Obasanjo, Okonjo-Iweala decry leadership failure in Nigeria, proffer solutions to challenges

Former President Olusegun Obasanjo and the Director General of World Trade Organisation, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, on Saturday, decried the leadership failure in Nigeria.

The duo spoke at the 113th Anniversary of Kings College in Lagos.

The ex-President said the country was in monumental crises because of its choice of leaders.

He added that only committed leadership can salvage the country.

Obasanjo said: “We are politically divided and economically disunited. We are nowhere, we are down the drain. Diplomatically, Nigeria is not at the table. Before, we had sent troops to Sudan, Sierra Leone but today, we can’t send troops to the Republic of Benin. There are three races in the world, white, yellow, and black.

“For now, America is leading the whites, the Chinese are leading the yellow race, and Nigeria with 225 million people is created by God to lead the black race. When we stop disappointing ourselves we can take care of the continent and the black race. Nigeria has no business with poverty, insecurity, or political division.

“It is the advertently or inadvertently choice of our leaders. It is not God’s choice for us. If God hasn’t chosen that for us we can do better. For Nigeria, we have done a few things right but we have not continued to do it right. We need a government that understands Nigeria and Africa which will be fair and sincere with Nigerians, together with the right government, this nation can become the right leading country to develop Africa.”

On her own part, Okonjo-Iweala said Nigeria has all it takes to become an enviable country.

READ ALSO: Senator Sani Musa identifies leadership failure as cause of Nigeria’s insecurity

She decried the country’s overdependence on oil and challenged the government to diversify the economy.

“Nigeria can fight poverty, and improve people’s lives if it is properly managed. Our revenue sources are not diversified because we depend only on one revenue. Nigeria lacks a sacrosanct social compact in the country, there should be a guideline that dictates certain things that should be sacrosanct.

“We should have guiding principles to decide how we manage, save, spend and take vigorous actions on our revenues. As a country, we need to have certain indicators of how our economy should be governed. If we do this, we have so much to gain.

“We have had episodes showing we can sustain strong growth, all we need is to work on all key indicators and move in the right direction.

‘‘If we build strong governance, we need to choose our leaders wisely. We need to ensure we build a strong foundation, we need to get our leaders to accept a social compact that will take us into the future.”

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