Olusegun Obasanjo, a former president of Nigeria, claimed that the nation has not lived up to its reputation as the behemoth of Africa.
He added that Nigerians should take responsibility for their own problems rather than blaming God.
Obasanjo gave a speech on Thursday at the publication of Musikilu Mojeed’s book, “The Letterman,” which was written for the Premium Times.
In the book, Obasanjo’s letters are the main subject.
He claimed that instead of being called the “giant of Africa” as it is now, Nigeria was expected to be renowned as “a giant in the sun” when it attained independence.
However, he claimed that Nigeria had fallen short of expectations.
“When Nigeria became independent, it was a giant in the sun. That was the expectation. Not a giant even in Africa. A giant in the sun. That was the expectation of the world about Nigeria,” Obasanjo said.
“Have we lived up to it? No. If we haven’t, why haven’t we? I think we probably don’t appreciate what we have as a country and I believe if we do appreciate it and make good use of it, we would do better than we are now.
“I believe the right lessons must be learned. We have all that we need to have. God has given us all that we need to have. That we are not doing what we should do, God is not to blame and we should blame ourselves.”
