…says  Nigerians should discard zoning

By Emeka Mamah 

KADUNA- Former Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission , EFCC , Malam Nuhu  Ribadu, weekend relived his political persecutions during the late President Umaru Yar’Adua’s administration adding that his problem with the regime was because those he was at the verge of charging to court for corruption later took over the reins of government.

He also said that Nigerians should discard zoning policy as a way of sharing political offices saying that the qualifications for contesting the presidency should be hard work and the person’s ability to deliver; not where he/she comes from or religion.

Ribadu spoke at a the   Kaduna Community Town Hall Meeting with Nigerian Youths  organized by Christian Awareness Initiative of Nigeria (CHAIN) at the Catholic Social Centre.

He said that his father, late Alhaji Ribadu won election at the age of 27 in Lagos pointing out that the youths should take over the driving seat in governance if the country must grow.

Ribadu further said that he recovered $15million cash which one of his traducers brought to bribe him and took it to the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) as evidence, adding that altogether, the EFCC under him recovered about $5 billon from corrupt government officials and secured over 400 convictions.

The theme of his lecture was “Faith, political engagement, and the Nigerian youth”.

The former EFCC boss had been asked why he reportedly failed to declare his assets before and after leaving office as alleged by the government then among other questions during the question and answer session.

According to him, “The tragedy of corruption is that whenever it takes over, it almost  becomes the engine of the  society, and then it continues to roll and it affects everything, and it is almost impossible for you to really take anything out of it because corruption has taken over  the engine of that  room and continue to roll. And everything boils to greed, that is almost where we are today in our own country.

“On the issue of whether I declared my assets or not, let me explain to you what happened? “You are the same person who said that when you fight corruption, it fights back.

“Somehow we attempted to correct and tell them that what they were doing was not the right thing, (but) they went back and took over the government of Nigeria, and decided to go after us”.

His words, “My belief and my hope, if there is going to be a chance for us to really confront it, it has to come from the top leadership in  the country, political leadership that is going to believe in it, political leadership that  is going to live in the fight, political leadership that is going to put everything into  honesty.

“Any other way will not work. So how are you going to do  it? It is not  possible unless at the highest level we have individuals who really, but with  honesty  and genuinely make it number one  issue to address, and we have countries doing it.

“For example, we have seen what Kagami did in Botswana, but any other thing  under  is not likely going to last.

“My experience  in Government showed that whatever that is done under, and unless the political leadership is with it or is going to lead it, chances are that it is not going to last, even if it last it will be reversed.

“So the possibility that it will work depends largely on our ability or our chance to get  a  holistic  leadership  that is going to drive it, that is going to insist that,  that is the way we are going and that is how,  hopefully with time we will be able to reverse the whole  unfortunate situation that  we find ourselves.

“Today, corruption has taken over, everything is done  in corruption, whether in our education, everywhere even in the private sector, wherever you go, it is corruption that is facing you.

“Whatever that you are entitled to, you are not likely going to get  to get it unless, of course, you pay for it. So my plea is that we have to fight a point through where you are going to catch this and then pass  through it, and hopefully we can do it through election and elect leaders that are going to drive it.

“In  EFCC, whatever money   recovered goes   back to the Government, it goes   back  to the budget, it goes  to where States, Local Governments and Federal Government get their own money. It is going back to the account, there is no other way.

“The gentleman talked about the media, people are not fools, people know the real thing. When I talked about the size of corruption that money takes over, the money continue to go on.

“They will take money from Government, they will  use the money to set up institution of structures that will support them, they will continue to use the money to continue to perpetuate themselves in office, they will use the money to rig election to get themselves re-elected, they will continue to use the money in the way that they will continue to remain and be in charge.

“Part of it is to invest in the media. It is understandable, but, of course, it is not impossible to stop it when you have a leadership in this country that will say enough is enough, it will be done.

“If I had time to remain in the EFCC for a while, we had a strategy to address that sector, unfortunately we did not last that long.

“On the issue of whether I declared my assets or not, let me explain to you what happened. You are the same person who said that when you fight corruption, it fights back.

“Somehow we attempted to correct and tell them that what they were doing was not the right thing, went back and took over the Government of Nigeria, and decided to go after us.

“I left the EFCC in 2007, and they took it over themselves, this is an agency that I set up myself, I ran it for five years. They spent over a year trying to see what they could get, one single thing for them to nail me they could not get. Not a single thing.

