Former President Olusegun Obasanjo yesterday declared that Nigeria will
not make progress until the country gets its governance system right.
Obasanjo, who spoke at the opening of the National Annual Conference of
the Association of Chief Audit Executives of Banks in Nigeria (ACAEBIN)
held in Abeokuta, also said the nation would be endangered if it failed
to take partnership seriously.
Amosun, the former president affirmed that five issues must be
identified to achieve accelerated development for Nigeria. The issues,
which Obasanjo described as “points,” include
to him, Nigeria and other African countries are endowed with resources
but their citizens regrettably continued to live in abject poverty. “If
we bring these resources together and manage them effectively, then we
will definitely get prosperity,” he stated.
The former President argued that business will not be right if audit was
not right. He said: “What I want to emphasize is that it’s a must as
Nigerians and as Africans that we have certain elements that we have to
take very, very serious. I put it as five Ps. The first point is
politics which is governance. Unless we get governance right, any other
thing we are trying to do will not be right.
million but today we are 200 million. By the year 2050, we will be over
400 million. Normally, population should be an asset but looking at the
condition we are in now, when in the North East of Nigeria, the
percentage of adult literacy is about 53 per cent. You can see that we
have a problem and education is basic in all human development.
will make our population over 400 million in 30 years time are already
born. You cannot unborn them. So, the problem is here. What do we do? We
must provide education for them, housing for them and more importantly,
employment for them.
probably part of what will help us is agric business and you in banking
business must pay attention to how we build the agric sector. I am not
talking of horticulture. I am talking of the whole value chain, from
land preparation.”
Obasanjo added: “If we are able to get that (agric business) right,
maybe, we will be able to get the issue of employment for our teeming
youths right. We will be able to get even the issue of rural development
right; we will be able to get the issue of the gap between the haves
and the have nots right.
poverty or Africa’s poverty. We have everything to generate wealth. We
have God’s given resources under our soil; we also have human resources.
If we bring these together, then we will definitely get prosperity.
“Another one is protection; that is security. People must be protected
in all aspects; protection of life, protection of property and the
people can actually feel that they are protected. The final one is what I
call partnership. Partnership within ourselves, partnership within our
communities, partnership within our states and our country.
