Former President, Olusegun Obasanjo says Nigerias failing status under the reign of President Bola Tinubu is confirmed and glaringly indicated and manifested for every honest person to see.
A statement issued by his Media Aide, Kehinde Akinyemi yesterday, quoted Obasanjo to have said this while delivering his keynote address at the Chinua Achebe Leadership Forum, Yale University New Haven Connecticut, USA.
Obasanjo was quoted as saying: As the world can see and understand, Nigerias situation is bad. According to the statement, the former President in his address titled: Leadership Failure and State Capture in Nigeria, said: the more the immorality and corruption of a nation, the more the nation sinks into chaos, insecurity, conflict, discord, division, disunity, depression, youth restiveness, confusion, violence, and underdevelopment.
Nigeria Situation: As we can see and understand, Nigerias situation is bad. The more the immorality and corruption of a nation, the more the nation sinks into chaos, insecurity, conflict, discord, division, disunity, depression, youth restiveness, confusion, violence, and underdevelopment.
Thats the situation mostly in Nigeria in the reign of Baba-go-slow and Emilokan. The failing state status of Nigeria is confirmed and glaringly indicated and manifested for every honest person to see through the consequences of the level of our pervasive corruption, mediocrity, immorality, misconduct, mismanagement, perversion, injustice, incompetence and all other forms of iniquity. But yes, there is hope.
Obasanjo, while copying from a short, classic treatise published in 1983, titled: The Trouble with Nigeria by Chinua Achebe, admitted that, The trouble with Nigeria is simply and squarely a failure of leadership. There is nothing basically wrong with the Nigerian character. There is nothing wrong with the Nigerian land, or climate, water, air or anything else. The Nigerian problem is the unwillingness or inability of its leaders to rise to the responsibility to the challenge of personal example, which are the hallmarks of true leadership.
The former President, who also relied on a World Bank and Transparency International definition, described a state capture, as one of the most pervasive forms of corruption, a situation where powerful individuals, institutions, companies, or groups within or outside a country use corruption to shape a nations policies, legal environment, and economy, to benefit their own private interests.
According to him, They do so through practices such as illicit contributions paid by private interests to political parties, and for election campaigns, vote-buying, buying of presidential decrees or court decisions, as well as through illegitimate lobbying and revolving-door appointments.
State capture can seriously affect economic development, regulatory quality, the provision of public services, quality of education and health services, infrastructure decisions, and even the environment and public health, he stressed.
On Achebes personality, Obasanjo hinted that the great author and writer has been known through his work, and his values for as long as our nation has been in existence. He was a great and distinguished Nigerian.
