Former Olusegun Obasanjo, on Wednesday, said the nation’s current degenerating situation is “beyond party politics and requires all hands to be on deck”.
Obasanjo said the country has simply lost direction in nation building.
According to the former President, “As long as we don’t get it right in nation building, we cannot get anything right in this country”.
READ ALSO: http://We must use NAFEST 2022 to galvanise, unite Nigeria, says Gov. Sanwo-Olu
He made the remarks as the special guest of honour at Babcock University’s 20th undergraduate and 11th postgraduate Convocation Lecture.
Guest Lecturer, Mr. Kingsley Moghalu, a former deputy governor of the CBN, spoke on the theme, ‘Knowledge, Vision, Passion and Innovation in the Context of Nigeria’s Development.’
The event was held at the university’s amphitheatre in Ilishan-Remo, Ogun State.
Obasanjo noted that the situation in Nigeria has become so precarious that “no individual can say he or she has a solution to the problems.”
During his lecture, Mr. Moghalu noted that the solution to Nigeria’s dire economic situation and foreign exchange crisis was to scale up innovation.
He said such intervention can “break the Nigerian economy’s structural dependency as an import- and consumer-driven one.”
He said, “Innovation-driven economies remain competitive, adapting to the needs of the future, while natural resource-dependent economies such as ours risk being left behind by global and market trends and thus condemning our citizens to poverty.
“Nigeria has a national policy in science, technology, and innovation. The federal government has several technology and innovation-related agencies, but these public sector efforts have not yielded any innovation-driven impact on Nigeria’s economy.”
