Speaking at the official launch of a book in Abuja on Thursday December 1, Obasanjo said the country should blame itself for failing to use the resources given to it by God. He said;
“I believe that God is a Nigerian. Bishop Kukah may not agree with me. Because God loves us so much that we have done so many stupid things and he allowed us to get away with these stupid things.
“I sincerely hope that God’s patience has no limit of elasticity because if he does, there will soon be a day that God will say: ‘No, I have heard enough.’ And if God says he has heard enough it doesn’t matter, Musikilu can write 20 books on Lettermen and Letter women, it won’t help us.
“I believe the right lessons must be learnt. 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. It is not God; we should blame ourselves.”
Recounting how world leaders consulted with Nigeria before decisions are taken in Africa, the former President wondered how the country fell from such lofty height.
“We probably don’t appreciate what we have as a country and I believe if we do appreciate it, make good use of it, we will do better than we are now.
“I have sent for an interview with the only remaining member of what they call the 12 disciples in the foreign service; that’s the 12 Nigerians who first joined the foreign service before our independence, Amb Adefuye is the only remaining one.
“In that interview, he said that 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.
“Have we lived up to it? No. If we have not, why haven’t we? And it is not so far to seek.
“Somebody talked about Jimmy Carter visiting Nigeria. Of course he did visit Nigeria but before he visited Nigeria we were struggling with America, something they call constructive engagement with South Africa. What can be constructive with apartheid?
‘’We said no we don’t accept that. Kessinger said he was coming to Nigeria three times and three times I said I will not receive him. You may say that’s madness. Yes, there is a touch of madness but you have to do what is right.
“There was this election coming. It was Ford and Jimmy Carter. If Ford won the election, I would have to do acrobatics. I would not be able to say America cannot come to Nigeria for four years. Before the election, we started looking for who was in the camp of Jimmy Carter and we found Andy Young before the election and when the election took place, Cater won.
“Within two weeks of him being sworn in, Andy Young came to us. We became very close with Andy Young to the extent that the Carter administration will not do anything in Africa without informing us. People ask me: how did we lose that? How did we lose it?”
