Former President, Olusegun Obasanjo has commiserated with the entire black race on the demise of former South African President, Nelson ‘Madiba’ Mandela.
Obasanjo, while speaking at his hilltop mansion in Abeokuta, the Ogun State capital described the death of Mandela, as a great loss to his family, South Africa, Africa and the world at large.
Obasanjo said that mandela’s life should be emulated by leaders all over the world.
The ex-leader while recalling his earliest encounter with the anti-apartheid hero in Polls Moor Prison in February 1986, when he was a co-chairman of the Commonwealth Eminent Persons Group on South African apartheid regime, said he was one of those who fought for Mandela’s freedom.
Speaking further, Obasanjo said he urged the late Mandela to run for another term but her turned him down despite his own personal persuasion.
According to him, “I still recall his pragmatic words when I went to him to urge him to have a second term and he said to me, ‘show me a place in the world when an 80-year-old man is running the affairs of his country.
“I thought deeply and found out there was no one. Not even in china at that time. This reflects to me as an unequal sense of modesty for a man who spent 27 years of his life in prison for just one course.”
Obasanjo however prayed God to give his bereaved family, nation and the world to bear the irreparable loss.
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