Obasanjo: No support for candidate without good governance plan

He said good governance has great implication for the nation’s economy, vowing to support only the candidate that would uphold the value.Obasanjo, who was playing host to a delegation of South-west women leaders in his residence in Abeokuta, Ogun State, said his experience in government made him to arrive at his position.“With my experience, I […]

He said good governance has great implication for the nation’s economy, vowing to support only the candidate that would uphold the value.
Obasanjo, who was playing host to a delegation of South-west women leaders in his residence in Abeokuta, Ogun State, said his experience in government made him to arrive at his position.
“With my experience, I know what I am talking about. I’m talking with my understanding and intellect. I’m drawing from my experience and from what I’ve learnt with others and from other countries and fellow eminent citizens of the world that I relate with.”
Obasanjo said he entertatained no fears on the conduct of the upcoming general elections, emphasising that contrary to insinuations, he had no personal animosity for President Goodluck Jonathan.
“I emphasise that whatever is good for Nigeria, is what I’m ready to defend with my life. Whoever, I emphasise, whoever says he would not do anything good to Nigeria, even if he says he’s ready to go ‘koko bellow’, I’m ready to square it up with such a person. I say again, whoever that person may be. I want you to get that correctly. If this country is going to change for the better, it would start from the top and if it’s going to be otherwise, it would start from the top, too.” He pointed to leadership as the bane of the country’s challenges. “Let’s look at the foundation of our leadership. In the profession I know very well, the military, what we normally say is that there are no bad soldiers but bad officers. If you see a situation where the soldiers are not doing well, we need to examine the officers in charge. So it is, in the family, the community, the town and the country.”
He said to achieve good governance, the electorate must also play their part. “If you throw away your votes and tomorrow you are saying good governance, once you throw away your votes you have lost out. That is one. Find out the track records of achievements of those you want to vote for. What have they achieved in the past and not what they have said.”
Obasanjo recalled the state of the economy during his government between 1999 and 2007, noting: “When I was leaving office about eight years ago, I left a very huge reserve after we had paid all our debts. Almost 25 billion dollars was kept in what they called excess crude.
“When we left in May 2007, the reserve was said to have been raised to 35 billion dollars. But today, that reserve has been depleted! Today, that reserve has been depleted. The reserve we left when we finished paying all our debts, our debts that was about 40 billion dollars that is including debt forgiveness, the remaining debt was not more than 3 billion dollars. Our reserve after we had paid off this debt was about 45billion dollars. As I said, they continued till the end of 2007, I heard that the reserve increased to almost 67billion dollars before the end of the year. Our reserve now, I learnt is left with around only 30 billion dollars. That is why the Naira has been falling against the dollar.”