Former President, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, was on Friday, hosted to a dinner by former President Goodluck Jonathan and his wife, Patience, in their private home in Bayelsa State.
The hosting came just as Obasanjo blamed militancy in the Niger Delta area of Nigeria on lack of education.
Obasanjo was in Bayelsa State at the instance of Bayelsa State government to commission some projects to mark Governor Seriake Dickson’s six years in office.
Speaking in an interactive session with students of Ijaw National Academy, Kaiama, Bayelsa, before he visited Jonathan, Obasanjo urged the students to take a good advantage of the opportunity of education to enable them be the true leaders of tomorrow.
He said apart from good health and food, the other most important thing was education.
According to him, it was lack of education that promoted militancy in the Niger Delta area.
His words: “The foundation of any human mind is education. A leader who does not give his people quality education, will perish with his people.
“The root cause of militancy is lack of education, if you don’t build schools, that means you have to prepare for unstable society.
“The only investment that lasts and that does not need repair is education.
“My childhood was very rough, I never had the opportunity most of you have now, as students of Ijaw National Academy.’’
Obasanjo was full of praises for Dickson over the projects that he said would improve the overall development of the state and the people.
One of the projects, he said was the Bayelsa Diagnostic Centre which he commissioned.
Obasanjo said the new centre was of international standard and would assist in improving health care delivery to the people.
“20 years ago when I came to Bayelsa for campaign, there was no space to gather people, but today, there is a great difference.
“Yes, for full development to take place in Bayelsa, there must be accessibility in terms of transportation, communication and health care delivery.
“I must tell you, for six hours I am here, I have seen something to convince me that Bayelsa is already in transformation stage.
“The health facility here is second to none.”
The projects inaugurated by Obasanjo were the government specialist hospital in the state and the Bayelsa Heliport which was renamed after the first military administrator of the defunct Rivers State, Alfred Diete-Spiff.
Speaking on the projects, Dickson said the diagnostic centre was established in fulfillment of his promises to the people of Bayelsa.
He gave the assurance that his government would ensure that the healthcare delivery in the state was improved tremendously.
He promised that the uncompleted 500-bed hospital initiated by previous administration would be given a face lift in the next fiscal year.
Said he: “We will complete the project before the end of my tenure.’’
Also speaking at the occasion, the Commissioner for Health, Prof. Ebitimitulah Etebu, said “the diagnostic centre would handle screening of blood, radiology and the result transmitted electronically to international partners in America.”
