# IS POLITICS REALLY A DIRTY GAME TO BE AVOIDED

An episode of [Apostle Lazarus Femi](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1824778006), 25 May 2026, 1 h 58 min.

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## Transcript

[0:00] Speaker 1: It's difficult for people who worked hard for their money
[0:04] Speaker 1: to get into certain political positions. First, the amount you
[0:07] Speaker 1: must have, the firms and everything. What do we say
[0:10] Speaker 1: about these structures are deliberately built locally to restrict those
[0:14] Speaker 1: who don't have corruption money to get into marrow.
[0:17] Speaker 2: It's a case of asking why is a monopolist not
[0:22] Speaker 2: being nice and reducing the price of his product?
[0:28] Speaker 3: Doctor albi ib E Madame view process obia and ti
[0:36] Speaker 3: of the they have monopolized power.
[0:39] Speaker 2: What you have is an Africa well democracy no longer
[0:44] Speaker 2: belongs to the people. A two time minister and from
[0:47] Speaker 2: our World Bank Vice present.
[0:49] Speaker 3: Assistant to the President of Nigeria on budget monitoring and
[0:54] Speaker 3: price intelligence.
[0:55] Speaker 2: That was when she was named Madame dull Process. What
[0:58] Speaker 2: has happened is that the politicians have now held them
[1:03] Speaker 2: to democracy india own definition of it as that which
[1:10] Speaker 2: belongs to them. Yes, and so politicians now own Africa's
[1:15] Speaker 2: democracy true to the utter disengagement or poor representation of
[1:22] Speaker 2: the people of the people.
[1:24] Speaker 3: Founder takes Politics and School of Politics, Policy and Governance, an.
[1:30] Speaker 2: Advocate for transparency, good governance, humanitarian and an activist. The
[1:36] Speaker 2: monopolist in an economic model is a prize giver. The
[1:42] Speaker 2: monopolist does not care about quality, They don't care about
[1:48] Speaker 2: the value. They don't worry about competition because of your
[1:53] Speaker 2: position is well entrenched. So this is what Africa is
[1:57] Speaker 2: dealing with. A lot of people haven't understood that the
[2:02] Speaker 2: continent is in a very bad place. Africa's problem is
[2:06] Speaker 2: not political party problem, it's political class problem. Yeah, so
[2:12] Speaker 2: why should they person who gains from bad behavior has
[2:18] Speaker 2: no consequence of punishment for it. Why should they stop?
[2:34] Speaker 1: Hey, guys, if you're watching this now, that means you
[2:37] Speaker 1: have here for intelligent conversations, and this is exactly where
[2:40] Speaker 1: you want to be. We have conversations that will get
[2:44] Speaker 1: you at the edge of your seat, and this particular
[2:47] Speaker 1: one is one you don't want to miss. I have
[2:50] Speaker 1: a very honest request from you as we start this conversation,
[2:54] Speaker 1: I like for you to like this broadcast. That helps
[2:57] Speaker 1: us to get this to as many people as possible.
[3:00] Speaker 1: You know, we can work together getting intelligent conversations to
[3:03] Speaker 1: people all over the world. And I like you to
[3:06] Speaker 1: drop your comment, let us know you feel, let's know
[3:08] Speaker 1: how this has impacted you. And one thing you want
[3:11] Speaker 1: to do also is to subscribe to this YouTube channel,
[3:13] Speaker 1: as this will notify you whenever I we're bringing up videos,
[3:18] Speaker 1: podcasts or any other kind of video that can be
[3:21] Speaker 1: a blessing to you have. I look forward to having
[3:24] Speaker 1: you again and again on this show. Thank you so much.
[3:35] Speaker 1: This is the first time I'm going to say this
[3:37] Speaker 1: on this podcast. And the privilege to bring you here
[3:44] Speaker 1: today is that of your lifetime, not just about the
[3:50] Speaker 1: positions to be held for all over the world, but
[3:53] Speaker 1: the fact that the quality of the life you're living
[3:55] Speaker 1: speaks more than any other thing. You defined to us,
[3:59] Speaker 1: more than ever what it means to have Christians, those
[4:04] Speaker 1: who carry these values of the Kingdom at the hem
[4:07] Speaker 1: of affairs. And it's so inspiring all the things that
[4:10] Speaker 1: you've done over the years, and I just want to
[4:12] Speaker 1: say thank.
[4:13] Speaker 4: You, fort and so not to have you here.
[4:18] Speaker 1: Do you think that Africans generally the young. We Africans
[4:25] Speaker 1: now have the youngest population all over the world. And
[4:28] Speaker 1: it's projected in the next couple of years one at
[4:30] Speaker 1: the very five person use is going to be an
[4:32] Speaker 1: African by a black person.
[4:34] Speaker 4: Now there is anger in the continent starting the quality.
[4:37] Speaker 1: Of leadership, but also if you come down to the
[4:39] Speaker 1: area of it we look at the fact that the
[4:41] Speaker 1: religion as it is, whether Christianity or Islam, has not
[4:45] Speaker 1: been such that has really helped us in terms of
[4:48] Speaker 1: national transformation. It seems to have been used to condition
[4:51] Speaker 1: people in a certain way. And do you think Africans
[4:56] Speaker 1: are expressing anger in the right way towards bad leadership
[4:59] Speaker 1: that we're seen on the continent.
[5:03] Speaker 2: So what you were saying about the continent's demography is
[5:09] Speaker 2: quite true. In fact, what you should know is that
[5:13] Speaker 2: it is not just about Africa becoming two point five
[5:18] Speaker 2: billion people by twenty to fifty. It is the fact
[5:22] Speaker 2: that by twenty fifty, eighty five percent of increases in
[5:31] Speaker 2: global workforce will be African. Yes, now, that is so
[5:36] Speaker 2: standordly statistically significant that he just completely changes everything about
[5:45] Speaker 2: global global productivity. Eighty five percent of increases in global
[5:54] Speaker 2: workforce to come from one continent. That's that's a demographic
[6:00] Speaker 2: DeVault of one precedents.
