Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has said if God had wanted all of us to be of the same religion, he would have made it so and since He did not make it so, no person should attempt to make it so.
TheNewsGuru.com (TNG) reports Obasanjo stated this on Saturday in Abeokuta while responding to questions posed by some students from selected secondary schools that participated in the final of the National Exhibition and Awards.
He tutored the secondary school students on the need to imbibe religious tolerance in the country during the event organised by the Students for the Advancement of Global Entrepreneurship (SAGE).
Obasanjo also advised the students not to see their own religion as superior to that of another person.
The former president said that no one has the right to condemn or say what another man believed in was inferior to his own.
According to him, I have no right to say what another man believes in is inferior to mine.
“If God had wanted all of us to be of the same religion, he would have made it so and since He did not made it so, no person should attempt to make it so.
“Young people should learn at a very early age in life that if there are five religions in the world, that is how God wants it to be.
“If there are 10, that is how God want it. All religions originate from the same source.
“If you are a Muslim and you did not live the way God wants you to live, you can not enter Aljannah.
“Or you are a Christian and you did not live the way God wants you to live, the same thing, you will not enter paradise.
“If this is the basis of religion, doing the right thing for the benefits of mankind, you don’t have to condemn any person, because of what he believes.
“Practice your religion the way God wants you to do it and don’t condemn another person,” the former president said.
Welcoming participant at the event, the Chairman of SAGE Nigeria, Agwu Amogu, said the programme was to celebrate the creative energies and commitments of teen entrepreneurs who see challenges in the communities as their responsibilities.
Amogu said that since the introduction of the programme in Nigeria in 2006, it had shown that it remained a potent strategy and model for educational reform, youth re-orientation, jobs creation and poverty alleviation and multi-cultural integration.
According to him, Nigeria urgently need a new paradigm for education.
He said that the new paradigm must provide students with a chance to learn, while solving community problems and immediately applying what they had learnt in the classrooms by actually doing something great.
“We firmly believe that Nigeria can be a world leader in providing potent human capital to the rest of the world; setting a benchmark for other countries to follow,” he said.
I made a mistake in picking my vice for 1999 election – Obasanjo
Meanwhile, Obasanjo also said at the event that he made two mistakes, including a mistake in picking his running mate ahead of the 1999 presidential election.
Recall that Obasanjo was elected Nigeria’s president in 1999 with Atiku Abubakar, the presidential candidate of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) for the 2023 presidential election as his vice throughout his tenure.
Though the former president did not mention Atiku in his statement, he said: “One of the mistakes I made was picking my number two when I wanted to become the President. But because it was a genuine mistake, God saved me.
“The second one was when Abacha wanted to arrest me. When Abacha wanted to arrest me, I was told by the American ambassador that they would arrest me and that America had asked that I should be given an asylum. I said no. It could have been a mistake because I could have lost my life.
“I will say there are many things that could have been a mistake but God saved me from them all”.
While speaking on opportunities for the youth to take over the mantle of leadership in the country, Obasanjo said the youth would never come into power, if the current trend continued.
He said, “With the “Not Too Young to Run” campaign, you can see that those that are contesting now are between 70 and 80 years old; how can the youth run?
He said, “Another thing inhibiting youth from running is the amount of money involved in going into politics. I hope that things should not continue like this.
“I was 39 years old when I became the military Head of State. Twenty years later, I came back as civilian President, but those there now do not want to allow the youth. If things continue like this, I do not know how you can come in.”
