Former Nigeria President Olusegun Obasanjo has said that he never regretted making an Igbo woman, Ngozi Okonjo-iweala his Finance minister and an Igbo man, Chukwuma Soludo the governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) when he President, even to the anger of some people.
He recalled that soon after appointing Soludo as CBN governor, he (Obasanjo) found himself in an encounter with a dissenting voice.
“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.”
Obasanjo spoke yesterday, March 26, in Akwa, Anambra State capital, at an event to commemorate Governor Chukwuma Soludo’s one year in office chaired by Chief Emmanuel Iwuanyawu.
He said: “…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 scripture, 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.
He said from his personal experience, nothing wins friendship like one being friendly.
“The appointments of Okonjo-Iweala and Soludo were probably the best of the appointments that I made when I was president,” Obasanjo said.
