Obasanjo calls for rural development

Abiodun Onafuye/Abeokuta

Former Nigeria President, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo has urged Nigerians to come together to improve their rural areas, describing rural development as a collective responsibility.

Obasanjo emphasised that government alone cannot satisfy all the infrastructural needs of the rural dwellers.

He declared that the physical, social and educational development of the rural dwellers largely dependent on contributions which individual members that have passed through the village settings can facilitate in their communities.

Obasanjo made the call during his goodwill message at this year, ‘Ibogun-Olaogun Day’, held at his ancestral home town, Ibogun Olaogun village in Ifo local government area of Ogun state at the weekend.

He said that, “as responsible people in our respective rural areas, we should not wait for the government. We don’t need to wait for government before developing our communities, particularly some of us who were raised from the village.

“We should not wait for any government ticket. Let us think of what we can do for ourselves and our communities; what we can do for ourselves to make the village communities more habitable for us,” Obasanjo advised.

He recalled that his paternal village in Ibogun-Olaogun lacked basic amenities such as latrine and bathroom during his growing up days, and however expressed happiness that the village could today boast of a Primary Health Centre(PHC), modern toilet, good road network as well as modern primary school, which were all constructed through community efforts.

According to him, “When I was growing up in this community, there was no latrine, no bathroom and a clinic. But today, over a dozen people would have died if the clinic we constructed through the community’s self-effort had not been in existence.

“Each of us can encourage village renewal; we don’t need to wait for government, if we don’t want to tarry for too long. The need to raise fund for our community secondary school, is borne out of the need that we cannot wait for government to do it for us.

“We have to carry our load by ourselves, before we say government should come to our aid. That is the reality today,” he said.

In his goodwill message, former Oyo state deputy governor, Taofeek Arapaja backed the view of the former President, with a call on the younger generation to heed the clarion call from an elder like Obasanjo.

He also stated that youths’ rural-urban migration in search of the non-existent “white-collar” jobs would have been greatly checkmated if the rich in the society could fraternise with the rural communities and establish industries in those areas.

Arapaja, who was among the top dignitaries at the occasion, observed that “if Baba Obasanjo could be championing the call for rural development, there is nothing stopping us the younger ones from heeding his call and going back to our respective rural areas to bring about development,” he said.