Embrace AI, Obasanjo Counsels African Youth

James Sowole in Abeokuta

Former President Olusegun Obasanjo counselled the African youth, especially between 20 and 35 years of age, to take advantage of opportunities offered by Artificial Intelligence (AI), which he said was waiting to take over many roles currently being performed by human beings.

Obasanjo said he was marvelled when someone demonstrated functions that AI was capable of performing.

The former president spoke while interacting with some youths from Nigeria and other African countries, who were on a four-day Presidential Youth Mentoring Retreat, with the theme, “Youth in a Fractured World.”

The retreat, which was the fifth in the series, was organised and held at the Youth Development Centre, Olusegun Obasanjo Presidential Library (OOPL), Abeokuta, Ogun State.

Obasanjo’s explanation followed a question by one of the participants on what industries should be focused on, or what was likely to rule the world in a few years’ time.

The former president said, “If I’m your age, if I’m aged between 20 and 35 and I have not really taken something, and I don’t have a lot of money, I will zero in on AI.

“I know that this is 2024, if by 2040 that’s 15 or 16 years from now, isn’t it, the number of driverless vehicles on the road in the world, you will not be able to count them because of AI. What the AI will be doing will be unimaginable.

“Somebody tried AI for me, and he asked it to write a lecture on a subject. I was surprised. AI wrote the lecture, and he showed it to me. He asked AI to correct the lecture, and AI corrected the lecture, and that lecture was perfect.

“So, for me, if I were your age, and I have not settled for something, I will go for AI. I know that by the year 2040, I will not be alive by then, I thank God for that.”

Obasajo stated, “I was at a meeting in Europe, and we were talking about employment, and I talked to them about a story that Aliko Dangote told me. He said he bought 1,000 trucks and he advertised for drivers.

“Six of those who applied were PhD holders and they said to me, ‘those six are lucky, because 25 years from now, those six will not have trucks to drive, because those trucks will be driverless’. Those six, will have to think of something else.”

Speaking further on new things to come, Obasanjo said technology would soon dominate most aspects of human life.

He said, “I’ll give you another example. Thirty years ago, I was intensely worried about what I call successful generation of farmers, because at that time, the youngest farmer in my village was 70 years old.

“So, I was worried. How do we get them? But in the last five years or so, my worry started to dissipate. What do I find? I found people, young people now, they are taking interest in farming because they are not looking at farming in terms of the way my father practised with cutlass and hole.

“They are now looking at farming in terms of technology innovation. It’s a new thing, a new development. The Vice Chancellor of University of Lagos sometimes came to me to say, she wants us to be talking of city farming.

“City farming is essentially soilless farming. You can hang it on the wall. You can put it even in your room, provided, you can have light there. So, I believe that we have gone from analog to digital, and now we are going from digital to AI. I think that’s the way to go now.”
Reliving some period in his life, Obasanjo told his guests that several events shaped his life.

According to him, “The period between 1979, when I left public office as military Head of State, and 1999, when I came back as an elected president, those 20 years were very important in my life.

“What were the things that happened in those 20 years? One, I interacted with the best brains in the world. The best brains politically. I also interacted with the best brains, if you like, in the economic world, in the diplomatic world, in meetings like this, it was very, very useful. I used to call it high free education.

“Then, of course, I spent three years, three weeks and three days in prison. That was very useful. I don’t say that you should go to prison to go and prepare yourself. But I’m just telling you that in every situation that you find yourself, learn something.

“Some people are stupid. I’ve seen them at international meetings. Oh, the delegates of country A have not come here to learn anything from the delegates of country B, because country B have probably criticised country A.

“I believe that is wrong, even if what you learn is the way not to do a thing, you are learning something. And every day that passes, you should learn something every day.

“I will ask you, in the last 24 hours, have you learned anything?”

Speaking during a mentoring session, one of the resource persons, Dr Ifeanyi Stanley, advised participants to put God first in whatever they did and be focused in whatever they were doing.

 Stanley said, “When there is a vision, there will always be provision.”

Welcoming the participants, Chairperson of the Olusegun Obasanjo Youth Centre, Dr Bisi Kolapo, disclosed that the mentorship programme started in 2019.

Kolapo said over 5,000 youths applied to participate in the programme, out of which about 60 were selected from Nigeria and some African countries. She said participants kept on increasing every year.