Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has said all hands must be on deck, for a solution to be proffered to the various challenges facing the country, as the problems seem to be taking new dimensions everyday.
Chief Obasanjo spoke, on Thursday, while fielding question from reporters after paying the Oyo State Governor, Seyi Makinde, a courtesy call in the Governor’s Office, Agodi, Secretariat, Ibadan.
He stated that he was at the Governor’s Office to pay a belated condolence visit on the Governor on the demise of his mother, as he was in the State to attend a book launch in honor of a late political leader, Lamidi Adedibu.
The ex-President said that the myriads of challenges facing the country in the areas of security, economy and political instability are not really new, only that they have taken a new dimension.
Obasanjo declared, “Human challenges are meant to be solved or overcome by human beings which means that all hands should be on deck. I believe that the most important aspect of dealing with all the challenges we have is: one leadership; two, coming together, that is, all hands being on deck. We all have to come together. But then, there must be leadership to get everybody to work.”
Governor Makinde commended Obasanjo for his efforts at national development, highlighting his various steps to transform and improve the State, especially in the areas of agriculture, security, physical infrastructure, education and health.
Makinde said “Agriculture for us is the only way to take Oyo State from depending on federal allocation. And that is why we are fixing roads to the rural areas. That is also why we are turning some of the farm settlements into farm estates.”
The Governor, however, promised that as part of the plans of his administration to fix roads to rural areas to boost agriculture, the road from Iseyin to Ikere, which is under the Rural Access Intervention Programme, a World Bank project, would soon be fixed, making full realisation of the values from the Ikere Gorge Dam to be felt by all in good time.
Lateefah Ibrahim
