“This is the time, don’t allow anyone address you as leaders of tomorrow” – Obasanjo tells Nigerian youths

Former President Olusegun Obasanjo, on Saturday, warned the Nigerian youths not to buy into the narrative that they are the leaders of tomorrow because ‘tomorrow may never come’.

Charging the youths to take over leadership positions right now, the former president noted that some corrupt leaders would destroy the so-called tomorrow if the younger generation failed to rise up and take their future in their hands.

Also, he recounted his farming career and his emergence as both a military Head of State and President of Nigeria.

According to him, leading Nigeria in those time frames was by accident.

As reported by The PUNCH, Obasanjo made this revelation on Saturday while on a live radio interview with one of its journalists, Segun Odegbami.

Replying to Odegbami who had asked him to speak about what he termed his ‘romance with farming’, the former president said, “I don’t like the word you used, ‘romance with farming’. I am a farmer. What do you mean by romance. Everything I have done in my life is by accident. The only thing that is not accidental is farming. Every other thing that I’ve been is by accident. And you called that romance? No! What do you mean by romance?

“You know my beginning. I was born and bred in a village. I went to school by accident. My father just said, ‘won’t you do something different?’ So I went into farming.

“When you look at countries that have made it, they developed on agriculture. First, for the purpose of food security; second, for the purpose of processing what they get from their farms, which is the beginning of industrialisation. 

“Third, to give it out as export, which is for the purpose of foreign exchange; and fourth, as a means of generating employment for the youth.

 “My advice for Nigerian youths is that, never let anybody tell you that you are the leaders of tomorrow. If you wait for tomorrow before you take over leadership, that tomorrow may not come. They will destroy it. 

“This is the time, youths get up and make it happen.”