding to questions from the students who wanted to know his impression about security issues bedeviling Nigeria, including farmer-herder clashes, kidnapping, Boko Haram, militancy and political uncertainty. The programme was part of the sixth anniversary of Henry Seriake Dickson’s governorship. Obasanjo remarked:
“Those in Dickson’s category are building on what we did.” Asked if he had any regrets, Obasanjo said: “I did all I could do while in power but I wasn’t perfect. Only God is perfect. I have no regrets; I did enough with the resources at my disposal. I would have done more if the resources were more.”
“As military head of state, my greatest challenge was when our government with late General Murtala Muhammed was toppled.” “And as elected president,” he said, “My greatest challenge was that it is different from military government. As military head of state, I had no [political] party, no National Assembly, and no opposition. But then, in a democratic system, I had to contend with opposition, my political party (the PDP); the National Assembly that I had to satisfy and even outsiders including ASUU,” he said.
Obasanjo commissioned various projects in Bayelsa, including a state specialists hospital, drug distribution centre and others, commending Dickson for people-oriented projects in the last six years. Dickson, on his part, said for any country to prosper, its leaders must heavily invest on its youths through education, hence his resolve to build schools across the state, and the disbursement of scholarships to thousands, both at home and abroad.
