National insecurity is failure of leadership, says ex-president Obasanjo

By Stephen Gbadamosi

Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has said that the security problem facing Nigeria currently arises from lack of leadership in the nation.

He said for solutions to come for the various challenges facing the country, all hands ought to be on deck, aside having a leader who could provide the needed leadership to coordinate the efforts.

He spoke on Thursday while fielding question from journalists after paying a courtesy call on the Oyo State governor, Mr. Seyi Makinde, at the Agodi Government Secretariat, Ibadan.

Obasanjo said he was at the Governor’s Office to pay a belated condolence visit on the governor on the demise of his mother as he was in the state to attend a book launch in honor of the late leader of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Chief Lamidi Adedibu.

The former president said the most important aspect of dealing with the challenges facing the country was finding good leadership, adding that the myriads of challenges in the areas of security, economy and political instability were not really new, only that they had taken new dimensions. Obasanjo said: “There are many challenges in Nigeria today.

There are challenges of security, economy, political stability, among others.

“These challenges are not really new, except that they have taken a different dimension. But human challenges are meant to be solved or overcome by human beings which means that all hands should be on deck.

“I believe that the most important aspect of dealing with all the challenges we have are: One leadership; and two, coming together, that is, all hands being on deck.

“We all have to come together. But then, there must be leadership to get everybody to work.”

When asked to comment on the increasing call for the sack of the security chiefs as a means of tackling the insecurity issues in the country, the former president asked that, “I did not appoint security chiefs.

How can I ask that they be sacked?” When also requested to offer ‘fatherly’ advice to the security chiefs and the president, the former president said: “If I have a fatherly advice for the security chiefs, I will not give them through the media.”

While speaking earlier at the Courtesy Call Room where the former president was received, Governor Makinde commended Obasanjo for his efforts at national development, highlighting his various steps to transform and improve the state, especially in the areas of agriculture, security, education and health.

Makinde said: “We want to welcome you to Ibadan. We have done quite a bit to follow your footstep because the major areas of focus for the government of Oyo State are in the areas of health, education, agriculture, physical infrastructure and security.

And agriculture, for us, is the only way to take Oyo State from depending on federal allocations. “And that is why we are fixing roads to the rural areas.

That is also why we are turning some of the farm settlements into farm estates.

There is one very close to your farm along Eruwa to Igbo-Ora road. I am sure in another one and a half years, by God’s grace, when we are commissioning that farm estate, we will come back to you to ask you to join us to commission the farm estate.

“After I became the governor-elect, I came to Abeokuta to see you and we spoke a little bit about the Ikere Gorge Dam.

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Your first coming as military head of state was when the dam was built.

“Unfortunately, from that point till now, we have not been able to realise the potentials and objective of that money that was spent there.

“But the road from Iseyin to Ikere is now to be fixed under the Rural Access Intervention Programme. It is a worldbank project.

“So, very soon, you will also see the full realisation of value from that dam. I make a promise to you that we will see to it.”