“In the desperation to get me, they attempted to kill me, the same people within Nigeria almost kill me on my way from my house to go and pray. They took me to Jos, NIPPS, and almost put me there like a prison while they were investigating me, they followed me, they tried to kill me, they could not succeed because God did not allow it.

“At the end of the day, they could not  get anything and they said I did not declare my assets, not that I have assets, but that is not even the case.

“It is impossible for you to work with EFCC without declaring your assets because it is a condition for you to go to the National Assembly, present it, they will look at it before you are cleared. No individuals going to public service without declaring his assets.

“The former Minister of Finance, Mrs. Nenadi Usman is here with me; she knows what I am talking about. I still have my assets declaration, and when they went to court, they had it with them. It is not that I have assets, but they said I did not declare it.

“The very first week I left Kuru, Jos I went there and declared it and have copies of assets declaration. Of all things, for God’s sake it is assets  declaration, and someone is saying that he has an issue with that. We should check ourselves, lets be serious.

“You do not have problem with somebody who is taking your billions, you don’t have problem with those on daily basis denying you the chance to get what is right for you, it is me as an individual who tried to address these things, sacrificed my 25 years of my life in the Nigerian Police Force. They woke up one day and said they should finish me. We don’t have problem with that.

“They sent me out of Nigeria, I have six children, I have a wife that I did not see for close to two years. And even when they took me to Kuru, I spent  one year, and I graduated, and I did well, but they stood in front of my graduation class and they said they could  not give me my own certificate, and it is the same people who took me to court and said I did not declare my assets.   And somebody is asking me question today that I have issue with them. What can I do for God’s sake?  I am a  human being.

“One person gave me $15 million bribe, and I took it to the CBN, and I used it as evidence to prosecute the person, the same person. And today someone is saying that I have not declared my assets, what is wrong with that, it is not to say that I have an asset.

“When I got to the EFCC, the first thing I did was that I collected young men like you in the first year, and we did this job together. One of the first things I did was to set up a training and research institute.

“The first money I got in terms of support, was to set up training and research institute. This institute is one of the best in the world, in this part of the world. In terms of tools for you to fight economic and financial crimes, is one of the best.

“But not only that, we invested on average 200,000 dollars on each of the five sets of people that we brought into the EFCC to train them internally and externally. None of the people who are working with EFCC have not got the chance to go outside Nigeria to be trained, young Nigerians like you.  And they are the people who pursue this thing we designed that we are talking about today.

“And even after two years of trying to destroy the work we did, still EFCC is the household name. EFCC was created in 2003/2004, there are institutions that are 50 years in this country that nobody is talking about them, and they are young Nigerians who are doing this work today, and they are still there, for your information, and wait and see, they are the people who are going to change this country.

“I cannot understand why somebody will say that young people are not there, no, they are there. There are young Nigerians, go out and check and see where they are, and what they are doing.

“At the time I left EFCC, I can say that one amazing thing is that if you work and work honestly, and you carry people along with you, and you pay them, and you are transparent, and you are very accountable in the work, they will always be with you.

“Each and every single EFCC boys are with me always. There are a couple of them who left because I was not there. And when the people who took over got in they decided to remove a lot of them out of the EFCC, and moved them back to the Police

“I think we have done fairly well compared to where Nigeria is, EFCC is a household name simply because of those boys that we trained”.

Earlier during the lecture, Ribadu who is a retired Assistant Inspector General of Police said, “It is with deep appreciation that I come here today to share thoughts with you on the question of the interface between faith and political engagement, and how they all come together as a challenge for young people.

“You are the engine of the society today the irony is that some of us at 50 are still partly youth.

The conception of faith interests me a lot because for those of us who are religious and prayerful, the connection between now and hereafter is usually through the mechanism of faith.

“Faith too has its realizations in science, which is why we speak of a scientific faith. The faith to get on an airplane for instance and know it will take us to Lagos or Abuja. The faith to use a shaving machine and hold no fear that it will eat us up.

“I consider myself a true and practicing Muslim but I respect and honour the religion of the other man. I do not believe that the extension of my faith is the annihilation of the other man’s religion.

“This is partly why I think the conventional dictionary makes a mess of its definition of faith, by rendering it merely as ‘belief without proof, a confidence, or reliance.’