[6:06] Speaker 1: If I be permitted to interject that there are also
[6:09] Speaker 1: structures setting place to make sure that the workforce in
[6:12] Speaker 1: Africa is reduced to cheap label.
[6:15] Speaker 2: Oh no, let's let's not. Let's not get there quite quickly,
[6:18] Speaker 2: because they're you know, structures.
[6:23] Speaker 4: Like when we as a continent have a label for structures.
[6:26] Speaker 2: Okay, so let's come to that when I have finished
[6:29] Speaker 2: my on the on the map. On the first question
[6:33] Speaker 2: raised one out when when you look at the demographics,
[6:40] Speaker 2: because I want to go beyond the broad population to
[6:49] Speaker 2: get to your question about and whether we're angry enough
[6:55] Speaker 2: they how population average age population across the world is
[7:05] Speaker 2: also very interesting. So in Europe it's forty four years
[7:11] Speaker 2: average age population. In China and also America it's thirty
[7:19] Speaker 2: nine point eight, thirty nine points two in Latin America
[7:25] Speaker 2: is thirty three to thirty four years. In the Middle
[7:31] Speaker 2: East is thirty five years in some subset of the
[7:40] Speaker 2: Middle East, and in some other subset you have, like
[7:44] Speaker 2: you know, something close enough to India, and the Indian
[7:48] Speaker 2: one is twenty nine years average age population. Now Africa's
[7:52] Speaker 2: average age population is eighteen point nine. So it's a
[7:57] Speaker 2: vastly long continued For every one young person in your
[8:05] Speaker 2: there are fifty old people. Yes, the reverse is the
[8:09] Speaker 2: case in Africa, for every one old person there are
[8:15] Speaker 2: fifty young people. So that kind of a population structure
[8:21] Speaker 2: already defines many things. So when it comes to the
[8:27] Speaker 2: matter of anger and how it is expressed, you would
[8:38] Speaker 2: connected to what people are angry about. So they older
[8:46] Speaker 2: generation that would be represented by that one person compared
[8:52] Speaker 2: to the fifty young people. The older generation have been
[8:58] Speaker 2: raised in a certain kind of way.
[9:00] Speaker 5: Mm hm.
[9:01] Speaker 2: They have been through some of the ones that are
[9:08] Speaker 2: still in what we call the silent generation before that's
[9:13] Speaker 2: the ones in the in the eighties and above, and
[9:19] Speaker 2: then the ones that are called the baby boomers. Saw
[9:23] Speaker 2: people like me are early set of the Baby Boomers
[9:29] Speaker 2: in that generation went through. They saw the silent generation.
[9:38] Speaker 2: They saw they saw slave trade, they saw they saw colonialism,
[9:45] Speaker 2: they saw militarization and all of that. My generation saw
[9:51] Speaker 2: only a bit of I'm not even sure we saw
[9:58] Speaker 2: I'm not even show my generation and were the early
[10:01] Speaker 2: ones in my generation, I, for example, they didn't see colonialism.
[10:06] Speaker 2: I was born sixty three. We already had independence. Sixty
[10:10] Speaker 2: three was the republic. You know, it matters because what
[10:16] Speaker 2: then happened with that generation is that it essentially is
[10:21] Speaker 2: that was the generation handed independent society, right politically independent society,
[10:31] Speaker 2: which needed to then be transformed in the way that
[10:35] Speaker 2: say Singapore Liquayyu was handed Singapore and then it needed
[10:41] Speaker 2: to be transformed. Yes, So the failure to achieve that
[10:47] Speaker 2: transformation is now the inheritance of these fifty out of
[10:53] Speaker 2: you know, in the ratio to one, yes, right, So
[10:57] Speaker 2: the fifty that have now been had a continent that
[11:02] Speaker 2: could have been transformed economically but has not been transformed,
[11:07] Speaker 2: is trying to figure out what they make of their inheritance.
[11:15] Speaker 2: So they, however, are also products of a generation that
[11:23] Speaker 2: has not quite operated with the tenets of accountability, and
[11:32] Speaker 2: so that lack of acceptance of the culture of accountability
[11:44] Speaker 2: in a modern state structure. In the African system, there
[11:49] Speaker 2: was accountability, but in a modern state structure we lost
[11:54] Speaker 2: those systems of accountability. And so that has meant that
[12:00] Speaker 2: they've raised children in ways that don't support accountability. And
[12:08] Speaker 2: because they have raised children that way, the younger generation
[12:15] Speaker 2: are still they're vexed, they are angry, but they don't
[12:21] Speaker 2: fully quite have the environment in which to express the
[12:26] Speaker 2: anger properly and constructively. And then the ones who want
[12:33] Speaker 2: to express the anger are not supported by the rest
[12:39] Speaker 2: because the rest have been raised to be cowardly above
[12:45] Speaker 2: about demanding accountability, and so their parents say to them,
[12:51] Speaker 2: don't worry, everything will be fine, but everything won't be
[12:56] Speaker 2: fine until something is done about everything. So for the
[13:01] Speaker 2: ones who even try to break out of that mode
[13:06] Speaker 2: and express anger, understanding how to to actually clarify what
[13:14] Speaker 2: you're angry about? Understand it? So a young person today
[13:20] Speaker 2: would would not quickly be analytical about why the situation
[13:29] Speaker 2: they find themselves in the way it is they need
[13:32] Speaker 2: to be. They can't. You can't. You can't say I'm angry.
[13:37] Speaker 2: What are you angry about? I'm just angry. No, you
[13:40] Speaker 2: can't just be angry. You can connect your anger to
[13:44] Speaker 2: many things should be. Any African child who has not
[13:51] Speaker 2: had the opportunity to go to a school that gave
[13:55] Speaker 2: them am foundational skills in literacy, numbracy, and critical thinking,
[14:06] Speaker 2: socio emotional skills should be angry. Why because the absence
[14:12] Speaker 2: of those strong foundational skills will follow them through life.
