Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has revealed reasons he refrained from pursuing his personal interest while he was in office.
According to Obasanjo, no one can attribute favouritism of any tribe to his administration to the extent of some Yoruba elders accusing him of neglect during his tenure.
The former President disclosed he worked assiduously in the best interest of the citizenry without limiting it to a particular tribe when he was President
The two time serving President made the disclosure while speaking with The Punch.
He said, “People who worked with me, it doesn’t matter where they come from, they remember what we did together. There is no question of favouritism, there is no question of, yes, this is my kith and kin. There is no question of this is my personal interest. I never say that we didn’t make mistake or we are perfect, but whatever mistake we made was a genuine mistake. It wasn’t a mistake we made as a result of selfishness.”
Speaking on the wide speculations of sidelining the Yorubas, Obasanjo said “Some Yoruba have come to me and said you didn’t do enough for the Yoruba. I said, ‘Yes, did I do for Nigeria?’ They said, ‘You did?’ I asked, is Yoruba not part of Nigeria? If I did as I could for Nigeria and Yoruba are part of Nigeria, then I have done for the Yoruba as well as I have done for Igbo, Hausa and so on. I think that must guide us.
The former Leader noted that it was saddening that a country like Nigeria is not maximizing the resources at her disposal to attain greatness.
“The point you must bear in mind is that this country can be a great country. We have everything to make this country great. And that is what always worries me. When you see what we can do, how to do it, and we are not doing it. That is really unfortunate.
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“Can we get there? I believe we can. All we need is one generation of consistency in leadership, we will be there. That is what we need. We need one generation of right leadership consistently.”