I’ll Be Victim of Revolution in Nigeria – Obasanjo

Daily Independent (Lagos)

Sylvester Enoghase, Senior Correspondent

15 June 2011

Reporting From Geneva — Former President Olusegun Obasanjo says he is afraid of revolution in Africa’s most populous country, as he takes stock of his criticism by Nigerians, particularly folks in his South West region who publicly knock him hard over his squandered leadership of 11 years and eight months.

He told world leaders in Geneva on Tuesday night that he will be the number one target and a victim if a revolution occurs in Nigeria, where his critics point to his failure to provide jobs, stable power supply, and other infrastructure for economic growth when he occupied the Villa.

On Monday, former Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) President, Rotimi Akeredolu, took a swipe at Obasanjo at a June 12 lecture in Ado Ekiti that his achievements do not compare with those of Moshood Abiola, whose Presidential election on June 12, 1993 was annulled by former military President, Ibrahim Babangida.

Abiola is greater in death than all those who worked against him and the ideals of democracy, Akeredolu said, stressing that Obasanjo failed to recognise the role Abiola played in ensuring democracy from which Obasanjo has benefited.

“Obasanjo betrayed June 12 and was a beneficiary. He betrayed the struggle and worked assiduously against it and he spat in the river that cleansed him. Now MKO has towered above Obasanjo and his cohorts,” Akeredolu insisted.

The following day, Obasanjo declared in far away Geneva that he and former Ghanaian President John Kufuor and other African leaders will have no place to hide if the revolution sweeping through the Arab world happens in countries like Nigeria and Ghana.

He bared his thoughts at the 100th session of the International Labour Conference, where discussants at an event organised by the Club de Madrid included Kufuor; former Ecuadorian President, Osvaldo Hurtado; former Yemeni Prime Minister, Abdul Karim Al Eryani; and former Dutch Prime Minister, Wim Kok.

They also included Policy Integration Department Director, International Labour Organisation (ILO), Stephen Pursey; and International Institute for Labour Studies Director, Raymond Torres.

Said Obasanjo: “Governments are bad or poor job creators, but they are to provide a conducive and enabling environment for job creators, especially the private sector. So, the government must come together with the employers who will provide the capital and labour leaders to create and provide. If we do this, I believe we will make it.

“If we don’t, the youth will be ignited and we will all be consumed. Our situation of lack of employment is predictable of what will happen. If it happens in our countries in Africa, none of us will be spared. I know that I will be a victim.

“(Kufuor) too will have no place to run. If the unemployment situation in African countries is allowed to continue and not checked and addressed, the revolution that would take place will be more severe than what is being witnessed in the Middle East.”

Referring to a statement by Eryani about the situation in the Arab world and North Africa, Obasanjo said: “It is a red alert for us in Africa. I am worried, I am apprehensive about the unemployment on our continent which we are not taking as seriously as it should be.

“I give the example of my own country, Nigeria. We now have 120 universities. When I was growing up and I had to go to university, there was only one university.

“With polytechnics and other tertiary institutions, we have more than 200. We have over 600,000 graduates every year and we are not creating 100,000 jobs for the graduates. The youths can be ignited at anytime. We have a population of about 165 million people, we must be talking of jobs, jobs, jobs, and jobs.

“The position of ILO on social justice as we have heard from Win Kok, our President of Club de Madrid, is very similar and is in accord with our own position on share society.

“But there are certain pertinent questions that we should ask ourselves.

“Can we really have social justice with 50 per cent of citizens of a country unemployed or under employed? Can you really have social justice in a situation where democracy, the rule of law, and popular participation are absent?

Obasanjo stressed the need for long term economic growth and sought a large middle income group with new definitional structures to judge the growth potential in Africa.

Kufuor agreed that long economic growth or indicator is needed to describe Africa’s development, and as long as there is no economic growth without even development, Africa’s growth cannot be discussed without leaders fighting to curb corruption and social injustice.

Hurtado added that African countries need a system that has to be free and open, featuring the integration of internal and external markets and world-class manufacturing, logistics and consumption to achieve sustainable growth and development.

Knok urged world leaders to use their spheres of influence to work together to promote and ensure social inclusion and cohesion on the African continent.

That view was echoed by Eryani, who implored world leaders to recognise that achieving social cohesion and creating a safe world is essential for the well-being of individuals, states, and the world as a whole.

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