During a thank-you visit from the All African Students Union to his penthouse apartment at the Olusegun Obasanjo Presidential Library in Abeokuta, former president Chief Olusegun Obasanjo expressed his belief that Africans have the capability to find solutions to the many challenges facing the continent.

The students, led by Osisiogu Osikenyi, from various African countries, including Nigeria, expressed their appreciation to Obasanjo for his role in ending hostilities between Ethiopia and the Tigray Region in November of last year, which led to the current state of peace between the two nations.

In response, Obasanjo highlighted that the experience gathered during the resolution of the crisis revealed the capacity of Africans to provide solutions to their own problems. He urged Africans to interact more with each other, learn from each other, and rely less on third parties to tell them about themselves.

“It is not just good for someone to sit somewhere and use a tar brush to paint everyone in Nigeria to be a cheat. Yes, in a population of over 225 million, we may have those who lack integrity just as it is in other countries of the world but this is not to say that everyone is like that or bad. After all, I won’t say because I have one rotten apple in a basket and then say I have a basket of rotten apples.

The former President further noted that, “There are many eminent, honourable Nigerians, Africans doing excellently well. The second citizen in the United Nations, a wonderful woman is a Nigerian, the President of the World Trade Centre who once worked with me, Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala is a Nigerian, the man who has been doing fantastically well for Africa in Africa Development Bank, Dr Adesina Akinwumi is a Nigerian.

“And this morning, I just received the news of another Nigerian being elected as the President of the Federation of World Engineers. All of these are saying that Africans are great people and if we rightly harness our resources we have the capacity to solve our problems.”