FORME

R President Olusegun Obasanjo on Friday accused the churches, mosques, schools and states of shirking in their responsibilities to ensure global peace.

Obasanjo, who also condemned homes for not doing enough to instill discipline and moral conduct on their family members, said that violence, insecurity and radicalisation could be traced to the failure of religious organisations and schools to play their expected roles in order to attain peaceful society.

He said: “If we do not get it right from home, we have started losing the battle.  Communalism is going down the drain.  There is popular saying that four eyes brought a child to the world and 200 eyes nurtured the child, but where is the 200 eyes of the community? Unless we are able to deal with present problems.”
The ex-President added: “We do everything with impunity. We have been dealing with issues beyond us.  We ought to prevent it.  Prevention is even cheaper than cure. Can we prevent? Can prevention be part or best of our solutions?”

“We can also see where things are going down. We have home or houses, what happened at home?  What do we teach?  Moral training value starts from home. Home is very important, but parents do many wrongs,” he also said.

Obasanjo spoke at the 2016 National Summit and 4th International Colloquium with the theme “Human Security, Violent Extremism and Radicalisation, seeking Sustainable Solutions.”

The event, meant to mark his 79 birthday and was organised by Centre for Human Security, was held at Olusegun Obasanjo Presidential Library, Abeokuta, the Ogun State capital.
He also challenged the international community to rise up to the challenges of global insecurity.

The former president urged them not to fold their arms at the detriment of the innocent citizens, while adding that international community should do all to ensure justice and fairness in the fight against insecurity.

Only by ensuring justice that peace can be sustained globally, the former president stressed.
While citing examples to justify his point, Obasanjo mentioned few countries that had faced injustice due to negligence by the international community.

“I went to Syria when I was President of Nigeria.  One of the places I was taken to was refugee camp where those refugees have been since 1948.  Nothing’s been done to them.  How do you want their children to think?” Obasanjo queried.

He added: “In Norway, I met some members of the Talibans. We spent two days together.  They were in the second echelon of the leadership, I was told the top ones will not come out, and when we listened to them we are bound to say yes, they can get something better than they were getting.”
Obasanjo bemoaned that the international community was not doing enough in the practice of democracy and good governance, as they want developing countries to do.

“Any justice? No!  Any fairness? No,” Obasanjo wondered