Olusegun Obasanjo, a former president of Nigeria, advised his countrymen on Wednesday to vote wisely in the general elections of 2023.
He forewarned that choosing the incorrect decision in the election could destroy the country.
At the Wilson Badejo Foundation’s 15th annual lecture, with the theme “Overcoming the Twin Challenge of Poverty and Insecurity in Nigeria,” held in Lagos, Obasanjo spoke as the special guest of honor.
The former President expressed optimism that if the proper decision were taken in 2023, the country may experience advancement.
“It is either we make the correct decision in 2023, because if we do, we will arrive.
But if we don’t choose well in 2023, things will consume us, therefore we pray against it. In 2023, we must choose wisely, Obasanjo added.
He had previously stated that poverty and insecurity were to blame for Nigeria’s failure to occupy its proper position.
Nigeria is not where it should be right now, he declared. Anyone who claims that things are fine as they are now needs to have their brain checked. My late buddy Ahmed Joda used to tell me that since God has provided for all of our needs as a nation, we don’t need to pray because, if God has provided for all of your requirements and you still waste it, something is wrong.
“I reminded him that even then, we as a country still needed prayers because what is good needs prayers, and on the other side too, we still needed more prayers,”
In his speech on “Overcoming the Twin Challenge of Poverty and Insecurity in Nigeria,” the guest speaker, Prof. Eghosa Osaghea, Director-General of the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs, said that when “one’s country fails the individual, then that individual becomes a failure.”
“Corruption separates us, not poverty; it ties us, not poverty can divide us,” he declared. The impoverished are the ones that demonstrate on the streets around the world.
“Dividends are brought about by corruption, no matter how it occurs.
The state should have placed these in place for the common interest of all, but many people today still dig their own boreholes for water and hire private security guards, among other things.
