Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has said that there is no hope for the next generation of Africans to relieve the continent of its huge debts.
It would be recalled that Obasanjo, as the country’s president in 2003, secured debt relief for Nigeria, as did his counterpart from Algeria during the same period.
In a release by his Special Assistant on Media, Kehinde Akinyemi, on Wednesday, Obasanjo made this disclosure during an engagement with 2023 awardees of the Future Africa Leaders Foundation, an initiative of Pastor Chris Oyakhilome.
He noted that with the level of mismanagement of the previous debts written off for the country, it will be almost impossible for any administration to make similar gestures on the continent.
Obasanjo declared that the debts were a trap that no individual or nation should fall into, as they constitute an albatross for any economy.
The former president, who asserted that leadership was the number one problem facing the continent, said, “The coming generations will have no choice but to pay the current debt being incurred by different countries in the continent.”
He commended the lead Pastor of the Believers Love World Church, Pastor Chris Oyakhilome, for the efforts he put into building leaders, adding that the nation needs more people like him to address the leadership crisis facing the continent.
Highlighting the qualities of a leader during the questions and answers session, Obasanjo said, “A leader should be able to set good examples, being bold and courageous when making decisions, accepting mistakes and learning from them as well as having a realistic dream.”