A former president, Olusegun Obasanjo, on Saturday revealed some of his associates warned him against naming Igbos at the top of his economic team when he was in government.
Obasanjo appointed Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala as the Finance Minister while Charles Soludo was the Governor of the central Bank of Nigeria.
The former Head of State said he faced criticism from his associates who predicted that having Southeasterners in charge of both fiscal and monetary policies will only lead to economic ruins.
However, Obasanjo said he stuck to his guns and the appointments became the best he made during his eight-year inc charge of the country.
said that the best appointments he made during his tenure including appointment both Prof Chukwuma Soludo and Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala to lead the country’s economy despite series of criticism.
Obasanjo stated this at an event in Anambra State to commemorate Governor Chukwuma Soludo’s one-year tenure, condemning the “persistent” aversion to people of southeastern descent, which he referred to as Igbophobia.
He said, “Somebody came to me and said, ‘Wow. You have ruined the economy of Nigeria.’ I said, ‘How?’ He said, ‘An Igbo woman, Minister of Finance; an Igbo man, Governor of the Central Bank? Then you have clearly completed the task of ruining the economy of Nigeria.’
“I don’t know why he said that, except for what I can call Igbophobia, and I don’t take that lightly. It remains, it persists. But when you have that type of thing that was said to me and the type of thing that you know is going on, as I have just called it, what do we do with it?
“I believe we have to go back to the Scriptures, which says we must conquer evil with good. And whoever you are, wherever people are afraid of you, you must make yourself friendly to those who are afraid of you and earn their friendship by being good to them, and that is what we have to do,” Obasanjo said.