[14:18] Speaker 2: It will follow them. It doesn't matter what it can
[14:21] Speaker 2: promote them into middle school, they go to university or whatever.
[14:30] Speaker 2: It's still there, the foundation, the foundational gap is still there,
[14:36] Speaker 2: and so they will not The research says it, their
[14:42] Speaker 2: ending gap will still be wide compared to those who
[14:47] Speaker 2: got foundationals strong foundational skills, So just getting the younger
[14:53] Speaker 2: ones to be interested in those guys of analytical data,
[15:00] Speaker 2: being able to connect data to your situation. I am
[15:04] Speaker 2: struggling because there was a lack of that foundation that
[15:09] Speaker 2: to enable me to be the kind of person who
[15:12] Speaker 2: by the time I have done university, I have the
[15:16] Speaker 2: kinds of skills that the university education should have given me,
[15:21] Speaker 2: and so I can compare with my with my contemporaries
[15:25] Speaker 2: in the world because of those skills, or the person
[15:28] Speaker 2: says I had those skills, but the structure of the
[15:32] Speaker 2: economy has not expanded sufficiently for me to get a job.
[15:37] Speaker 2: And even when people say create something, there are many
[15:42] Speaker 2: barriers that stand against me inhibiting anything that I have.
[15:47] Speaker 2: I'm trying to create. So you have to be very
[15:52] Speaker 2: good in articulating it. And the reason that you have
[15:56] Speaker 2: to be good at articulating why you're angry is because
[16:01] Speaker 2: you then know who you're going to face right to
[16:04] Speaker 2: demand accountability for.
[16:06] Speaker 5: Do you People are placing their own questions.
[16:08] Speaker 2: I think that sometimes they actually are looking for the
[16:12] Speaker 2: soft targets to take up. So for example, you know
[16:19] Speaker 2: you can people can be angry and what they should
[16:23] Speaker 2: be doing is going to the local government chairman and
[16:25] Speaker 2: saying where's the budget, where's the budget for the local government?
[16:31] Speaker 2: Why are the things that a local government should do
[16:34] Speaker 2: not being done? But they could live the local government
[16:38] Speaker 2: chairperson and his collapse and just look for the man
[16:44] Speaker 2: who is running a little business in the community, and
[16:48] Speaker 2: they go after him and say, you've been doing this,
[16:51] Speaker 2: then you've been selling here for many years? What have
[16:54] Speaker 2: you done for us? Excuse me? One man is trying
[16:58] Speaker 2: to do beness in the community you live in. The
[17:02] Speaker 2: local government chairman who is spending money that belongs to
[17:07] Speaker 2: the public. You don't think that you can face them,
[17:11] Speaker 2: so you look for itself. So it's always that there's
[17:16] Speaker 2: this underlining coward dice that is inhibited the effectiveness of
[17:25] Speaker 2: the anger. And so more and more I say to
[17:29] Speaker 2: the younger generation of Africans, we have to be more analytical.
[17:36] Speaker 2: If you come to the School of Politics, Policy and
[17:41] Speaker 2: Governance s PPG that I'm using to train a new
[17:47] Speaker 2: generation of Africans that we lead a public sphares. The
[17:54] Speaker 2: first thing you learn is that in God we trust
[17:57] Speaker 2: every other person. Everyone else mus bring data. Everyone tells
[18:02] Speaker 2: me you're angry, give that backs your anger, because that
[18:07] Speaker 2: data is going to ultimately be your pathway knowing how
[18:11] Speaker 2: to solve.
[18:12] Speaker 1: I mean on that subject of anger, I mean it's
[18:15] Speaker 1: a difficult mix. How we have been able to mix
[18:18] Speaker 1: anger and cowardice. Now you, for instance, you can be
[18:22] Speaker 1: angry and yes, it's a very funny mix.
[18:26] Speaker 2: The people who are angry and it's the world that true,
[18:30] Speaker 2: what did the world do to them?
[18:33] Speaker 1: It's an incredible mix because like we know, in Nigeria,
[18:38] Speaker 1: we don't have history of our parents who fought for
[18:41] Speaker 1: independence compared to care where we had the mama who
[18:45] Speaker 1: stood against the British and one, so we don't have
[18:50] Speaker 1: a culture of seeing what it means to stand up
[18:53] Speaker 1: to power. And then so it is forming in the
[18:55] Speaker 1: young people now that because of that gap, there is
[18:59] Speaker 1: now the call.
[19:00] Speaker 4: Sort of trying to kick at the low angel fruit.
[19:03] Speaker 2: It's it's it's the same thing. We're literally saying the
[19:06] Speaker 2: same thing as I as I was saying to you, uh,
[19:10] Speaker 2: you know before the program started. It's it's you ultimately
[19:17] Speaker 2: would trace patterns of social norms and the inheritance of
[19:26] Speaker 2: those norms two the beginning of time of any society. Yeah,
[19:33] Speaker 2: so so where where we want to be cowards?
[19:42] Speaker 5: No?
[19:43] Speaker 2: I don't think we were born to be colds. I
[19:45] Speaker 2: think that you know, what has happened over time is
[19:50] Speaker 2: a deliination between the what I call the Actually, it's
[19:57] Speaker 2: not even my, my, my, my intellectual property. It belongs
[20:04] Speaker 2: to somebody called Peter, Peter, Peter, trying to remember Peter's
[20:12] Speaker 2: last name. Now he's a professor. Algeria talked about the
[20:16] Speaker 2: public and private. You know, society in the sense of
[20:27] Speaker 2: the public being when it consents the common good, and
[20:34] Speaker 2: then the private being, you know, when it consents the
[20:39] Speaker 2: immediate community. So, for example, you would find that people
[20:44] Speaker 2: are quicker to ensuring that the money that they contribute
[20:49] Speaker 2: to the town union is not stolen. But if somebody
[20:55] Speaker 2: steals the money at the local government, it doesn't mean anything, okay.