“True, that is what it appears to be, but when Christians speak of their faith, for instance, they dig further to say it is ‘the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen’ which, in many quarters, have been incorrectly interrupted to mean a freedom from purposive work.

“One of my favorite writers and thinkers, the eminent African American preacher, Martin Luther King Jnr. reminds us that: ‘Faith is not what some people think it is’ and insisted that although many people erect a Chinese wall between faith and work, the reality is far from that. He reminds us again ‘it is just as impossible to separate faith and work as it is to separate heat and light from fire!’

“Faith is at it is greatest promise when it is espoused by young people. This is logical of course, because the world of youth is largely the world of the future, the world that is yet to come.

“I chose to speak on the question of faith today because of the challenges ahead of this country especially in the next election cycle.

“Young people have always designed the promise of this country. The heroes of our past, our founding fathers, people like Zik, like Tafawa Balewa, like the Sardauna of Sokoto, Aminu Kano,or Obafemi Awolowo, all of blessed memory, initiated and realized the most important projects of their lives as young people.

“Today we remember and revere them but the truth is that we are unconsciously saluting their youth.

“The independence struggle that gave us liberty from colonial rule was not a project initiated by adults.

“It was the project of young people who had faith in their own abilities, in their own future, in their fellowmen, as much as in their God. That is the message I bring to you today.

“Young men and women have to take back their country from ruin, from poor government, from corruption, and from failure.

“Young men and women have a good reason to do this. They own the future; they need to invest in it accordingly. If the past 50 years of our independence had been one long night of failure and shame, the only people who can remake it are the young people.

“If they hold and cherish their faith as I hope they do, then they will also know that they have to do it with respect and honour to their fellow men and women knowing fully that we are all God’s children and that we achieve more when we unite in purpose, and when we march as a team. We are one people with God that we must come together.

“There is always an historic challenge for every generation. The generation of our fathers interpreted their task as a call to liberate us from colonial rule and they were successful in rendering independence. “It is a different issue if the independence they gave us was blemish in one respect or the other. It is the task of others to sanitize it. Some of our contemporaries had the historical challenge to terminate military rule and help us restore democracy. This was also discharged with credit.

“I am saying it so easily now making it sound an easy task. No. Far from it. Many died, many lost beloved ones, and many more came out of it shortchanged.

“That is the language of progress. You don’t make omelets without breaking eggs.

“So what is the challenge of the new generation today? Our challenge today is to restore good governance, accountability, and transparency in government as a basis of sanitizing our democracy. Let no one tells you any other thing.

“Dear brothers and sisters that is your task today and you must not fail because each generation ultimately always carry the burden of defining its own mission, which they can either accomplish or retreat from in defeat.

“My prayers here today are that we never fail in our mission and that we make a great success of our goals, but remember that goal is to enthrone democracy through clean elections.

YOUTH POWER IS THE NEW AGENDA:

“Dear compatriots, as I said at the 76th birthday anniversary of Professor Wole Soyinka recently in Lagos, fifty years of our federalism and less of our democracy pose the challenge of what can be an endless rite of passage, if a new vision is not allowed to take over our political space.

“But we are not here to battle the old generation. The experience of our elders can provide the source-spring and template for our new trajectory, but let say it bold and clear today that young Nigerians must take the responsibility and accountability for leadership of this great nation from now on. Imagine as old as I am we are still regarded as young ones. 

“From industry, through civil society, to the world of research and development, towards the important crucible of leadership, politics, and management of development, I call on fellow young Nigerians today to bury the preoccupation with anger, cynicism, and inertia and move in the direction of taking control of the destiny of our nation.

“Children of independence, fellow Nigerians, let us take our nation back today and save it from sliding irreversibly into chaos and disintegration.

“It may be a difficult job; it may even require sacrifice of material and emotional resources on the part of those who choose to join the train of change, but it is the most rewarding and glorious calling to save our nation from further decline.

“The important work to rebuild Nigeria then requires that we look across the world; just see what wonders fellow Nigerians, many of them young men and women, are doing in the management of institutions and initiatives. We need to start replicating that here at home.

“My last three calls would therefore be: Let us register to vote en mass, let us vote en mass, and let us defend our votes by all means. We must demand for competent people and not corrupt people for good governance

Thank you for the kind invitation, God bless you all, God bless this great country we call Nigeria, Nigeria must be great, let’s forgive one another for we have a job at hand”. ENDS.

