Obasanjo, who delivered the keynote address at the opening ceremony of the First International Conference of the African Studies Association of Africa, ASAA, held on Wednesday in Ibadan, Oyo State, southwest Nigeria, said one of the main challenges for the African continent was corruption.
At the event hosted by the Institute of African Studies, University of Ibadan, the former president stated that corruption negated the deep moral fabric of the African society, saying that to steal from the community is considered a grave offence that puts permanent dent on the integrity and values of the family.
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“But today, the corrupt is venerated. The impression that Africans have a cultural disposition to be corrupt is a travesty of the truth. We are hospitable but hospitality is different corruption,” he said.
Obasanjo said rising cases of corruption in Africa had led to denigration of values, and he challenged African nations to rise up to the occasion to defeat corruption, saying that “this must not be allowed to continue.”
The former president cited an example of Enugu State during his tenure as president when the state government obtained a loan of $8 million to establish a Carpet Industry, but that the money was spent without the ground for the project ever cleared, lamenting that the money was part of the debt the nation had to pay.
Obasanjo said the cold war made things worse for Africa and hindered development in large part as the Europeans oppressed and exploited Africans. “We got loans, some dubious, others used to acquire weapons and we ended up in debt and instability that gave us only more pains, coups and counter-coups and bad governance. Some of the worst dictators in the world emerged from Africa with the full endorsement and encouragement of outside influence.
“I wish we do not have to dig into the misery and pains of the past, but history cannot be changed. What we must do is to forge a new front and achieve better output today as we write the history for tomorrow. Yesterday is gone but tomorrow is yet to come and the knowledge and understanding of yesterday can make us chart a better course for tomorrow, hence a great history,” he said.
Obasanjo also said the problem of human rights violation had reduced drastically in Africa, saying that “if you visit the Olusegun Obasanjo Presidential Library in Abeokuta, you will find thousands of archived newspaper comics and columns meant to spite and insult my person even as a sitting President.
“No individual or group of people was ever queried or jailed or repressed in expressing this freedom. Rather, I encouraged them because I derived fun and pleasure from the humour as I know who I am and what I am and nobody needs to tell me who and what I am not.”
On the future of African studies, Obasanjo said the success of African studies would be tied to the intellectual, philosophical, ideological and institutional transformation currently taking place in various socio-cultural and political systems in different counties and countries.
“African studies should not be satisfied with merely contributing to the accumulation of knowledge about Africa. Scholars should have novel priority which should slant towards indigenous-based tradition of knowledge. In line with the necessity of making African studies a wider project, African scholars should not be satisfied with merely contributing knowledge that is capitalised on and managed by the West,” he stated.
The theme of the three-day conference is “African Studies in the Twenty-First Century: Past, Present and Future.” The conference was attended by scholars and academics drawn across Africa.
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