Ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo expressed his belief, on Wednesday, that Africans possess the ability to tackle the multitude of challenges facing the continent.
Obasanjo shared this information during a visit from the All African Students Union, who came to express their gratitude at his penthouse residence located in the Olusegun Obasanjo Presidential Library, Abeokuta.
Under the guidance of their leader, Osisiogu Osikenyi, students hailing from a variety of African countries, Nigeria amongst them, came to express their gratitude to Obasanjo for his instrumental role in ending hostilities between the Tigray Region and Ethiopia last November, giving rise to the ongoing peace between the two countries.
Acting as the African Union High Representative to the Horn of Africa, the former President’s work was said to have played a crucial role in allowing thousands of students from this troubled region to rejoin their schools.
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Speaking to the student delegation, Obasanjo pointed out that the knowledge gained from resolving the crisis clearly illustrates that Africans are capable of providing solutions to their issues.
He said, ‘One thing we should also learn from the achievements of cessation of hostilities between Tigray Region and the Federal Republic of Ethiopia last year November is the fact that Africans can provide solutions to solving African problems. Unfortunately, we don’t know ourselves in Africa, we like to rely on third parties to tell us about ourselves. We should rather learn to interact more with ourselves and know what we are capable of doing.’
‘It is not just good for someone to sit somewhere and use a tar brush to paint everyone in Nigeria to be a cheat. Yes, in a population of over 225 million, we may have those who lack integrity just as it is in other countries of the world but this is not to say that everyone is like that or bad. After all, I won’t say because I have one rotten apple in a basket and then say I have a basket of rotten apples.’
‘There are many eminent, honourable Nigerians, Africans doing excellently well. The second citizen in the United Nations, a wonderful woman is a Nigerian, the President of the World Trade Centre who once worked with me, Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala is a Nigerian, the man who has been doing fantastically well for Africa in Africa Development Bank, Dr Adesina Akinwumi is a Nigerian.’
‘And this morning, I just received the news of another Nigerian being elected as the President of the Federation of World Engineers. All of these are saying that Africans are great people and if we rightly harness our resources we have the capacity to solve our problems.’