Former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo has challenged Nigerian youths to take over the mantle of leadership of the country before corrupt leaders destroy their future.
Obasanjo, who made the assertions on Saturday during a special interview with former Super Eagles star, Segun Odegbami, on his Eagles7 Sports 103.7 FM, Abeokuta, the Ogun State capital, claimed that some corrupt leaders would destroy the so-called tomorrow if the younger generation fails to rise and take their future in their hands.
“My advice for Nigerian youths is that never let anybody tell you that you are the leaders of tomorrow. If you wait for tomorrow before you take over leadership, that tomorrow may not come. They will destroy it,” he said.
The former president said youths should not allow anyone to address them as leaders of tomorrow, saying the tomorrow may never come.
According to him, some corrupt leaders would destroy the so-called tomorrow if the younger generation fails to rise and take their future into their hands.
“This is the time, youths get up and make it happen,” he said.
Obasanjo revealed that everything that happened to him, including his emergence as both a military Head of State and President of Nigeria, was by accident.
Obasanjo, who was an ex-military Head of State from 1976 to 1979 before he was elected as a civilian President from 1999 to 2007, said he was a farmer by choice and not by accident.
He said the only thing he did in life that did not come by happenstance is farming, adding that he is always proud to be addressed as a farmer.
When asked to speak about what he termed his ‘romance with farming’, the former president said: “I don’t like the word you used, ‘romance with farming’. I am a farmer. What do you mean by romance? Everything I have done in my life is by accident. The only thing that is not accidental is farming. Every other thing that I’ve been to is by accident. And you called that romance? No! What do you mean by romance?
“You know my beginning. I was born and bred in a village. I went to school by accident. My father just said, ‘won’t you do something different?’ So I went into farming.
“When you look at countries that have made it, they developed on agriculture – first, for food security, second, to process what they get from their farms, which is the beginning of industrialisation – third, to give it out as export, which is for foreign exchange; and fourth, as a means of generating employment for the youth.”
James Sowole in Abeokuta
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