Olusegun Obasanjo's Hopes on Youth

He said despite challenges, he was hopeful that Africa and indeed Nigeria have youths who possess “intellectual prowess and ingenuity capable of leading Africa to the promised land.”

He said, “Enough of using other people’s children as experimental subjects and keeping ours in safe havens. Enough of using other people’s children as political thugs and ballot box snuffers, while we send ours to Ivy League schools.

 “Enough of thinking we know what is right for young people without their input or the courtesy of asking for their opinions.

 “If constitutional changes are required, let us begin now. If policies and political party structures have to change, let us begin now. Of what use is a law that allows young people contest a particular office only to be confronted with the hurdle of outrageously exorbitant cost of party nomination forms and campaign costs?

“I see hope that the future of Africa is in the hands of its youths. I see hope of a continent where the creative energies, intellectual prowess and ingenuity of our youths are capable to lead us to our promised land. I see hope in the courage of our youths to hold government accountable and their resistance to tyranny and despotism.”

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Potentials for Economic Growth

“The economy of Lagos cannot be that productive to improve the GDP if there are no people with good conscience and this is what this fellowship stands for.

“It is not enough for you to have resources, it is not enough for you to have people that can improve productivity but again there are people who have to be drivers to arrive at the GDP or the kind of nation that we want,” he said.

Ambode said since his assumption of office in the last three and half years, concerted efforts had been made to ensure religious harmony and also create greater enabling environment for businesses to thrive.

“All we do as a government is just to ensure that we create an enabling environment for people to practice religion without interference and at the same time greater enabling environment for them to do their businesses.

“So, when we combine good businesses and good religious conscience, obviously the nation will grow and then the nation will develop,” Ambode said.

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Prof. Akindele's Punishment

One of the counts reads, “That you, Prof. Akindele, on or about the 16th day of September, 2017, at Ile-Ife, did corruptly ask for sexual benefits for yourself from Ms Monica Osagie on account of favour to be afterwards shown to her by you in the discharge of your official duties as a lecturer in the Department of Management and Accounting, Obafemi Awolowo University, to wit: altering her academic grades in the course with code MBA 632 – Research Method – from fail to pass; and thereby committed an offence contrary to and punishable under Section 8(1)(a)(ii) of the Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Act, 2000.”

The 57-year-old professor had, through his lawyer, Omotayo Alade-Fawole, asked for plea bargain, having admitted guilt. He also cited ill-health as a factor that might make him unable to stand the rigours of prison.

He pleaded that his prayers for plea bargain be considered, more so as he was already serving punishment for his offence having been sacked by the university.

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Judging by the prior depth of decay, deterioration and disrepair that Nigeria had sunken into, we are certain that these past few years have put us in good stead to trudge on the Next Level of building an even stronger nation for our people.

We were a nation at war – but we delivered on our commitment to secure the territorial integrity of our nation in the face of a raging insurgency that devastated many parts of the North East.

We liberated 17 Local Government Areas from the grip of insurgency. Brokering and sustaining peace in the Niger Delta has also been crucial to stabilising the polity.

Despite the difficult circumstances presented by weak oil prices and reduced oil production, we delivered on our commitment to make public investments to spur economic growth, job creation, and broad-based prosperity.

Agriculture continues to expand our economic base, as do our investments in deficient infrastructure across the length and breadth of this nation.

We implemented a responsible and transparent fiscal plan for the challenging economic times that saw us doing more even with lesser oil revenues.

Grand scale corruption perpetrated at the highest level of government is now a thing of the past, just as the Treasury Single Account (TSA) has made it more difficult for ministries, departments and agencies to exercise the unrestrained liberties that helped foster a climate conducive to corruption.

The nation’s wealth is now being invested in capital projects to expand infrastructure and connect people, goods and opportunities by rail, road and air. Also, the Federal Government supported state governments with bailouts that enabled them to pay workers on their payroll.

We took an unprecedented step towards creating a fairer and more equitable society by implementing Africa’s biggest social investment programme.

  

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Advice to Politicians

The REC advised politicians to dignify the electoral process by shunning violence and other malpractices that question the integrity of the process so that they would be proud to say they have won elections through a fair process.

On the 2019 election, Effanga said: “Rivers State has 2.8 million PVCs so far in terms of voters’ strength up to the end of March this year. Those have also been collected. We have a difference of about 400,000 cards that have not been collected, and these are cards ranged from 2011 up to march of this year.

“Between April and August, people still registered. We have a figure of about 400, 000 who registered within that time, and these are also being processed. By the time we add the ones from April to August when we suspended the registration process, we will then know how many registered voters we have in Rivers State going into the elections.

“But of course this is the figure of registered voters, not of everybody who have collected their PVCs and you also know that not everybody with PVC would turn out to vote on election day.”

Effanga also said the present INEC was taking steps to ensure the integrity of the electoral process and declared that it was no more business as usual.

He said the decision of the commission to suspend the August 18 by-election of Port Harcourt constituency III in the state shocked many stakeholders who had anticipated profiting from the violence that characterised the election.

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Perhaps our biggest ambition yet is the overhaul of our education sector. Every child counts – and simply, whatever it takes to prepare our teachers, curriculum and classrooms to attain the right educational goals that grow our country, will be done.

We will remodel 10,000 schools every year and retrain our teachers to impart science, technology, engineering, art and mathematics using coding, animation, robotics to re-interpret our curriculum.

We know that to succeed, moral integrity and conscience must continue to form the dominant character of our nation and its leadership. Corruption is an existential threat to Nigeria. Despite the gains we have made in closing the gates, we know that there is still much ground to cover to stop systemic corruption.

We are committed to deepening the work we started this first term such that the nation’s assets and resources continue to be organised and utilised to do good for the common man.

The next four years will be quite significant for our country. Nigeria is faced with a choice to keep building a new Nigeria- making a break from its tainted past which favoured an opportunistic few. Our choices will shape us – our economic security and our future prosperity.

Nigeria, more than ever before, needs a stable and people-focused government to move the agenda for our country forward. Join us on this journey to the Next Level of a prosperous, strong and stable Nigeria!

Nigerians, we are all going higher!

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