[21:01] Speaker 2: So that byfocation can be part of why you find
[21:05] Speaker 2: people when it has to do with all of us
[21:09] Speaker 2: are being affected by this situation. We all need to
[21:13] Speaker 2: come together and fight against it. Everyone is thinking, what
[21:17] Speaker 2: if five people have to die in the process of
[21:21] Speaker 2: fighting for all of us. I don't want to be
[21:24] Speaker 2: one of those five people. That's the thinking. So that
[21:28] Speaker 2: mindset will make it not possible to easily mobilize to
[21:36] Speaker 2: defend the public good. It's a mindset that just does
[21:43] Speaker 2: not enable collective action, and you need that kind of
[21:49] Speaker 2: collective action in order to create a new nun in society.
[21:56] Speaker 2: So when you compare what's going on with the Kenyans
[22:00] Speaker 2: for a long time, also the young, you know, the
[22:02] Speaker 2: generation of the Kenyans didn't immediately start fighting. It got
[22:10] Speaker 2: to the point where they realized that this is beginning
[22:13] Speaker 2: to look exactly like what the colonials did to us,
[22:17] Speaker 2: except that in this case you have domestic colonialists. You know,
[22:22] Speaker 2: because all of the people ruining governance in Africa as
[22:26] Speaker 2: as as Africans, and they are worse than what you know,
[22:30] Speaker 2: you could even imagine because they're doing it to their own.
[22:33] Speaker 2: They're doing it to their own you know, the idea
[22:36] Speaker 2: of the colonialists conquering Africa, taking over Africa, these are
[22:43] Speaker 2: this is a next tunnel in cushion. But when people
[22:46] Speaker 2: who are flesh and blood of your of you are
[22:52] Speaker 2: saying that they somehow deserve a better life than the
[22:56] Speaker 2: rest of you, that is that is reprehensible and that
[23:02] Speaker 2: is something that should make everybody say, no, you can't
[23:07] Speaker 2: do this. But because of this feeling of the artificial state.
[23:15] Speaker 2: In other words, they look at people look at a
[23:18] Speaker 2: state and they say, I can't see myself in it.
[23:22] Speaker 2: They can't see themselves in it. So when you tell them,
[23:25] Speaker 2: let's fight for the state, they say, why if anybody
[23:31] Speaker 2: would die fighting, shouldn't be me. They look at the
[23:40] Speaker 2: way that they have always destroyed the possibility of collective action.
[23:49] Speaker 2: You see, all those mothers were uneven fathers in the
[23:57] Speaker 2: market square, in the market space of Nigeria, of in
[24:03] Speaker 2: a republic of When they're in that market space, do
[24:07] Speaker 2: you ever hear them fighting over religion, over ethnic group
[24:14] Speaker 2: or whatever else. You don't hear them. They are there
[24:19] Speaker 2: for a mission. They're in the market space. They learn
[24:22] Speaker 2: how to cooperate, they learn how to collaborate, they learn
[24:26] Speaker 2: how to compete, but they are guided by the idea
[24:31] Speaker 2: that we just need to live peacefully in order to
[24:35] Speaker 2: get our business going. Right now, once the political people
[24:46] Speaker 2: get into the relationship, yes it changes, he hasn't that always?
[24:56] Speaker 2: So because of that, the state is not enabling m collaboration,
[25:07] Speaker 2: cooperation and healthy competition. What it is doing is it
[25:13] Speaker 2: is dividing that up and even saying the state is
[25:17] Speaker 2: perhaps not completely right, I actually simply say, the political class,
[25:22] Speaker 2: the politicians, they are praying on those primodial tendencies for
[25:31] Speaker 2: their own gain. And because they are doing that, when
[25:35] Speaker 2: you say to people, let us come and fight that
[25:38] Speaker 2: they already have been told. Why are you going to
[25:42] Speaker 2: fight your own brother? Why are you going to fight
[25:44] Speaker 2: your own sisters? Command this fellow is making it impossible
[25:52] Speaker 2: for your children to have the prospects of good life. Yes,
[26:00] Speaker 2: you don't like yourself about your generation coming after you.
[26:07] Speaker 2: I mean you want a society that works. That's what
[26:11] Speaker 2: you're looking for. So so so so that this idea
[26:18] Speaker 2: of an Africa where the younger generation are so much
[26:24] Speaker 2: more beginning to see that they can be as good
[26:31] Speaker 2: as the rest of the world. So when you see
[26:34] Speaker 2: what technology has been able to do, yes, it's it's
[26:41] Speaker 2: it's leveling the playing field for those who at least
[26:48] Speaker 2: have some minimum set of skill skills to engage technology.
[26:55] Speaker 2: And what that is doing is that it is helping
[26:58] Speaker 2: more of the young people to either completely disconnect from
[27:07] Speaker 2: the local so they've already migrated to the global and
[27:13] Speaker 2: the standards of the global ah enabling them giving them
[27:20] Speaker 2: economic opportunities. So they say, I'm doing well. Forget these people,
[27:28] Speaker 2: so they can be located here, but they are connected
[27:32] Speaker 2: with the rest of the world, and so they say forget,
[27:35] Speaker 2: just forget it. But the thing though, is it would
[27:39] Speaker 2: be a big mistake for this generation to think in
[27:42] Speaker 2: the way that our generation and the ones before us thought,
[27:47] Speaker 2: which is just do well. Once you do well, then
[27:52] Speaker 2: the country is doing well. And then look, you met.
