In his latest interview, Nigeria's most hard-working, patriotic, globally respected but highly-criticised ex-president, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo talked about his quarrel with Kennis Music act, Idris Abdulkareem, when the former sang his controversial hit - Nigeria Jagajaga.
Below are the ex-president's response to a question relating to the subject put to him by Punch correspondents:
"How can anybody call his own country jagajaga? There are many things wrong with our nation, but so also are many things wrong with other nations. But I won’t call my own country jagajaga; it is wrong. If things are wrong, let us try and put them right. Those countries that we sing their praises now were not like that 100 years ago.
When I first went to Britain in 1957, there was no motorway, none. What Hitler built for Germany, maybe 20 years earlier, none. And you could count the number of houses that had television but today, it is a different thing. So I won’t describe my own country as jagajaga. I will say yes, we have problems. We were talking earlier on about my early life, while I was growing up, there was only one university in Nigeria – the University of Ibadan. Today, there are more than 120. That is progress...."
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