Former President Chief Olusegun Obasanjo has said he owes nobody an apology for believing in one Nigeria and not Oduduwa Republic and that he believes in one Nigeria above ethnic affiliation.
Speaking at an event in Abuja, the former president said every Nigerian has the solution to the challenges confronting the country. He, however, cautioned Nigerians against imposing their own solutions on others.
His words: “I always say this, each and every one of us has solutions to Nigeria’s problems but each and every one of us is wrong when you bring your own and you think it is perfect; now listen to the other man. But one thing I believe we all have in common — Nigeria. I have never used Yoruba nation and I will never because I believe that my Nigerianess is bigger than my Yorubaness and none should stand in the way of each other.” He added.
He further disclosed that, “for me, my Nigerianess is very important because I am more than what I should have been as a Nigerian than as an Oduduwa Republic man and I believe that, that should be the case for every one of us. Why should the accident of my place of birth be a hindrance for me as a human being, first of all, and as a Nigerian?” I owe no apology to anybody that I feel that what God has given to us in Nigeria belongs to all of us in Nigeria and anyone who feels otherwise, good luck to him.” He noted.
According to him, “we must aggregate, if you were born in a place and there is a particular treasure in that place, you must enjoy more of it than others in other parts of Nigeria. And that, I believe, whether it is stone with which the Nigerian railway and Lagos board were built, which came from Abeokuta which nobody paid anything for in the colonial days, or the coal in Enugu which some of it was used to drive the locomotive and whatever, the point is it is all a gift of God to all Nigerians, humanity, and the gift of God, I believe we must understand them and know how we really manage them.”
