Former President Olusegun Obasanjo yesterday stated that the value a nation places on its population is determined by how it treats those who are in prisons and hospitals. 

Obasanjo emphasised the need for the government to foster security and prosperity among other things, noting that there would be no governance without population. 

The former president spoke in Lagos at the presentation of a book titled ‘Pillars of Statecraft: Nation-Building in a Changing World’, authored by his daughter, Kofo Obasanjo-Blackshire. 

According to him, the population is core and all other things would amount to nothing if there were no population to deal with. 

He said: “When you talk of prosperity, it’s for the people; when you talk of governance, it’s because of the people; when you talk of partnership it’s for the people. 

“To me population is core and all other things either support, enhance or detract it but population is the core. As a nation, you cannot say you don’t have population to deal with.

“I believe that the way you take, regard or value the population determines what you do. If you want to make your population what it should be, you should be able to deliver what is relevant and important. That value will depend on education, health, food and nutrition, housing, including all the elements that make you feel that your population is important. 

“I believe that if you want to know how a country regards its population, go to the prison and the hospital. How they treat their people in prison and how they look after their sick people will tell you the value they have for their population.”

Director, Africa Progress Group, Prof. Peter Okebukola, who wrote the foreword of the book, noted that if the leadership and the followership of Africa could fear God in their daily lives, most of the challenges confronting the continent today would vanish.

The author, Kofo Obasanjo-Blackshire, stated that democracy remains the best political model for inclusive nation building. She, however, stressed that the adoption of Western-style democracy must accommodate specific circumstances of the country.

“We have seen evidence of similar failure in recent times in the efforts to adopt solutions to the COVID-19 pandemic from the West. For instance, implementation of complete lockdowns in Nigeria, a nation whose economy relies heavily on subsistence day-labourers, without providing the safety net or cushion of furlough schemes, national welfare and other support systems which countries like the United Kingdom were able to offer their citizens, led to riots, protests and unrest.

“Likewise, Nigeria and other former colonies’ adoption of liberal democracy must accommodate their specific circumstances.”