Obasanjo Challenges S/E governors on Development

Former president of Nigeria Olusegun Obasanjo has challenge the South east governors to work together and make use of abundant resources in the south east to develop the area.

He said that the people of south east are extremely unique and that the uniqueness of the people of south east must be used to their advantage through solidarity, cohesion and working together as a people.

Obasanjo made this know in Enugu while speaking at the occasion of south east summit on economy and security.

“When I was growing up many of the things we know of the people of the south east are enterprise, enterprenurship, communal efforts and communal spirits, you take one member of the community and you train him on the hope that he will come back and influence the development of the community. Spirit of adventure. they is no place you go and there is no Igbo man. There was one papa Okefor in my own village when I was growing up and in my village then if you count the roofs of houses they were not more that 20 and they was in fact no motorable road to my village, Now those are things that are there and no body has taken that away from the people of South East”. He said.

The former president said that the challenge now was, how can the leaders in the zone utilise them in the areas of economy and security.

He commended all the people that spoken, particularly the governors who said they have a lot of things they can do if were given the instrument to do it.

“What I want to say to you is that part of the instrument is already with you, People say if you want to walk fast work alone, but if you want to walk for a long distance work together. We should not work alone, if we have being working alone and we have not gone far stop working alone and work together and be able to go far, that is the purpose of this summit. What ever you have as a state and each of the states of the south east has something, you have land in addition to the people that are unique, that are well educated, that are enterprising that are entrepreneur, yes your land is limited but it is very reach, very vital under the soil and on the soil what are we making of it.
What you have has become so legently some people are looking for it”.
” People came to me from China a team that is looking for something made in Africa and they were talking to me about Aba, they want to come and develop industrial center in Aba, they have had about Aba in China”. He said.
He challenged the governors and Igbo business men and women to look inwards in terms of development and work as a team.
On security, Obasanjo said that
if there is no security in any parts of Nigeria, it means there is no security in Nigeria.
He further noted that there is a symbiotic relationship between security and economy.  That one
can not have security if the economic welbeing of people is not taken care of, and if the security of your people is not taken care of the economic progress of people my be threating seriously. So they is this relationship and what I believe we need to do here is what we have how can we use it. What we have is that the people of south east are extremely unique and that uniqueness of the people of south east must be used to advantage”. He said,
He also said that the people of south east could be the food basket of Nigeria considering the land and suggested plans that could be taken to realise the objective.