FORMER Presiden Olusegun Obasanjo says no amount of money can buy his conscience in his service to the nation and humanity.
Obasanjo said this yesterday in Ibadan, at the inauguration of the Prof Abayomi Oluwatosin Jiboku Building and Entrepreneurship Centre at the Lariken International College.
According to him, the displacement of the values of honesty and hard work by the love for money and other material things are the causes of the problems before Nigeria.
The ex-president therefore lamented that Nigerians had jettisoned the values of integrity, truthfulness and love for one’s neighbours with the strong desire to get rich quickly and by all means.
In his words: “One of the ways we have problems in our society today is the values we cherish. Money-making is the value now pervasive.
“In Yorubaland, money-making is not one of the values that we take to. Omoluabi, truthfulness, integrity, truth, industry and hard work were our values. Where have they gone? Why have we put them aside and all we are striving for is money? Where is honour in our values?
“Nowadays, anyone who has money can buy anything but not with me. If you have money, you cannot buy my conscience and support for anything. In any case, if you have all the money in the world, of what purpose will it be?
“How do you describe success? I define success as you making a place better than you met it. It is not the amount of money you have, not the number of houses built, not the number of cars you have. It is how much you have contributed to making a place better than you find it.”
He added that “If we are going to get out of insecurity, banditry, Boko Haram, kidnapping and other criminalities, we will have a long gestation period of training and educating all Nigerian children.
“Education is the beginning of the life well-lived. God has given each and every one of us innate abilities. It is when those innate abilities are developed that we can be the best in our own self-service, in the service of our nuclear and extended families, in the service of our community and the service of our nation and the world.”