[27:57] Speaker 2: You judge whether a country people are doing well by
[28:01] Speaker 2: the number of them that are doing well, by the
[28:03] Speaker 2: number of them, by the number of them that are
[28:05] Speaker 2: doing well. The fact that we have some twenty percent
[28:08] Speaker 2: of Africans who are living the quality of life of
[28:13] Speaker 2: contemporaries in any other forcial countries of the world does
[28:19] Speaker 2: not mean when Africa is doing well because we have
[28:22] Speaker 2: shiny lights in you know, that's when we have the lights,
[28:26] Speaker 2: you know. But because we have you know, nice looking
[28:31] Speaker 2: estates like the one where we're speaking from today, does
[28:35] Speaker 2: not mean that that's the story. So a continent that's
[28:40] Speaker 2: that's estimated to be the one that would have modern
[28:46] Speaker 2: eighty percent of the remaining poor people in the world
[28:53] Speaker 2: by twenty thirty eighty percent cannot simply be celebrating that
[28:59] Speaker 2: if few of our children as stars and that we need, yes,
[29:05] Speaker 2: our children to be stars.
[29:06] Speaker 5: And that leads me to the next question.
[29:08] Speaker 1: Do you think that the softing of Africa is deliberately
[29:11] Speaker 1: architected to be so by the Western world?
[29:15] Speaker 2: You know? I like I like when people ask this
[29:18] Speaker 2: question because it gives me the opportunity to say, you
[29:20] Speaker 2: don't know what is doing. You know, you see, because
[29:26] Speaker 2: there is that anybody who says that that it doesn't exist.
[29:31] Speaker 2: I mean, I'm frequently fighting that, you know, I'm one
[29:35] Speaker 2: of the loudest Africans globally speaking about the collapse of
[29:41] Speaker 2: the existing multilateral order and how it is necessary that
[29:46] Speaker 2: we should design a new multilateral order that is inclusive
[29:51] Speaker 2: and that is that is very mindful of the structural
[29:58] Speaker 2: imbalances that happened just by vsue of the history of
[30:05] Speaker 2: how the national states have been formed around the world,
[30:09] Speaker 2: especially on our continent. Right, So I am the the.
[30:17] Speaker 5: The the.
[30:19] Speaker 2: Guy what do you call it waving the card that
[30:23] Speaker 2: all the existing multilateral systems in institutions are not fit
[30:28] Speaker 2: for purpose because there have been radical changes in the
[30:33] Speaker 2: in the world. For example, just sharing demographic data with
[30:36] Speaker 2: you have to be mindful of that. You know, the
[30:40] Speaker 2: U N is basically rendered redundant these days simply because
[30:48] Speaker 2: you have the the great power competition between China and
[30:55] Speaker 2: and the US, and you know, and yet we have
[30:59] Speaker 2: so many globe issues that need to be solved, whether
[31:02] Speaker 2: it's you know, issues of terrorism, of climate change, cybersecurity issues,
[31:11] Speaker 2: the AI, what are we going to do in terms
[31:14] Speaker 2: of its governance, dealing with inequality, very very wide inequality,
[31:20] Speaker 2: acute inequalities. So these are real issues that need to
[31:24] Speaker 2: be solved, and in the normal framework that we currently have,
[31:28] Speaker 2: they're no longer being solved. So you need a new
[31:31] Speaker 2: multilateral So the architecture that you refer to is indeed
[31:35] Speaker 2: problematic and it's created certain levels of barriers for Africa.
[31:41] Speaker 2: For example, when you look at the wto the World
[31:44] Speaker 2: Strade Organization, there was a time that it served the
[31:47] Speaker 2: purpose for the ones that created that were the architects
[31:52] Speaker 2: of it. So the conversation then was so much about
[31:58] Speaker 2: free trade. Today the same free trade is under mind
[32:03] Speaker 2: by some of the policies that the same countries that
[32:07] Speaker 2: that trumpeted free trade to Africa and gave US lectures
[32:11] Speaker 2: on free trade are pursuing for their own interest. So
[32:16] Speaker 2: it's a very it's a world that has really empowered
[32:21] Speaker 2: the strong much more than it has cared about what
[32:25] Speaker 2: happens with the weaker systems, with the weaker countries. However,
[32:31] Speaker 2: that's not the full story. You see, Africa would be
[32:34] Speaker 2: in a stronger position to face off to the rest
[32:38] Speaker 2: of the world where we're running ourselves well. Our greatest
[32:43] Speaker 2: vulnerability is the poor governance of our own continent. Our
[32:48] Speaker 2: continent has not run itself well. So we're in a
[32:53] Speaker 2: situation now where you look at illicit flows that leave
[33:00] Speaker 2: the continent to go to illicit flows as in you know,
[33:04] Speaker 2: corruption money, you know, corruption process and all kinds of
[33:08] Speaker 2: things that flow out to the from the continent. In
[33:12] Speaker 2: the Atrillian Now, it is unbelievable that that would happen
[33:19] Speaker 2: to a continent that needs exactly such flows to invest
[33:26] Speaker 2: in its development, in its in building its human capital,
[33:31] Speaker 2: in building its critical infrastructure from power to uh technology backbones,
[33:38] Speaker 2: to to water systems, to you know, to roads and
[33:45] Speaker 2: to rails and pots, you know, the infrastructure that leads
[33:49] Speaker 2: to growth and all of the the investments that we
[33:56] Speaker 2: need in order to build the systems. You know, just
[34:02] Speaker 2: you can't get the development until you have those systems
[34:06] Speaker 2: in place we need all the money, but that money
[34:10] Speaker 2: gets pillaged and lands in the in the countries that
[34:15] Speaker 2: don't need them. Okay, so who did that?
[34:19] Speaker 5: We are people who did that.
[34:21] Speaker 2: Okay, A people did that? You can and which is
[34:24] Speaker 2: something that we do frequently because of my backgrounds a
[34:28] Speaker 2: co founder of Transparence International. We're talking about the fact
[34:32] Speaker 2: that those countries have a duty to not allow money
[34:38] Speaker 2: that's been thretted out of Africa to land in their
[34:43] Speaker 2: countries and they sit on them, you know, so they
[34:45] Speaker 2: have a duty global duty, as we have been saying.
