– Former President Olusegun Obasanjo is a news delight any day
– Obasanjo has officially denounced his Christian name, Matthew
– He said he should no more be called by it because he is not a tax collector like his biblical namesake
Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has officially denounced his Christian name, Matthew, Leadership reports.
Obasanjo said he should no more be called by it because he is not a tax collector like his biblical namesake.
Accordingly, he adopted only Olusegun Okikiola Aremu as his names, stressing that names have lots of connotations in African setting.
Obasanjo said names connote a lot of meanings in Africa. Photo credit: Obasanjo library
The former president went on to say anybody who does not want to see his (Obasanjo’s) eyes red should stop calling him Matthew.
He stated this in Abuja on Friday, July 14 at an event organised by the Nigerian Society of Engineers (NSE) in commemoration of his 80th birthday. Obasanjo clocked 80 years in March.
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His words: “When I was born in my part of Nigeria, the system was that after eight days, you must be given a name and for people to know that you were born into a Christian family, you will be given one Hebrew name.
“My mother and father decided to name me Matthew but when I grew up, I started asking myself the meaning of Matthew.
“Not only does it not have meaning as long as I am concerned, the biblical Matthew is a stupid tax collector. Anybody who does not want to see my eyes red
He commended the NSE presidential system of election and governance, wishing that it could be introduced into Nigerian politics.
Also speaking, the president of NSE, Engineer Oliver Tagbo Anyaeji noted that Obasanjo successfully initiated and pioneered the establishment of an engineering and technology university (Bells) as well as the state-of-art presidential library in Ota, Ogun state, which considered as first of its kind in Africa.
“While it will be pretty difficult to bring to the fore all the achievements of this world acclaimed achiever, I wish to mention that President Obasanjo initiated the National Integrated Power Project (NIPP)in 2005 and directed by policy that Nigerian engineering firms must get at least 25 percent of exhausted project scope,” he stated.
Meanwhile, the minister of state for industry, trade and investment, Mrs. Aisha Abubakar, has said about N7 trillion was spent on the importation of consumables and household items into Nigeria in 2015.
Abubakar made the comment in her address in Kano on Friday, July 14, at a stakeholders meeting on “Buy Made-in- Nigeria Products” organised by her ministry in collaboration with the federal ministry of information and culture.
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Watch the ZENITHBLOG.com TV video report of the newly reopened Nyanya bus station in Abuja after it was bombed by Boko Haram:
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