Mr Obasanjo says virtually all of the letters he wrote have stood the check of time.

Former President Olusegun Obasanjo says Nigeria’s affect in the sector, in particular Africa, is declining.

Mr Obasanjo mentioned this in Abuja on Thursday right through the launch of a book on him by PREMIUM TIMES’ Editor-In-Chief, Musikilu Mojeed.

The e book titled, “The Letterman: Inside the ‘secret’ Letters of former Nigerian President, Olusegun Obasanjo,” x-rays the function of letter writing in management, governance, and politics.

The 492-web page newsletter makes a speciality of the previous president and his fondness for letters to handle problems.

Mr Obasanjo used to be army head of state between 1976 and 1979 and civilian president between 1999 and 2007.

The former Nigerian chief, who made a marvel look on the match, recalled how he used letters in a number of diplomatic interventions the world over, together with his intervention in the then apartheid South Africa.

He stated Nigeria ceded management to different nations out of doors the continent. He cited the instance of the intervention of Qatar in the composition of the federal government in Chad, Nigeria’s neighbour, after the loss of life of President Idris Deby.

He additionally recounted how Nigeria resolved the disaster between Robert Mugabe and Joshua Nkomo, right through the struggle towards the Ian Smith white executive in Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe).

“Letter writing could also be an artwork. You will have to be very cautious in the number of your phrases. It is dependent upon what you wish to have to position into it. Your letter will have to be such that it’s related and useful.

“Almost all the letters stand the check of time. Whether it’s the letter on apartheid in South Africa or Ian Smith in Rhodesia. Or between (Joshua) Nkomo and (Robert) Mugabe. These letters stand the check of time.

“Then when I read some of the letters in the book as put by Musikilu, I said to myself–some of you have said what gives me courage? I then look at this book, if you had asked me to give a title, and not the title ‘Letterman’, I would have titled it “Audacity of an optimist”.

“The thing again about a letter is that it goes beyond you. There is nothing personal to me about the letters–interest of the community, the society, the organisation that I belong to, the military, warfront–how should the war be fought so that we minimize casualty, so that we can deal with it and finish it off,” he stated.

Mr Obasanjo additionally spoke concerning the standing of Nigeria in the 70s and 80s, the place the United States Government will get enter from Nigeria earlier than taking any motion on Africa.

“How did we lose that? Only this morning, I heard something that shocked me. When Idris Deby was shot in the back, and it was Doha (Qatar) that decided to put the different elements together, not Nigeria, and Chad is in our backyard, we did not do anything about it,” he stated.