[34:50] Speaker 2: Then you think of the fact that all of this
[34:53] Speaker 2: is coming from you know, leadership that is not that
[34:57] Speaker 2: is not strategic, that is not thinking of tomorrow. So
[35:04] Speaker 2: where are those flows mostly coming from? Two thirds of
[35:08] Speaker 2: African countries have one form of minerals or the other
[35:12] Speaker 2: two tads. Now you look at minerals and you behave
[35:17] Speaker 2: as if it's going to be there forever. Of course
[35:20] Speaker 2: not Gabon is grandfather in oil because the reserves over
[35:30] Speaker 2: time they dry up, they dry up. So when you
[35:35] Speaker 2: have those kinds of leaders who are not thinking of
[35:37] Speaker 2: the intergenerational, you know, implications of decisions that are being
[35:43] Speaker 2: made today you can hold somebody else accountable for that.
[35:47] Speaker 2: So we must know what factor is driving you know
[35:53] Speaker 2: what at any point in time. So you're right to
[35:57] Speaker 2: point out these global dimension of the problem of Africa's
[36:04] Speaker 2: under development. I mean, someone who wrote a book, I
[36:08] Speaker 2: think it was Walter Rodney who talked about how Europe
[36:11] Speaker 2: that developed Africa, you know, and there are many other
[36:14] Speaker 2: scholars that have paid attention to that. So Claude Aki,
[36:18] Speaker 2: you know, one of our own professor Aki, your generation
[36:22] Speaker 2: probably never know again, you know, but it was such
[36:25] Speaker 2: a brilliant political economy, you know, political scientists, you know,
[36:29] Speaker 2: from the University of Pottacot. He had a lot of
[36:32] Speaker 2: this is around that. So there are structural impediments. But
[36:38] Speaker 2: guess what. We got independence the same time as Singapore,
[36:45] Speaker 2: as Malaysia, as South Korea, and a lot of them
[36:50] Speaker 2: have gone through similar kinds of or even have even
[36:53] Speaker 2: a country like Indonesia Indonesia if you didn't put its
[36:57] Speaker 2: name as Indonesia and you just laid all these characteristics,
[37:01] Speaker 2: you think you're talking of Nigeria, and yet they have
[37:06] Speaker 2: those kinds of issues too. But leadership, yes, just completely
[37:12] Speaker 2: decided we will do our meaning we will take responsibility
[37:18] Speaker 2: for that which we must do. Because while we're taking
[37:21] Speaker 2: responsibility for that which we must do, it empowers us
[37:26] Speaker 2: with the moral authority and the strength to confront the
[37:32] Speaker 2: external issues, that issues that are holding us back.
[37:36] Speaker 1: Now while we talk about I mean, that's a very
[37:38] Speaker 1: profound one. So now we've seen what they do, as
[37:41] Speaker 1: Global said, now we look inward. The current structure we
[37:45] Speaker 1: have in Nigeria does not allow people. Really it's difficult
[37:48] Speaker 1: for people who work hard for their money to get
[37:52] Speaker 1: into certain political positions. First, the amount you must have,
[37:56] Speaker 1: the firms and everything. What do we say about these
[37:58] Speaker 1: structures that deliberately viewed locally to restrict those who don't
[38:02] Speaker 1: have corruption money to get into power.
[38:05] Speaker 2: Well, it's it's the it's the case of asking why
[38:16] Speaker 2: would why is a monopolist not being nice? And when
[38:22] Speaker 2: you send the prize of his product? Mm hmmm mmm yeah, true, true,
[38:29] Speaker 2: what incentive does a monopolist have to reduce the price
[38:34] Speaker 2: of his product? They have monopolized power. So what you
[38:41] Speaker 2: have is an Africa where democracy no longer belongs to
[38:47] Speaker 2: the people because the people, frankly, have not shown themselves
[38:52] Speaker 2: to appreciate and understand their duties and responsibilities in democracy. Okay,
[38:59] Speaker 2: So what has happened is that the politicians have now
[39:03] Speaker 2: held them to democracy in their own definition of it,
[39:10] Speaker 2: as that which belongs to them. And so politicians now
[39:15] Speaker 2: own Africa's democracy to the outer disengagement or poor representation
[39:23] Speaker 2: of the people of the people. Now they are taking
[39:28] Speaker 2: all the all the spoils of governance. They have her gemony,
[39:38] Speaker 2: over all the apparadise of the state. When I say
[39:44] Speaker 2: state here, I'm in country, right, So they have these
[39:52] Speaker 2: and the people that's how we started the lack of
[39:57] Speaker 2: the collective engagement of the people in saying this is
[40:01] Speaker 2: not right. We collectively say that what you've done is
[40:06] Speaker 2: not right. We collectively use what the instruments of democracy
[40:10] Speaker 2: give to us to call you to orders for doing
[40:14] Speaker 2: the wrong thing. That doesn't happen. So what do you
[40:17] Speaker 2: think they monopolist politicians assume? Not that they assume. What
[40:26] Speaker 2: do you think they play out? They play out the
[40:29] Speaker 2: conduct of the monopolist. Exactly wish is that there's no
[40:33] Speaker 2: incentive to do anything because there is no consequence for
[40:38] Speaker 2: not doing anything. The monopolist in an economic model is
[40:44] Speaker 2: a prize giver. He gives you the price he's not
[40:50] Speaker 2: a price taker. The monopolist does not care about quality
[40:57] Speaker 2: because whatever quality they give to you as a consum
[41:00] Speaker 2: that's what you ask you take it. They don't care
[41:03] Speaker 2: about the value. Whatever value they give, they don't worry
[41:11] Speaker 2: about competition because your position is well entrenched. So this
[41:16] Speaker 2: is what Africa is dealing with. A lot of people
[41:19] Speaker 2: haven't understood that the continent is in a very bad
[41:24] Speaker 2: place because if you don't correct the monopoly of the
[41:31] Speaker 2: politics of the continent by a few politicians that have
[41:36] Speaker 2: control through their political parties, and they might you might
[41:41] Speaker 2: think that these are different political parties. It doesn't. It doesn't.
