Olusegun Obasanjo, the former President of Nigeria, has remarked that the country needs a leader who is driven by passion and "a bit of lunacy" to bring it forward.

Obasanjo made the remarks while hosting Mohammed Hayatu-Deen, a presidential candidate for the Peoples Democratic Party, in Abeokuta, the capital of Ogun State.

The former President also played host to former minister, Godswill Akpabio, who is running for the presidency on the platform of the All Progressives Congress.

Hayatu-Deen, together with his team, arrived in Ogun State about 12:30pm and went straight into a closed-door meeting with Obasanjo, which lasted for about an hour, according to PUNCH.

It was also gathered that Akpabio arrived at exactly 2:20pm while the Hayatu-Deen team was exiting Obasanjo’s residence.

Speaking during the visit, Obasanjo said Nigeria would overcome its security challenges within two years if the leader was ready to make tough decisions, while advising Nigerians to brace up and be ready to make sacrifices.

The former president said, “It is an agonizing situation for you, obviously, and also for me." I want to emphasise the point that the Nigerian situation, as bad as it is, can only be put right by Nigerians at the forefront of our situation. So, Nigerians have to brace themselves to do what needs to be done to put Nigeria back on the right path.

And you are right in saying that, wherever you go now, one of the things you hear is that Nigeria is not on the table, but why shouldn’t Nigeria be on the table? What does it cost Nigeria to be on the table?

This will be four things, of which I was reminded this morning. One is knowledge. The second is vision. What is the vision that we have? And if you have no vision, you may have eyes, but you are blind. And I believe that is part of our situation.

“The third is passion. And when you said that you are involved in this with a passion, and I was telling some people this morning that passion means madness, that you are mad about Nigeria, I am, and I have no apologies for that because I have no other country I can call my own, and I have no other country I can go to and say yes, I have come to live here.

“Passion means being mad about Nigeria, having a touch of madness, and I look at you (Hayatu-Deen) and say yes, you are mad about Nigeria too.”