BREAKING NEWS: Obasanjo, Amaechi express concern over state of Nigeria

Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has opined that developmental policies and creation of an enabling environment for businesses and innovations to thrive are the needed solution to the various economic and security challenges facing the country.

So also did a former Minister of Transportation, Rt. Hon. Rotimi Amaechi, express his concern over the worsening impunity in the country.

The duo gave their positions as Special Guest Speakers at the exaugural lecture/book launch of the immediate past Editor of The PUNCH, Dayo Oketola, at MUSON Center, Onikan, Lagos State.

According to Obasanjo, the pressing national issues can be addressed if the Federal Government and critical stakeholders put in the work to create an enabling environment to generate money, which will in turn be used to boost the economy.

He said: :The money we need to develop every sector of the economy is outside and it will come in if we create a conducive environment for it to come in.

“What we did or what Nigeria had done in the good days when things are going well are still there and can still be done today if only we put ourselves out there and we are honest to ourselves to show the character, attribute, the understanding and the knowledge that we need to make this great country that God has created it to be.

“The land flowing with milk and honey, not a land of insecurity, not a land of lack of prosperity but a land where anyone can have enough for himself or herself and may God let it be so.”

Amaechi, a former two-term Governor of Rivers State, compared the current situation under the Bola Tinubu-led administration to the military regime.

According to him: “Where I was seated, I heard two journalists greeting each other: ‘My colleague from the trenches (referring to the military era).’

Amaechi therefore questioned if the situation of that time (military regime) was worse than the present one under the Tinubu-led administration.

Oketola, now a senior member of The PUNCH Editorial Board, launched the book he authored on Tuesday as his contribution to the development of the pen profession.

The book: “The Catalyst: Nigerian ICT Evolution Through a Journalist’s Lens,” was launched at an exaugural lecture to mark the end of Oketola’s time as Editor of The PUNCH and celebrate his nearly 20 years in journalism.