Former President Olusegun Obasanjo says 25 years of uninterrupted democracy is worth celebrating.
Obasanjo, who was the first president when the present democratic dispensation started in 1999, stressed in Yola, Adamawa State, on Wednesday that Nigerians need to be thankful for holding on to democracy 25 years after it started.
“Exactly 25 years ago we started on a journey in this country and now, a quarter of a century later, we are still on that journey, undisturbed, unstopped and not short-circuited,” he said.
He added that the consistency of the practice of democracy alone is worth being thankful for.
Obasanjo who was in Yola to commission projects executed by Governor Ahmadu Fintiri, said although many Nigerians would argue that Nigeria has not achieved what it ought as a democratic country, he would maintain that the country is still on the journey and could get better by learning from its mistakes.
“We are still on the journey. We have not been derailed, and I pray that we will not be derailed,” Obasanjo said, adding that to him, the steady democracy with the hope of a better future is part of the significance of May 29.
Earlier during the occasion of the commissioning of what Fintiri’s administration has named Adamawa Unity Bridge: a flyover cum ground-level road crossing and an underpass, all on one location; Governor Fintiri said it was an ambitious project which critics said would never be completed.
“They said I was digging a pit that I had no idea how I would fill, but I went on and we finished it ahead of schedule, and we are here today to commission it for the good of Adamawa people,” Fintiri said.
25 years of unbroken democracy worth celebrating – Obasanjo
