FORMER President Olusegun Obasanjo has condemned Igbophobia, a “persistent” dislike of people of southeastern origin.
Obasanjo recalled his work with the professor of economics and current Director General of the World Trade Organization (WTO), Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, at an event in Anambra State to commemorate Governor Chukwuma Soludo’s one year in office.
Soludo was the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) during Obasanjo’s administration, which lasted from 1999 to 2007, and Okonjo-Iweala was the Minister of Finance.
According to the former president, Soludo, who worked closely with him as an economic adviser, never misadvised him and the economist’s performance impressed him so much that he was asked to lead the apex bank.
According to the 85-year-old statesman Soludo was the second Nigerian CBN governor who was not a commercial banker.
However, not long after appointing the academic, Obasanjo was confronted by 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. But 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.
The former president noted from his personal experience, nothing wins friendship like one being friendly.
He added that the appointments of Okonjo-Iweala and Soludo were “probably the best of the appointments that I made when I was president”.
