Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has said the fear of contracting COVID – 19 which has spread across the world compelled him to adjust his three- day birthday .
Obasanjo said this on Thursday, while addressing well wishers at his 83 birthday celebration held at the Olusegun Obasanjo Presidential Library , Abeokuta. Ogun State has recorded one index of the deadly disease when an Italian visited a company in Ewekoro for a business consultation .
The birthday celebration, organised by the Centre for Human Security and Dialogue of the OOPL , was to hold between Tuesday and Friday but was compressed into one day.
He said , “ When we were thinking of this celebration, two programmes came to mind.
“ We had planned a round – table discussion to share lessons from Asia ’s development for strengthening Africa’s integration and cooperation in the area of socio- economic development .
“ We had wanted to consider countries like Malaysia , which was worse than us when we got our independence in 1960, South Korea , which was below us and Vietnam which was plunged into a series of wars .
“ We would have spent day before yesterday and yesterday to consider how the Asians have risen to greatness and the lessons we could learn from them . But , because of coronavirus , that programme was shelved as some of the intended participants would not have been able to attend. ”
Obasanjo further added that he had invited a former prime minister of Jamaica , James Patterson , to open discussions on Pan – Africanism.
He said , “ When we learnt that Patterson would not be available due to accident , we chose a former President of Sierra Leone , Bai Koroma, but then with coronavirus , we had to shelve that plan and reach out to a different set of discussants that we have today. ”
©Punch