BY EMEKA MAMAH, 7/8/2010.

KADUNA: Former Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Malam Nuhu Ahmed Ribadu, weekend relieved his political persecutions during the late President Umaru Yar’Adua’s administration adding that his problem with the regime was because those he was at the verge of charging to court for corruption later took over the reins of government.

He also said that Nigerians should discard zoning policy as a way of sharing political offices saying that the qualifications for contesting the presidency should be hard work and the person’s ability to deliver; not where he/she comes from or religion.

Ribadu spoke at a the   Kaduna Community Town Hall Meeting with Nigerian Youths  organized by Christian Awareness Initiative of Nigeria (CHAIN) at the Catholic Social Centre.

He said that his father, late Alhaji Ribadu won election at the age of 27 in Lagos pointing out that the youths should take over the driving seat in governance if the country must grow.

Ribadu further said that he recovered $15million cash which one of his traducers brought to bribe him and took it to the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) as evidence, adding that altogether, the EFCC under him recovered about $5 billon from corrupt government officials and secured over 400 convictions.

The theme of his lecture was “Faith, political engagement, and the Nigerian youth”.

The former EFCC boss had been asked why he reportedly failed to declare his assets before and after leaving office as alleged by the government then among other questions during the question and answer session.

According to him, “The tragedy of corruption is that whenever it takes over, it almost  becomes the engine of the  society, and then it continues to roll and it affects everything, and it is almost impossible for you to really take anything out of it because corruption has taken over  the engine of that  room and continue to roll. And everything boils to greed, that is almost where we are today in our own country.

“On the issue of whether I declared my assets or not, let me explain to you what happened?

“You are the same person who said that when you fight corruption, it fights back.

“Somehow we attempted to correct and tell them that what they were doing was not the right thing, (but) they went back and took over the government of Nigeria, and decided to go after us”.

His words, “My belief and my hope, if there is going to be a chance for us to really confront it, it has to come from the top leadership in  the country, political leadership that is going to believe in it, political leadership that  is going to live in the fight, political leadership that is going to put everything into  honesty.

“Any other way will not work. So how are you going to do about it, it is not  possible unless at the highest level we have individuals who really, but with  honesty  and genuinely make it number one  issue to address, and we have countries doing it.

“For example, we have seen what Kagami did in Botswana, but any other thing  under  is not likely going to last.

“My experience  in Government showed that whatever that is done under, and unless the political leadership is with it or is going to lead it, chances are that it is not going to last, even if it last it will be reversed.

“So the possibility that it will work depends largely on our ability or our chance to get  a  holistic  leadership  that is going to drive it, that is going to insist that,  that is the way we are going and that is how,  hopefully with time we will be able to reverse the whole  unfortunate situation that  we find ourselves.

“Today, corruption has taken over, everything is done  in corruption, whether in our education, everywhere even in the private sector, wherever you go, it is corruption that is facing you.

“Whatever that you are entitled to, you are not likely going to get  to get it unless, of course, you pay for it. So my plead is that we have to fight a point through where you are going to catch this and then pass  through it, and hopefully we can do it through election and elect leaders that are going to drive it.

“In  EFCC, whatever money   recovered goes   back to the Government, it goes   back  to the budget, it goes  to where States, Local Governments and Federal Government get their own money. It is going back to the account, there is no other way.

“The gentleman talked about the media, people are not fools, people know the real thing. When I talked about the size of corruption that money takes over, the money continue to go on.

“They will take money from Government, they will the money to set up institution of structures that will support them, they will continue to use the money to continue to perpetuate themselves in office, they will use the money to rig election to get themselves re-elected, they will continue to use the money in the way that they will continue to remain and be in charge.

“Part of it is to invest in the media. It is understandable, but, of course, it is not impossible to stop it when you have a leadership in this country that will say enough is enough, it will be done.

“If I had time to remain in the EFCC for a while, we had a strategy to address that sector, unfortunately we did not last that long.

“On the issue of whether I declared my assets or not, let me explain to you what happened. You are the same person who said that when you fight corruption, it fights back.

“Somehow we attempted to correct and tell them that what they were doing was not the right thing, went back and took over the Government of Nigeria, and decided to go after us.

“I left the EFCC in 2007, and they took it over themselves, this is an agency that I set up myself, I ran it for five years. They spent over a year trying to see what they could get, one single thing for them to nail me they could not get. Not a single thing.

