Nigeria More Divided Now Than The time Of Civil War — Obasanjo
The former President of Nigeria Chief Olusegun Obasanjo yesterday expressed his grief on the present state of Nigeria.
According to him, Nigeria is more divided now than it was during the Civil war.
He
said this during the general yearly meeting of the Association of Chief
Audit Executives of Banks in Nigeria (ACAEBIN), in Abeokuta.
According to the Former President, Nigeria More Divided Now Than The time Of Civil War:
“When
we look at this country today, even during the civil war, we were not
as divided as we are today. Today, we are in danger if we don’t take
partnership serious. Partnership within our people, within Africa and
the rest of the world.”
“As Chief audit, it is defined by virtue
of what you are doing as a profession. If the audit is awry, banking
business will not be right. What I want to emphasise is that, it is a
must as Nigerians and as Africans, that we have certain elements that we
have to take very serious which I put as five Ps.
He also lamented the high level of illiteracy in the Northern part of the country:
“The
first is politics which is governance. Unless we get governance right,
any other thing we are trying to do will not be right. The second is
population. Our population at independence, we were estimated to be 45
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 percentage of adult
literacy is about 53 percent, you can see that, we have a problem and
education is basic in all human development. “How do we think of setting
education to be useful? Those people who will make our education over
400 million in some years time are already born, and you cannot unborn
them, so the problem is here, what do we do?
“We must provide education for them, housing, healthcare, education for them, and more importantly, employment for them.”
He also talked on Employments in Nigeria, urging banks to pay more attention on Agricultural Sector and Business.
“One
thing that I believe will help us is to provide employment, and
probably part of what will help us is agric business. And you in the
baking business must pay attention to how we build the agric sector.
“I
am not talking of horti-culture, I am talking of the whole value chain,
from land preparation. And if we are able to get that 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 if the gap between the have and have
not right.
“The next one is prosperity, I am not being bothered
about Nigeria’s poverty or Africa poverty. Nigeria 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.”
Obasanjo on Security:
“Another
one is protection, that is security. People must be protected in all
aspect. Protection of lives, protection of property and the people can
actually feel that they are protected,” he said.
Ogun State
governor, Ibikunle Amosun who was represented by the state Commissioner
for Finance, Mr Adewale Oshinowo spoke on Banking in the digital age:
He said that,
“Our
motivation, as an administration, towards making lives abundant for our
good people is to ensure optimal utilisation of the available resources
and block all leakages and wastage of our resources.”
“As the
operating environment changes, the knowledge and skill required to
effectively perform audit assignments have become more sophisticated.”
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