Yesterday, Nigeria’s former chief president Olusegun Obasanjo expressed his grief about Nigeria’s current state. Nigeria is now more divided than it was during the Civil War, he says. He said this at the Association of Banks Chief Audit Executives ‘ Annual General Meeting in Abeokuta, Nigeria (ACAEBIN).
According to the former president:
“When we look at this country today, even during the civil war, we were not as divided as we are today. Today, we are in danger if we don’t take partnership seriously. Partnership within our people, within Africa and the rest of the world.”
“As Chief audit, it is defined by virtue of what you are doing as a profession. If the audit is awry, banking business will not be right. What I want to emphasise is that it is a must as Nigerians and as Africans, that we have certain elements that we have to take very serious which I put as five Ps.
He also lamented the high level of illiteracy in the Northern part of the country:
“The first is politics which is governance. Unless we get governance right, any other thing we are trying to do will not be right. The second is the population. Our population at independence, we were estimated to be 45 million, but today we are 200 million. By the year 2050, we will be over 400 million. Normally, the population should be an asset but looking at the condition we are in now when in the North-East of the percentage of adult literacy is about 53 per cent, you can see that, we have a problem and education is basic in all human development. “How do we think of setting education to be useful? Those people who will make our education over 400 million in some years time are already born, and you cannot unborn them, so the problem is here, what do we do?
“We must provide education for them, housing, healthcare, education for them, and more importantly, employment for them.”
He also talked on Employments in Nigeria, urging banks to pay more attention to the Agricultural Sector and Business.
“One thing that I believe will help us is to provide employment, and probably part of what will help us is the Agric business. And you in the baking business must pay attention to how we build the Agric sector.
“I am not talking of horticulture, I am talking of the whole value chain, from land preparation. And if we are able to get that right, maybe we will be able to get the issue of employment for our teeming youths right, we will be able to get even the issue of rural development right, we will be able to get the issue if the gap between the has and have not right.
“The next one is prosperity, I am not being bothered about Nigeria’s poverty or Africa poverty. Nigeria has everything to generate wealth. We have God’s given resources under our soil. We also have human resources. If we bring these together, then, we will definitely get prosperity.”
Obasanjo on Security:
“Another one is protected, that is security. People must be protected in all aspect. Protection of lives, protection of property and the people can actually feel that they are protected,” he said.
Ogun State governor, Ibikunle Amosun who was represented by the state Commissioner for Finance, Mr Adewale Oshinowo spoke on Banking in the digital age:
He said that,
“Our motivation, as an administration, towards making lives abundant for our good people is to ensure optimal utilisation of the available resources and block all leakages and wastage of our resources.”
“As the operating environment changes, the knowledge and skill required to effectively perform audit assignments have become more sophisticated.”
