Obasanjo: I left Nigeria better than I met it

Former President Olusegun Obasanjo says he left Nigeria better than he met it.

Obasanjo, a former Head of State, was elected president in 1999. He served two terms and left office in 2007.

While speaking at the Safe Online Youth Fellowship Bootcamp organised by NerdzFactory Company, supported by Meta at the Youth Development Centre, Olusegun Obasanjo Presidential Library (OOPL), Abeokuta, Ogun State, Obasanjo said his administration recorded landmark achievements.

He said: “When I came in as elected President, I wanted to get debt relief because we were spending $3.5 billion every year servicing debt and the quantum of the debt was not going down. Today, I can say that I made Nigeria better than I found it from an economic perspective.

“I found $3.7 billion in the reserves and we were spending $3.5 billion to service our debt. By the time I left, we had a debt of about $36 billion with the debt relief, and I left with a debt of $3.6 billion. Also, I left a reserve of over $50 billion. I also achieved excess crude for the country worth over $25 billion.”

Obasanjo, who simply defined success as leaving a place better than one found it, said that he achieved that in his administration with excellent track records.

He admonished the corps members from Lagos and Ogun states, who participated in the three-day boot camp, to dedicate their lives to championing national development.

He said: “National development is a collective responsibility, and education is very important as an instrument that you can use to contribute optimally to national development.”