Obasanjo advocates African solutions for ‘African problems’

Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, a former president, claimed on Wednesday that Africans were capable of finding solutions to the many problems facing the continent.

Obasanjo revealed this while entertaining the All African Students Union at his penthouse apartment at the Olusegun Obasanjo Presidential Library in Abeokuta on a thank-you visit.

The students from a number of African nations, including Nigeria, under the leadership of Osisiogu Osikenyi, said they had grown to appreciate Obasanjo for his role in ending hostilities between Ethiopia and the Tigray Region in November of last year, which gave rise to the current state of peace between the two nations.

Obasanjo while addressing the students’ delegation said that the experience gathered during the resolution of the crisis spoke a lot about Africans having the capacity to provide solutions to their problems.

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He said, “One thing we should also learn from the achievements of cessation of hostilities between Tigray Region and the Federal Republic of Ethiopia last year November is the fact that Africans can provide solutions to solving African problems. Unfortunately, we don’t know ourselves in Africa, we like to rely on third parties to tell us about ourselves. We should rather learn to interact more with ourselves and know what we are capable of doing.

“It is not just good for someone to sit somewhere and use a tar brush to paint everyone in Nigeria to be a cheat. Yes, in a population of over 225 million, we may have those who lack integrity just as it is in other countries of the world but this is not to say that everyone is like that or bad. After all, I won’t say because I have one rotten apple in a basket and then say I have a basket of rotten apples.

The former President further noted that, “There are many eminent, honourable Nigerians, Africans doing excellently well. The second citizen in the United Nations, a wonderful woman is a Nigerian, the President of the World Trade Centre who once worked with me, Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala is a Nigerian, the man who has been doing fantastically well for Africa in Africa Development Bank, Dr Adesina Akinwumi is a Nigerian.

“And this morning, I just received the news of another Nigerian being elected as the President of the Federation of World Engineers. All of these are saying that Africans are great people and if we rightly harness our resources we have the capacity to solve our problems.”

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