Former President Olusegun Obasanjo, has weighed in the school of thought that Nigeria needs someone with a touch of madness to govern it.
Obasanjo, who said he had no other country to call his own, listed passion and innovation as other aspects required to rule the most populous black nation.
Obasanjo stated this while playing host to a presidential aspirant of the Peoples Democratic Party, Mohammed Hayatu-Deen, at his penthouse residence in the Olusegun Obasanjo Presidential Library in Abeokuta, the Ogun State capital.
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Obasanjo lamented over the current state of the country, saying it was agonizingly a terrible situation for him and other patriotic Nigerians, who wan better for the country.
He said the country can overcome its challenges if someone with passion, innovation, vision for Nigeria and adequate knowledge of the issues facing the country becomes president.
Urging Nigerians to make sacrifices towards putting the country back on track, Obasanjo said the security challenges bedevilling the country can be overcome within two years if the right leader is elected.
He said, “It is an agonising situation for you, obviously, and also for me. I want to emphasise the point that the Nigerian situation, as bad as it is, will only be put right by Nigerians at the forefront of our situation. So, Nigerians have to brace themselves up to do what needs to be done to put Nigeria back on the right path.
“And you are right in saying that, wherever you go now, one of the things you hear is that Nigeria is not on the table, but why shouldn’t Nigeria be on the table? What does it cost Nigeria to be on the table?
“I will say four things, of which I was reminded this morning. One is knowledge. If Nigeria is not at the table, maybe the knowledge that we should have of ourselves, of our situation, of our continent, and indeed of the world is not that adequate, if that knowledge is adequate, we will do what is right, when it is right and how it is right.
“The second is vision, what is the vision that we have? And if you have no vision, you may have eyes, but you are blind. And I believe that is part of our situation.
“The third is passion. And when you said, that you are involved in this, with a passion and I was telling some people this morning that, passion means madness, that you are mad about Nigeria, I am and I have no apologies for that because I have no other country I can call my own and I have no other country I can go to and say yes, I have come to live here.
“Passion means being mad about Nigeria, having a touch of madness, and I look at you (Hayatu-Deen) and say yes, you are mad about Nigeria too.
“Fourth one is innovation. We cannot be doing the same thing that we have done in the past that did not pay us and continue to repeat it and expect any change, we have to move out it, we have to innovate, we have to re-strategise.”
Hayatu-Deen, a former Managing Director of FSB International Bank, had described Nigeria as “decomposing and dissolving very fast”, saying there was an urgent need to rescue the country.
Meanwhile, Obasanjo also played host to Senator Godswill Akpabio, a presidential aspirant for the ruling All Progressive Congress, APC.
Akpabio, who recently resigned as Minister of Niger Delta Affairs to pursue his presidential ambition, said he visited Obasanjo to intimate him of his quest.
