Former President Olusegun Obasanjo yesterday reflected on the state of the nation and concluded that Nigeria is not where God has created her to occupy in the comity of nations.

He lamented that rather than being a land flowing with milk and honey, it has regrettably become a “land flowing with bitterness and sadness”, urging Nigerians to change the narrative.

The former President spoke while making his remarks at the Youth Centre of the Olusegun Obasanjo Presidential Library (OOPL), Abeokuta, the Ogun State capital, during the public presentation of a book, Titled: ‘The Man General President Olusegun Obasanjo, GCFR’.

It was written in honour of Obasanjo and to celebrate his 84th birthday.

Obasanjo noted that God created Nigeria to lead the black race, lamenting that the country has not fit into that role because of leadership failure.

“The task before us now is to think of what to contribute to make Nigeria what God created it to be, a land flowing with milk and honey. Right now, it is land flowing with bitterness and sadness. That is not what God meant for this country. We must change it. And we must change the narrative.”

On what should be done to reverse the negative trend, Obasanjo said: “I’m very happy that we have a lot of people in our own community and in fact outside our own community who believe in the values of education…”

If of course we will get this country to where God has created it to be, because where we are now is not where God has created Nigeria to be, then education must be one of the main pillars to getting Nigeria to where it should be.

“And over 14 million children that are now out of school, we must find a way of getting back into school. Otherwise, we are preparing the Boko Haram of tomorrow and there is nothing that will prevent that. If we don’t do it now, we will lose the opportunity and the consequence is in the future. Some of us might have gone but some of those who will be around will bear the brunt of a problem.

“There is nothing we can do about that. I believe that God has created Nigeria to lead the black race.

“That we are not doing it is not because God has not given us all that we needed to do it. It is because we have failed in leadership to do it. And that has to be corrected. The fact is that it is the fault of all of us. We should speak up, we should speak up. And you should say what you should say and say it when you should say it.”

The Nation