Former President Olusegun Obasanjo was showered with
encomiums by Acting President Prof. Yemi Osinbajo and other leaders like the
Liberian President and Economic Community of West African States Chairperson,
Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, as his presidential library was inaugurated on Saturday.
Osinbajo described Obasanjo as a “world statesman” and an
“African icon”, who had the opportunity to make history, live long and document
such history by establishing a presidential library.
The acting president said history could come in form of
writing good things about oneself, noting that the most important advantage
about history is that it preserves lessons, failures and the successes of the
past.
He said, “Very few human beings have a chance of making
history and fewer still have a good fortune of making history and writing it. Baba
Olusegun Obasanjo is certainly one of those rare human beings.
“We diminish his vision if we do not recognise his place as
a world statesman as evident by the representatives of the world that are
present here today (Saturday). I’m sure that visitors to this library,
especially young Nigerians, will learn from both what they see and hear but
perhaps what is unsaid.”
Osinbajo noted that Nigerians should imitate Obasanjo in
selfless service to the country and to humanity, as “our place in the history
of our society is not what we take from it but what we manage to give it; the
more selfless the giving, the more historic”.
He said Obasanjo had been tied intricately to the country’s
history from independence, defending the nation during the Civil War, becoming
a military head of state and a two-term civilian president.
Also speaking on the occasion, Ogun State Governor, Ibikunle
Amosun, said the library, modelled after the American Presidential Library,
would be a veritable source of intellectual materials for Nigeria and Africa’s
socio-political development.
In his welcome address, Obasanjo thanked everyone made the
dream of having presidential library come to reality, adding that the idea came
up in 1988.
He said, “The aim of establishing the presidential library
is three-fold: to preserve the past, capture the present and inspire the
future.”
0 Comments