“It just makes me laugh,” says former President Olusegun Obasanjo over rumours that his father hailed from the South-East.
He, also, said it was wrong for anybody to tell Igbo people to leave Lagos or anywhere in Nigeria, insisting that “we own this country together.”
The two-time Nigerian leader spoke while hosting, at the Olusegun Obasanjo Presidential Library (OOPL) Abeokuta, Ogun State, the leadership of the Ndigbo Amaka Progressive Market Association, an umbrella body of major markets in Lagos State.
Obasanjo said he did not believe anybody in Nigeria should be driven away from any part of the country asserting that, “we own this country together “
“Having ensured that the Yoruba, Igbo and Hausa all came together to fight the war of unity in Nigeria, and “not to fight Igbo to go, but to come. So, if anybody says to me, that somebody should leave any place, he will be the one to leave.”
In a statement by his Special Assistant on Media, Kehinde Akinyemi, Obasanjo, said insinuations that he sprang from an Igbo Dad and Yoruba mum said, “It just makes me laugh.”
According to the statement, the leadership of the group came to solicit his support for the establishment of the Owerri Central Market.
The group’s spokesperson, Chief Emeka Dallas Emmanuel, who read a letter jointly signed by Comrade Chinedu Ukatu and Evangelist Iwuchukwu Ezenwafor, said the market will be a hub for innovation and entrepreneurship assuring the group’s determination to play its role to the growth of the market and the nation.
He further sought the help of the former President towards the actualisation of the international market capable of taking a vast majority off the streets.
Emmanuel added that the assistance of the former president will go a long way in helping their members to obtain loans to purchase shops and spaces at the market.
