EDITOR’S PICK:
EKO HOT BLOG recalls that while Governor Nyesom Wike of Rivers State was criticized when he stated that Nigeria needs a mad man as President to turn things around for the better, former president Olusegun Obasanjo has now spoken in the same vein.
Wike, who is gunning for the presidential ticket of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), had told his party’s delegates in Kogi on May 4, that the state of things in the country is so bad that “it will take a mad man to govern Nigeria”.
Speaking while receiving another PDP presidential aspirant, Mohammed Hayatu-Deen at his Abeokuta residence yesterday, Obasanjo said that Nigeria needs a leader who is “mad” about the country as the country was going through a more difficult time than any other period in its political history.
Stressing that Nigeria’s inability to meet its security challenges was a choice by the country’s leaders and not by God’s design, he said, “this period is not like any other period in the history of Nigeria and you used two words, decomposing and dissolving. I can’t find any better words to describe the situation we have found ourselves.”
The former President asserted that he has no apology for having a “mad passion” about the country “because I have no other country I can call my own and I have no other country I can go to and say yes, I have come to live here.”
While decrying the rapidly deteriorating security situation in the country, he pointed out that the situation in the country requires a leader who has knowledge, vision, passion and innovation.
Obasanjo insisted the country can overcome its security challenges within two years with a willingness to make tough decisions, and urged Nigerians to be ready to make sacrifices to put the country back on the right path.
His words, “I want to emphasise the point that the Nigerian situation, bad as it is, will only be put right by Nigerians at the forefront of our situation. So, Nigerians have to do what needs to be done to put Nigeria back on the right path.
“And you are right in saying that wherever you go now, one of the things you hear is that Nigeria is not on the table, but why shouldn’t Nigeria be on the table? What does it cost Nigeria to be on the table?
“If Nigeria is not at the table, maybe the knowledge that we should have of ourselves, of our situation, of our continent and indeed of the world is not that adequate, if that knowledge is adequate, we will do what is right, when it is right and how it is right.
“What is the vision that we have? And if you have no vision, you may have eyes, but you are blind. And I believe that is part of our situation.
FURTHER READING:
“And when you said, that you are involved in this, with a passion and I was telling some people this morning that, passion means madness, that you are mad about Nigeria, I am and I have no apologies for that because I have no other country I can call my own and I have no other country I can go to and say yes, I have come to live here. Passion means being mad about Nigeria, having a touch of madness,” the former President said.
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