“In the desperation to get me, they attempted to kill me, the same people within Nigeria almost kill me on my way from my house to go and pray. They took me to Jos, NIPPS, and almost put me there like a prison while they were investigating me, they followed me, they tried to kill me, they could not succeed because God did not allow it.

“At the end of the day, they could not  get anything and they said I did not declare my assets, not that I have assets, but that is not even the case.

“It is impossible for you to work with EFCC without declaring your assets because it is a condition for you to go to the National Assembly, present it, they will look at it before you are cleared. No individuals going to public service without declaring his assets.

“The former Minister of Finance, Mrs. Nenadi Usman is here with me; she knows what I am talking about. I still have my assets declaration, and when they went to court, they had it with them. It is not that I have assets, but they said I did not declare it.

“The very first week I left Kuru, Jos I went there and declared it and have copies of assets declaration. Of all things, for God’s sake it is assets  declaration, and someone is saying that he has an issue with that. We should check ourselves, lets be serious.

“You do not have problem with somebody who is taking your billions, you don’t have problem with those on daily basis denying you the chance to get what is right for you, it is me as an individual who tried to address these things, sacrificed my 25 years of my life in the Nigerian Police Force. They woke up one day and said they should finish me. We don’t have problem with that.

“They sent me out of Nigeria, I have six children, I have a wife that I did not see for close to two years. And even when they took me to Kuru, I spent  one year, and I graduated, and I did well, but they stood in front of my graduation class and they said they could  not give me my own certificate, and it is the same people who took me to court and said I did not declare my assets.   And somebody is asking me question today that I have issue with them. What can I do for God’s sake?  I am a  human being.

“One person gave me $15 million bribe, and I took it to the CBN, and I used it as evidence to prosecute the person, the same person. And today someone is saying that I have not declared my assets, what is wrong with that, it is not to say that I have an asset.

“When I got to the EFCC, the first thing I did was that I collected young men like you in the first year, and we did this job together. One of the first things I did was to set up a training and research institute.

“The first money I got in terms of support, was to set up training and research institute. This institute is one of the best in the world, in this part of the world. In terms of tools for you to fight economic and financial crimes, is one of the best.

“But not only that, we invested on average 200,000 dollars on each of the five sets of people that we brought into the EFCC to train them internally and externally. None of the people who are working with EFCC have not got the chance to go outside Nigeria to be trained, young Nigerians like you.  And they are the people who pursue this thing we designed that we are talking about today.

“And even after two years of trying to destroy the work we did, still EFCC is the household name. EFCC was created in 2003/2004, there are institutions that are 50 years in this country that nobody is talking about them, and they are young Nigerians who are doing this work today, and they are still there, for your information, and wait and see, they are the people who are going to change this country.

“I cannot understand why somebody will say that young people are not there, no, they are there. There are young Nigerians, go out and check and see where they are, and what they are doing.

“At the time I left EFCC, I can say that one amazing thing is that if you work and work honestly, and you carry people along with you, and you pay them, and you are transparent, and you are very accountable in the work, they will always be with you.

“Each and every single EFCC boys are with me always. There are a couple of them who left because I was not there. And when the people who took over got in they decided to remove a lot of them out of the EFCC, and moved them back to the Police

“I think we have done fairly well compared to where Nigeria is, EFCC is a household name simply because of those boys that we trained”.

Earlier during the lecture, Ribadu who is a retired Assistant Inspector General of Police said, “It is with deep appreciation that I come here today to share thoughts with you on the question of the interface between faith and political engagement, and how they all come together as a challenge for young people.

“You are the engine of the society today the irony is that some of us at 50 are still partly youth.

The conception of faith interests me a lot because for those of us who are religious and prayerful, the connection between now and hereafter is usually through the mechanism of faith.

“Faith too has its realizations in science, which is why we speak of a scientific faith. The faith to get on an airplane for instance and know it will take us to Lagos or Abuja. The faith to use a shaving machine and hold no fear that it will eat us up.

“I consider myself a true and practicing Muslim but I respect and honour the religion of the other man. I do not believe that the extension of my faith is the annihilation of the other man’s religion.

“This is partly why I think the conventional dictionary makes a mess of its definition of faith, by rendering it merely as ‘belief without proof, a confidence, or reliance.’

