By James Ogunnaike

FORMER President Olusegun Obasanjo, yesterday, condemned youths committing suicide, due to hardship, saying such an ungodly and illegal act has never been known to solve any problems.

Obasanjo said this at a youth leadership symposium with the theme: ‘Opportunities for Peace: Roles of the Youths in Conflict Prevention in Africa’, held at the Olusegun Obasanjo Presidential Library in Abeokuta.

The programme was put together by the Centre for Human Security and Dialogue in collaboration with the Institute for African Culture and International Understanding, Olusegun Obasanjo Presidential Library, as part of activities lined up for the 87th birthday of the former President.

The former president, in his remarks at the event, said: He said: “When the time is rough and tough, the tough must get going. No problem is new and no problem will be permanent. Committing suicide is not the end of any problem, confront it and take it to God because he could do anything. When you have a problem, look at those who have had this type of problem before and how they overcame it.”

On the need for African youths to dialogue rather than resort to violence in resolving their differences, he said: “We must begin to bring up our youths in the culture of peace and security. The chances are where we have a culture of love, we will have peace. The first thing to do is to inculcate in the youths the ingredients of peace which is love and fellowship.

“Look at the attributes that God gave us to have a life of stability, life of peace, they are as I mentioned, kindness, mercy and forgiveness. All of these attributes are professed by God and He shared same with us to make life pleasant for us. But when we build negative attitudes and pull him down, then there will be problems.

“The youth must be at the vanguard of pursuing peace, they must be able to persuade those who believe that gun and violence is the way out of conflicts to have a rethink, the way out is conversation and dialogue.

“We have had our issues here during the civil war. We killed ourselves mercilessly and destroyed our best facilities, but we still came back to the roundtable to get the challenges resolved.

“Youths must develop a culture of peace, culture of humanness, culture of living the way God wants us to live.”

The Coordinator of the programme, Prof Peter Okebukola said the essence of the symposium was to further drive home the commitment of Chief Obasanjo who believes that African youths have pivotal roles to play in achieving peace across the continent.