Gift Barry-ObaFormer President Olusegun Obasanjo, has warned Nigerian youths against using suicide as a shortcut to escaping their problems instead of finding solutions to it.
Obasanjo spoke on Monday at Youth leadership symposium with the theme “Opportunities for Peace: Roles of The Youths in Conflict Prevention in Africa” held at Olusegun Obasanjo Presidential Library, Abeokuta.
The programme was put together by Centre for Human Security and Dialogue in collaboration with Institute for African Culture and International Understanding, Olusegun Obasanjo Presidential Library, as part of activities lined up for the 87th birthday of the former President.
Obasanjo condemned youths committing suicide because of any difficulty of life, saying that such ungodly and illegal act has never been known to solve any problems.
He said “When the time is rough and tough, the tough must get going, no problem is new and no problem will be permanent. Commiting suicide is not the end of any problem, confront it and take it to God because he could do anything. When you have problem look at those who have had this problem before and how they overcame it
“We have this problem of galloping inflation in the country now but do we have a country with such problems recently, yes we do, Zimbabwe had this problem recently. Shouldn’t we ask them how they did it even if our approach will be different? Even if whatever we shall be doing will be different, we can ask questions to navigate our way out.”
The former President also urged African youths to embrace dialogue and not violence in resolving various conflicts confronting the continent.
Obasanjo maintained that, like never before, conscious efforts to build and inculcate a culture of peace and security in the youth must be intensified to spur them to be at the vanguard of promoting peace rather than being used to perpetrate violence in the continent.
The former President has equally said that there was nothing wrong in Nigeria reaching out to Zimbabwe to learn from the southern African country how it weathered the storm of galloping inflation which currently plagues the country.
Obasanjo explained that rather than pushing forward the narratives of hatred, pull him down and negative attitudes which brew conflicts and then violence, we must begin to embrace love, tolerance and see peace as not negotiable for economic growth and prosperity.
He said that the youth who he emphasised are no longer leaders of tomorrow but today must stand firmly against conflicts in any part of Africa be agents of peace rather being lured or used as agents of destabilization.
The former President said “we must begin to bring up our youths in the culture of peace and security. The chances are that where we have a culture of love, we will have peace. The first thing to do is to inculcate in the youths the ingredients of peace which is love and fellowship.
“Look at the attributes that God gave us to have life of stability, life of peace, they are as I mentioned, kindness, mercy and forgiveness. All of these attributes are professed by God and He shared the same with us to make life pleasant for us. But when we build negative attitudes, pull him down, then there will be problems.”