[41:45] Speaker 2: Forget it. Africa's problem is not political party problem. It's
[41:49] Speaker 2: political class problem. Because they can wake up this morning
[41:54] Speaker 2: and be one party and by the next morning then
[41:57] Speaker 2: another party, and they carry the same min in set,
[42:01] Speaker 2: so they when you look at the the fact of
[42:06] Speaker 2: the homogeneity of their political mindset, it means that there
[42:11] Speaker 2: is a political culture that rewards the behavior of the
[42:17] Speaker 2: monopolist politicians and never punishes the behavior. So why should
[42:25] Speaker 2: they person who gains from bad behavior has no consequence
[42:34] Speaker 2: of punishment for it? Why should they stop? Something must
[42:39] Speaker 2: stop them and The thing that must stop them is
[42:43] Speaker 2: very clear. You first, you have to say, this kind
[42:49] Speaker 2: of a mindset cannot be on forever. Otherwise we're all
[42:56] Speaker 2: the continent is gone, right, So why how do we
[43:01] Speaker 2: get a new mindset? In terms of the political The
[43:05] Speaker 2: political culture has to change, and it can only change
[43:10] Speaker 2: when you build a different kind of political mindset. You're
[43:14] Speaker 2: building leaders who would put character at the center of
[43:19] Speaker 2: what they will be as politicians, who will think of
[43:23] Speaker 2: competence as something that they must have because they want
[43:26] Speaker 2: to produce results, unlike the ones who are just interested
[43:31] Speaker 2: in just accessing power in order to access the finance
[43:36] Speaker 2: right their money. They have to have the capacity to
[43:40] Speaker 2: solve complex problems, simple problems. They just can solve the
[43:45] Speaker 2: public problems. Right, So you build a new political class
[43:50] Speaker 2: by training people that you consider to be ready for
[43:56] Speaker 2: that kind of training. Yes, you are right. You train them,
[43:59] Speaker 2: and mass they entered, they stopped being your generation. Frankly
[44:06] Speaker 2: wants to repeat the same pattern by sort of saying
[44:10] Speaker 2: we don't care about politics. You, Well, my gen I
[44:17] Speaker 2: lent it because when I was in government, I hated politics.
[44:23] Speaker 2: I hated politics so much I couldn't stand the idea
[44:28] Speaker 2: of me being associated with politics and the politicians. They
[44:34] Speaker 2: I entered government as a technocrat. I didn't enter government
[44:37] Speaker 2: as a politican, as someone who was in the political
[44:39] Speaker 2: party or anything. And I and even as by the
[44:42] Speaker 2: time I was in government, I wasn't in the politics.
[44:46] Speaker 2: The party didn't know me as a politician. Yeah, okay.
[44:50] Speaker 2: So and then we leave government after the years of
[44:57] Speaker 2: reforms that we did. What do you think on themined
[45:00] Speaker 2: the reforms? Politics? True politics just took all the reforms
[45:06] Speaker 2: and tinted them as much as today when I when
[45:10] Speaker 2: when people say me, they said, Madam, due process, Ah,
[45:15] Speaker 2: I remember when you were doing due process in this country.
[45:19] Speaker 2: Due process is no longer due process. What happened to
[45:22] Speaker 2: your process? It's politics. Politics killed a reform that the
[45:27] Speaker 2: world celebrated. Another reform that I that I that I
[45:32] Speaker 2: was responsible for with my team is there. The extractive
[45:36] Speaker 2: industry is Transparency Initiative. It's called NATI Nigeria extractive. That's
[45:41] Speaker 2: the I mean. We got such global global acolades for
[45:48] Speaker 2: being in the first country that's signed on to not
[45:51] Speaker 2: just design and implement, adopt, design and implement the principles
[45:59] Speaker 2: of transparency in the oil and gas sector and in
[46:03] Speaker 2: the mineral sector we got it was part of the
[46:05] Speaker 2: reason for that reduction for Nigeria NiTi. We in our
[46:10] Speaker 2: own case we went further and underpendage with law. So
[46:16] Speaker 2: you have the Neiti Act that brought into existence the
[46:19] Speaker 2: agency that is known as NAITI. I don't even know
[46:23] Speaker 2: whether anybody knows that it exists, but once upon a time, yeah,
[46:29] Speaker 2: it's one of the indicators. You know, to get that reduction,
[46:32] Speaker 2: you don't just go and negotiate. There is a set
[46:34] Speaker 2: of reforms that you must do. So those reforms were
[46:39] Speaker 2: things that were important for us, and so they were known.
[46:44] Speaker 2: There were known reforms where a day today the politics
[46:50] Speaker 2: has just who luted them out? So that I then
[46:57] Speaker 2: look back and I say, it was stupid, of course
[47:01] Speaker 2: to have ignored the politics. You can be as technocratic
[47:05] Speaker 2: as you want for the politics will come for that
[47:09] Speaker 2: work that you have, okay to come for it. And
[47:13] Speaker 2: so it was after I had observed what politics is
[47:19] Speaker 2: doing to the to the countries, to the to my
[47:22] Speaker 2: own country and all the other countries in my advantage
[47:25] Speaker 2: position as a VP at the World Bank, that I
[47:29] Speaker 2: came to the realization that wait a minute, it was
[47:33] Speaker 2: people like me that Plato was speaking to He said
[47:38] Speaker 2: that those who think that politics is beneath them will
[47:41] Speaker 2: be ruled by their inferiors. He was. It was a
[47:50] Speaker 2: moment of revelation. I had sent those sports before, but
[47:54] Speaker 2: I didn't ever pay attention to it until he came home.
