Nigeria can be said to be on edge or sitting on the keg of gun powder. These were some of the fears expressed by the former President Olusegun Obasanjo
By Emma Ogbuehi
With unsavory situation of youth restiveness, unemployment, corruption in the oil sector and neglect of agriculture accounting for hunger in the land, Nigeria can be said to be on the edge or sitting on the keg of gun powder. These were some of the fears expressed by the former President Olusegun Obasanjo, in his trending interview the Financial Times
Obasanjo’s observation comes on the heels of the ongoing #Endbadgovernance nationwide protests by the youths over hunger and hardship in the country. He lamented the rising incidence of youth unemployment which he insisted must be tackled before it gets out of hand.
“Our youth are restive. And they are restive because they have no skill. They have no empowerment. They have no employment. We are all sitting on a keg of gunpowder. And my prayer is that we will do the right thing before it’s too late,” he warned.
Youths across the country have embarked on protests since August 1, a development which has since escalated with reports and incidences of violence and lootings recorded across the country. In some parts of the country, the protesting youths were reportedly flying foreign flags, an incidence the Defence Headquarters have described as amounting to treason.
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The former president equally bemoaned Nigeria’s undue dependence on oil, arguing that the economy would have been much better if it had not relied on just crude oil production.
He described the country’s reliance on crude oil as a “deadly mistake”.
“I believe we made a deadly mistake by putting all our eggs in one basket by relying on oil. We had a very important commodity, gas, but we were flaring it,” he said.
Obasanjo said Nigeria could have invested more in Agriculture as against crude oil. “We ignored Agriculture which could have been the centerpiece of our investment.”
The former president then touched on the reason that Nigeria’s four refineries have remained moribund despite huge investments and attempts at revamping them.
He recalled how he persuaded Shell to run the country’s refineries but the International Oil Company refused, saying there was too much corruption in the sector.
“When I was president, I invited shell to come and take equity and run our refineries for us. They refused and said our refineries were not well maintained. We brought amateurs instead of professionals. Then there was too much corruption with the way our refineries were maintained. They didn’t want to get involved in such a mess,’ he said.
He condemned the government’s disposition towards getting the refineries back on their feet.
“How many times have they told us that the refineries would be fixed, and at what price? Those problems as far as the government refineries are concerned have never gone. They have even increased. And if you have such problems, and the problems have not been removed, then, it means we are not going anywhere.”
He said that those benefiting from the lucrative business of fuel importation are going to make efforts to frustrate the Dangote Petroleum Refinery.
“Aliko’s investment in a refinery, if it goes well, should encourage both Nigerians and non-Nigerians to invest in Nigeria.
“If those who are selling or supplying refined products for Nigeria feel that they will lose the lucrative opportunity, they will also make every effort to get him frustrated,” Obasanjo stated.
The former President also condemned the style adopted by President Bola Tinubu to remove fuel subsidies, stating that the present administration should have first considered the hardship the subsidy removal could cause people and how to ameliorate the same.
“There’s a lot of work that needs to be done. Not just wake up one morning and say you removed the subsidy. Because of inflation, the subsidy that we have removed is not gone. It has come back,” the former President stressed.
He said there must be investor confidence in Nigeria, adding, “You have to go from transactional economy to transformational economy.”