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Why Nigeria has not made progress – Olusegun Obasanjo criticizes leaders

– Olusegun Obasanjo Nigeria’s former president has revealed stumbling blocks to the country’s progress

– Speaking at the Africa Finance Corporation (AFC) conference on May 16, he spoke on necessary structures for growth

– He also spoke on the importance of infrastructural projects across Africa

Former President Olusegun Obasanjo, while speaking at the AFC conference on May 16 said that Nigeria has not been able to make progress because successive governments failed to continue with good policies put in place by their predecessors.

Obasanjo spoke along with others like Charles Soludo and Acting President Yemi Osinbajo in Abuja, at a panel discussion on the 10 years of AFC, operations at the Infrastructure Summit.

President Obasanjo, said that the continent has been unable to develop due to the penchant of its leaders to discontinue the few things that had been done right.

Olusegun Obasanjo with Yemi Osinbajo at the event

Olusegun Obasanjo with Yemi Osinbajo at the event

Drawing on his experience during a tour of Singapore, he said: “I remember taking 40 young and up-coming Africans to Singapore some years back. Lee Kuan Yew hadn’t written his book “from Third World to First World,” and we wanted him to tell us how he did it. We wanted to know the magic and Yew told us there was no magic.

“He said: There is no magic. We did a few things right and we continue to do them right. We in Africa have done a few things right. Our problem is that we don’t continue to do them right.

“Many things are wrong about Africa but a few are right. We should continue to do those things that are right.”

READ ALSO: Abuja Court asked to sack President Buhari and Osinbajo

Prof Soludo, on his part, said: “The Sub-Saharan Africa is

just the size of Belgium in economic terms. You can imagine Belgium being divided into 54 isolated countries.

“Second, several studies have shown that about 40 per cent of non-land private Africa’s wealth happened to be outside of Africa and the missing link, really, is creating the kind of platform to unleash African capital to be able to move across borders, to mobilize African capital.

“Because in my view, it’s only the African capital that can form the fulcrum. If African capital doesn’t move, is it the domestic capital that will say to the foreign capital, here is the place to make money?

“So AFC is to provide that kind of platform, to mobilize African capital to move across borders where African capitals infrastructure which has been the missing link, can begin to fill in the missing dots in terms of linking this small, if you like, these disarticulated Belgiums, as it were.”

READ ALSO: ZENITHBLOG.com 9 powerful quotes of the week

Meanwhile, Acting President Yemi Osinbajo was at the event and ZENITHBLOG.com gathered some of his most important quotes.

One thing he said was: “Uncertain and turbulent as the last decade was for Africa and indeed world economies, it appears inevitable that the next decade will be even rockier. Indeed it would seem that the only certainty in the future is the uncertainty.”

Watch this ZENITHBLOG.com video on Osinbajo and what Nigerians think of him:

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