Obasanjo asks African leaders to solve continent’s problems

Former President, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, yesterday, urged African leaders to find home-grown solutions to the myriads of problems confronting the continent.

Obasanjo stated this while addressing a delegation of students and youths across African countries at Olusegun Obasanjo Presidential Library (OOPL), Abeokuta.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the delegation, which included student leaders from Ethiopia and the Tigray Region, was led by the President of All-Africa Students’ Union (AASU), Osisiogu Osikenyi.

The students were on a “thank you” visit to Obasanjo for facilitating permanent cessation of hostilities agreement between the government of Ethiopia and the Tigray Peoples’ Liberation Front (TPLF) in Pretoria in 2022.

According to the former president, “No problem in Africa is too great for us to solve.”

Obasanjo said it was important for Africa to consider the peculiarities of its people in designing and implementing workable home-grown solutions to the problems confronting the continent.

He said that African Union (AU) had taken a lead in finding home-grown solutions to the continent’s problems with the way it resolved the civil war between Tigray and Ethiopia.

“It is a great lesson for us to know that yes, whatever may be our problem – political, economic, social in Africa, we can solve them if we go about seeking solutions rightly.

“What is very important and which I want you to take very seriously is that, what we were able to achieve in Tigray between TPLF and the Government of Ethiopia is what you and I will regard as finding African solutions to African problems,” he said.

In his remarks, the President of Ethiopian Higher Education Institutions Students’ Union (EHEISU), Oli Wako, said African students’ leaders were with Obasanjo on a ‘thank you’ visit.

Wako noted that the former president played a key role in the historic signing of the Pretoria Peace Agreement among the Federal Republic of Ethiopia and Tigray Liberation Fronts, thereby putting an to the deadliest war in Tigray region of Ethiopia, which brought immense tragedy to the country.