“True, that is what it appears to be, but when Christians speak of their faith, for instance, they dig further to say it is ‘the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen’ which, in many quarters, have been incorrectly interrupted to mean a freedom from purposive work.

“One of my favorite writers and thinkers, the eminent African American preacher, Martin Luther King Jnr. reminds us that: ‘Faith is not what some people think it is’ and insisted that although many people erect a Chinese wall between faith and work, the reality is far from that. He reminds us again ‘it is just as impossible to separate faith and work as it is to separate heat and light from fire!’

“Faith is at it is greatest promise when it is espoused by young people. This is logical of course, because the world of youth is largely the world of the future, the world that is yet to come.

“I chose to speak on the question of faith today because of the challenges ahead of this country especially in the next election cycle.

“Young people have always designed the promise of this country. The heroes of our past, our founding fathers, people like Zik, like Tafawa Balewa, like the Sardauna of Sokoto, Aminu Kano,or Obafemi Awolowo, all of blessed memory, initiated and realized the most important projects of their lives as young people.

“Today we remember and revere them but the truth is that we are unconsciously saluting their youth.

“The independence struggle that gave us liberty from colonial rule was not a project initiated by adults.

“It was the project of young people who had faith in their own abilities, in their own future, in their fellowmen, as much as in their God. That is the message I bring to you today.

“Young men and women have to take back their country from ruin, from poor government, from corruption, and from failure.

“Young men and women have a good reason to do this. They own the future; they need to invest in it accordingly. If the past 50 years of our independence had been one long night of failure and shame, the only people who can remake it are the young people.

“If they hold and cherish their faith as I hope they do, then they will also know that they have to do it with respect and honour to their fellow men and women knowing fully that we are all God’s children and that we achieve more when we unite in purpose, and when we march as a team. We are one people with God that we must come together.

“There is always an historic challenge for every generation. The generation of our fathers interpreted their task as a call to liberate us from colonial rule and they were successful in rendering independence. “It is a different issue if the independence they gave us was blemish in one respect or the other. It is the task of others to sanitize it. Some of our contemporaries had the historical challenge to terminate military rule and help us restore democracy. This was also discharged with credit.

“I am saying it so easily now making it sound an easy task. No. Far from it. Many died, many lost beloved ones, and many more came out of it shortchanged.

“That is the language of progress. You don’t make omelets without breaking eggs.

“So what is the challenge of the new generation today? Our challenge today is to restore good governance, accountability, and transparency in government as a basis of sanitizing our democracy. Let no one tells you any other thing.

“Dear brothers and sisters that is your task today and you must not fail because each generation ultimately always carry the burden of defining its own mission, which they can either accomplish or retreat from in defeat.

“My prayers here today are that we never fail in our mission and that we make a great success of our goals, but remember that goal is to enthrone democracy through clean elections.

YOUTH POWER IS THE NEW AGENDA:

“Dear compatriots, as I said at the 76th birthday anniversary of Professor Wole Soyinka recently in Lagos, fifty years of our federalism and less of our democracy pose the challenge of what can be an endless rite of passage, if a new vision is not allowed to take over our political space.

“But we are not here to battle the old generation. The experience of our elders can provide the source-spring and template for our new trajectory, but let say it bold and clear today that young Nigerians must take the responsibility and accountability for leadership of this great nation from now on. Imagine as old as I am we are still regarded as young ones. 

“From industry, through civil society, to the world of research and development, towards the important crucible of leadership, politics, and management of development, I call on fellow young Nigerians today to bury the preoccupation with anger, cynicism, and inertia and move in the direction of taking control of the destiny of our nation.

“Children of independence, fellow Nigerians, let us take our nation back today and save it from sliding irreversibly into chaos and disintegration.

“It may be a difficult job; it may even require sacrifice of material and emotional resources on the part of those who choose to join the train of change, but it is the most rewarding and glorious calling to save our nation from further decline.

“The important work to rebuild Nigeria then requires that we look across the world; just see what wonders fellow Nigerians, many of them young men and women, are doing in the management of institutions and initiatives. We need to start replicating that here at home.

“My last three calls would therefore be: Let us register to vote en mass, let us vote en mass, and let us defend our votes by all means. We must demand for competent people and not corrupt people for good governance

Thank you for the kind invitation, God bless you all, God bless this great country we call Nigeria, Nigeria must be great, let’s forgive one another for we have a job at hand”. ENDS.