OBASANJO : Why My 83rd Birthday was a Low key Celebration



Former President of Nigeria Olusegun Obasanjo, yesterday, stated that the outbreak of the dreaded coronavirus forced organisers of his 83rd birthday celebration to adjust the programme of event.

He, however, called on African leaders to redefine democracy to suit the needs and aspirations of their people, saying if this could be done, growth of African countries would be unprecedented.

Obasanjo said this on the occasion of his 83rd birthday held at the President Olusegun Obasanjo Presidential Library, OOPL, Abeokuta.

He explained that international personalities, including former President of Sierra Leone, Bai Koroma, who was scheduled to deliver the keynote address on Pan-Africanism, his Liberian counterpart, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, and the two Asian envoys to Nigeria (China and India), who were all invited for the event could not make it due to the on-going prevalence of the virus globally.

He said: “One of the things in the programme is to spend the day before yesterday and yesterday to examine how they came up from where they were and what lessons have we learnt from them, but because of Coronavirus, that programme was kept.

“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.”

Explaining why his 83rd birthday celebration was centered around Pan Africanism, Obasanjo said the topic was carefully arrived at by body of Professors having realised that the topic would have substantially addressed the matter of neglect of 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.

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