Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has urged Nigerian leaders to seek advice from the government of Zimbabwe on how to overcome the current all-time high inflation in the country
The former President was speaking at a youth leadership symposium as part of activities lined up for his 87th birthday.
Nigeria is currently grappling with the high cost of living with theNational Bureau of Statistics putting Nigeria’s inflation at 29.9 per cent.
This has led to pockets of protests breaking out across the country as citizens contend with increasing prices of foodstuffs.
But former President Obasanjo believes Nigeria has Zimbabwe to learn from.
He says
“When the time is rough and tough, the tough must get going..no problem is new and no problem will be permanent. Committing suicide is not the end of any problem, confront it and take it to God because he could do anything. When you have a problem look at those who have had this problem before and how they overcame it.
“We have this problem of galloping inflation in the country now but do we have a country with such problems recently? Yes we do, Zimbabwe had this problem recently. Shouldn’t we ask them how they did it even if our approach will be different? Even if whatever we shall be doing will be different but we can ask questions to navigate our way out.”
The symposium with the theme “Opportunities for Peace: Roles of the Youths in Conflict Prevention in Africa” held at the Olusegun Obasanjo Presidential Library, Abeokuta.
It was put together by the Centre for Human Security and Dialogue in collaboration with the Institute for African Culture and International Understanding, Olusegun Obasanjo Presidential Library.
It was targeted at youths whom former President Obasanjo encouraged saying the times of challenges were not to give up but to face the problem head-on and draw lessons from those who encountered similar problems in the past and overcame them.
He stressed that dialogue, not guns or any form of violence, would help resolve the various conflicts on the African continent.
He noted that like never before, conscious efforts to build and inculcate a culture of peace and security in the youth must be intensified to spur them to be at the vanguard of promoting peace rather than being used to perpetrate violence on the continent.
Obasanjo said,
“We must begin to bring up our youths in the culture of peace and security. The chances are where we have a culture of love, we will have peace. The first thing to do is to inculcate in the youths the ingredients of peace which is love and fellowship.”
(C) ControlTV 2024.
