Why I never pursued personal interest as President – Obasanjo

Olusegun Obasanjo, former Nigerian president has claimed that everything he did while in office was in the best interest of the country rather than for his personal gains.

According to him, those who claimed that he did nothing for the South-West or the Yoruba were wrong.

The ex-President said he remained worried that despite Nigeria’s enormous potential for greatness, steps were not being taken to translate that potential into reality. Obasanjo said these in an interview with The Point Newspaper, published in the tabloid’s Monday edition.

Obasanjo 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.”

Reacting to the claim that he neglected the Yoruba while in office, 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 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.

“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.”

Obasanjo advised the current leadership of the country to be inquisitive about what is going on around them, instead of shutting their doors.