Olusegun Obasanjo, the former president, claims that all he has accomplished in life—aside from farming—has happened by mistake.
Between 1976 and 1979, Obasanjo served as Nigeria’s head of state. In 1999, he was elected president.
In 2007, he finished his second term in office.
On a radio station show on Saturday in Abeokuta, the capital of Ogun State, Obasanjo stated that his father had urged him to enter the farming industry.
“I don’t like the word you used, ‘romance with farming’. I am a farmer. What do you mean by romance? Everything I have done in my life is by accident,” The Punch quoted the former president as saying after he was asked about his “romance with farming”.
“The only thing that is not accidental is farming. Every other thing that I’ve been is by accident. And you called that romance? No! What do you mean by romance?
“You know my beginning. I was born and bred in a village. I went to school by accident. My father just said, ‘won’t you do something different?’ So I went into farming.
“When you look at countries that have made it, they developed agriculture. First, for the purpose of food security; second, for the purpose of processing what they get from their farms, which is the beginning of industrialisation.
“Third, to give it out as export, which is for the purpose of foreign exchange; and fourth, as a means of generating employment for the youth.”