How Coronavirus altered my 83th birthday programmes — Obasanjo

By LAIDE RAHEEM, Abeokuta

Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has disclosed how the outbreak of Coronavirus altered programmes lined up to celebrate his 83rd birthday.

Obasanjo, who gave this disclosure on Thursday in his special remark at the final event of the birthday held at the Olusegun Obasanjo Presidential Library (OOPL), Abeokuta, said that international personalities which included the former president of Sierra Leone, Bai Koroma, scheduled to deliver the keynote address on Pan-Africanism, his Liberian counterpart, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf as well as the two Asian envoys to Nigeria (China and India), who were all invited for the event could not make it due to the ongoing prevalence of the virus globally.

The former president lamented the absence of the eminent personalities at the event, especially from Asian countries, who according to him had been specifically invited to discuss how Asian countries achieved socio-economic development ahead of Africa.

“Malaysia which was worst before we gained independence in 1960; South Korea which was below us, Vietnam which was in a war, and we looked at all these and we wrote a book.

One of the things in the programme is to spend the day before yesterday and yesterday to examine how they (Asian Tigers) came up from where they were and what lessons have we learnt from them, but because of Coronavirus, that programme was shelved.

“I do hope that sometimes in future we would be able to bring it up again because there is a lot to learn about what they have done and how they have done it,” Obasanjo stated.

He, however, enjoined members of the audience to acquaint themselves with knowledge inherent in discussions on objectives and visions of Pan-Africanism, which has always been used as a platform for evolving and developing agendas relevant to the growth and advancement of the African continent since 2007 when he left office as president.

While disclosing why a symposium on Pan Africanism was made part of the birthday celebration, Obasanjo said: “Such topic was carefully arrived at by body of professors, having realised that the topic would have substantially addressed the matter of neglect, of the fate of Africans in diaspora as well as positions of the African economy as it relates to the whims and caprices of the global economic players.”

He explained that the transformation of the African Union (AU) from the Organisation of African Union (OAU) established in 1963 was deficient at addressing and incorporating interests of the Africans in the diaspora.

“Some people will be saying what has Pan Africanism got to do with us in Nigeria? We have the problem of insecurity; we have the problem of restructuring and all other problems, so what has Pan Africanism got to do with us?”

“But I am saying that Pan Africanism is different from African unity. It goes beyond African unity and, to prove that, when our leader in 1963 established the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) they did not reckon with Pan Africanism as such to the extent that nobody outside the continent of Africa was considered to be part of the OAU.

“When at the end of 20th century we decided to re-establish or transform OAU to AU, we decided that instead of five regions which made up of OAU – West Africa, North Africa, East Africa, Central Africa and Southern Africa – we created the sixth region which is the Diaspora Africa.

“Therefore, we made AU to go beyond the continent of Africa and to embrace the Africans in the diaspora. So we moved from African Unity to the African Union, which means we are not only talking about Africans on the continent of Africa but also Africans outside the continent of Africa.”

“I think that’s very important and that’s why we should talk about Pan-Africanism; what it means and what it can do,” Obasanjo said.

On the African economy, as it relates to other global economic players, Obasanjo advocated that African countries must redefine democracy in such a way that would adequately address and suit the peculiarities of the continent, stressing that the global market economy was not designed for us on the African continent.

The former president said: “The second point is the Liberal Democracy. The point we must all agree about, like a friend of mine told me: “market economy was not designed for us in Africa.”

“Late Emo Smith, who was very close to me: anytime we were relaxing, there was nothing we could not discuss. One day I said to him, “Emo, you know you people are very wicked?” And he said what do I mean by that. I said you don’t even think of us (Africa) in everything you do. Everything is weighted against us.”

“He asked what’s it that was weighted against you? I said the economic situation in the world. He said, mind you, we created a market economy for ourselves. We didn’t create it for you.”

“Now, he won’t say that publicly but between me and him he said that. And he meant it. He said you’re complaining, give me three reasons why I should buy your cocoa for $200 while I can buy it for $100. Bring it to Hamburg, turn it into chocolate and send it back to you and you pay $1,000 for it. Give me three reasons why I should not do that?”

“I said the first reason is common humanity. He said show me in your economic book where common humanity is a factor of production”. Of course, there is nothing like that in any of the economic books.

“The point is this, whether it is liberal democracy or globalisation or even democracy, as they practise it, even with them, no two democracies are the same.

“Now, whether we should redefine our democracy or not, I don’t know. But can we have a democracy that satisfies our needs? I think that is the point.”

“It can be defined in our own way to satisfy ourselves and we must be careful when we are doing that.”

“Whatever we define for ourselves, when we are doing that, there will be hues and cries. They will call us names. They will do all sorts of things.”

“Lee Kuan Yew, founding Prime Minister of Singapore was a good friend of mine. When Lee Kuan Yew was moving in the mid-1970s, I was in Singapore in 1974. There was no name they didn’t call him and he worried. When Singapore now moved from the third world to the first world, Lee Kuan Yew wrote a book titled ‘From Third World to First World’, they all shared and basked in the success of Singapore.”

“Now, if we do something not too far away but radical enough to meet our needs and we succeed, they will grudgingly accept us. But if we do and fail, we will be on our own.”

“What we must realise is that the world will not wait for us. They will not want us to succeed because if we succeed, then we have taken something away.” (The Sun)