[48:00] Speaker 2: I saw what politics and politics look at the time
[48:03] Speaker 2: we're living government in two thousand and seven. Nobody could
[48:07] Speaker 2: have told me that some of the things that have
[48:14] Speaker 2: gone wrong it happened because we thought we had to
[48:18] Speaker 2: put or that I don't wanted to send as if
[48:21] Speaker 2: we had greeted an eldor. I do know there was
[48:24] Speaker 2: still so much we didn't You know, we did modest work,
[48:28] Speaker 2: but all you needed is modest work to build and
[48:32] Speaker 2: modest to build on and that would happen. I was
[48:35] Speaker 2: succeeded by some minister of education that when they asked,
[48:40] Speaker 2: what is your your mission in education, he said, it's
[48:44] Speaker 2: still reform as reforms, oh politics politics. So when your
[48:54] Speaker 2: generation looks at the continent and you say I'm angry,
[48:58] Speaker 2: well you're not asking the right questions that lead to
[49:02] Speaker 2: how to address the anger. You would all updicate responsibility
[49:07] Speaker 2: in the way that we did. Thinking we're doing the
[49:10] Speaker 2: technical things. Leave the politics. Let them be doing their politics.
[49:13] Speaker 2: Who were you leaving the politics to? You see the
[49:16] Speaker 2: difference between us and what Liquy you did? Was that
[49:21] Speaker 2: liaqu why you took his technical people and turned them
[49:25] Speaker 2: to techno politicians. Yeah?
[49:28] Speaker 4: True, that's what it is. Do you think democracy can
[49:32] Speaker 4: be Africa?
[49:34] Speaker 2: We haven't practiced democracy.
[49:36] Speaker 4: Is it designed to work?
[49:38] Speaker 2: It can work because it has worked in other places.
[49:42] Speaker 2: We haven't practiced democracy properly so called. What we have
[49:46] Speaker 2: done is what I explained to you. Look, post independence,
[49:51] Speaker 2: after the countries got their democracies and their independence, what
[49:55] Speaker 2: do you think happened? Quarrel? Some fis, yes, across a
[50:00] Speaker 2: number of the countries of the continent, before you knew
[50:04] Speaker 2: it ethnic rivalry, before you knew it this you know,
[50:07] Speaker 2: some group captured the power, helped them do it and
[50:11] Speaker 2: basically did where we started from, which is take it
[50:15] Speaker 2: to themselves. They basically are mustered and held them to
[50:18] Speaker 2: the power. And you know, we've still got some people
[50:22] Speaker 2: who were you know, presidents when their country got independents,
[50:26] Speaker 2: or people who you know fought some desports to cover
[50:31] Speaker 2: and became desports themselves. Would you call those types of situations.
[50:35] Speaker 2: Practicing democracy no Africa, you know, tends to pretend that, yeah,
[50:40] Speaker 2: you know, democracy is not. Democracy is a simple thing.
[50:44] Speaker 2: Democracy is the worst form of government until you've tried
[50:47] Speaker 2: the others. Did you get that good? This is Yes,
[50:54] Speaker 2: it's the worst form of government. Wait until you try
[50:57] Speaker 2: all the others, you know, because I mean, we grew up,
[51:03] Speaker 2: we grew up on the military rule. And I'm sorry,
[51:10] Speaker 2: I'm sorry, so so so so so so. Part of
[51:15] Speaker 2: what's going on is you've got societies that I won't
[51:19] Speaker 2: actually understood and practiced the ethos of democracy, the principles,
[51:26] Speaker 2: the values of democracy. Because the idea of democracy is
[51:29] Speaker 2: that it enables accountability. It's the corner stone of it's
[51:35] Speaker 2: it's it is. It is uncored on the rule of law,
[51:39] Speaker 2: the rule of law, not the rule, not the whims,
[51:42] Speaker 2: not the cap process of man. Rule of law. So
[51:46] Speaker 2: there there's there are rules of the game, so there's
[51:49] Speaker 2: a clarity as to what should happen. It is uncored
[51:53] Speaker 2: on constitutionalism. Yes, and and and and and that and
[51:57] Speaker 2: that no man, no woman is above the law. Democracy
[52:02] Speaker 2: properly practiced would mean that you have that political freedom
[52:08] Speaker 2: that leads to economic freedom. Okay, economic freedom when you
[52:14] Speaker 2: when you have democracy that is well practiced based on
[52:17] Speaker 2: the rule of law, it enables you have institutional mechanisms
[52:23] Speaker 2: that that would guide not just the government but the
[52:28] Speaker 2: people those in business. So there is something about it.
[52:32] Speaker 2: It then leads to this sense of the freedom to idea,
[52:38] Speaker 2: to to to think of ideas, and to know that
[52:44] Speaker 2: the rule of law protects your ideas and would reward
[52:49] Speaker 2: your ideas. So on the basis of that, you would
[52:52] Speaker 2: say that people would flourish. Right, people will flourish. So
[52:58] Speaker 2: in a society where bad behavior is rewarded and good
[53:03] Speaker 2: behavior is punished, what do you think is the is
[53:08] Speaker 2: the issue? The issue is that there are no rules
[53:14] Speaker 2: of law. Okay, there are no rules to that that
[53:18] Speaker 2: ensure that the it is the right thing that is rewarded.
[53:24] Speaker 2: It's it's it's there's a discussion. The Bible will say
[53:28] Speaker 2: there's an error. So we have been erroneous in practicing democracy,
[53:33] Speaker 2: and then we cry that democracy is not working in
[53:39] Speaker 2: in if you want to know where that democracy works,
[53:44] Speaker 2: look for families that are held. You will say that
[53:47] Speaker 2: democracy works.
[53:49] Speaker 5: Ah, real family, it's.
[53:53] Speaker 2: Healthy families, families that are working. Well. I'm not just
[53:57] Speaker 2: talking about physical health. I'm saying, yeah, when you look
[54:00] Speaker 2: at the families, because father is there accomuntable, yes, allowing
[54:06] Speaker 2: the children to you know, to know that good behavior
[54:10] Speaker 2: gets rewarded, bad behavior gets punished. Everybody is striving because
[54:15] Speaker 2: there are rules that guide. There's a mission statement for
[54:19] Speaker 2: the family people are you know? And then you look
[54:22] Speaker 2: at the other one where it's a house of confusion,
[54:26] Speaker 2: you would know that. Yeah. And then when you look
[54:30] Speaker 2: at that and you say, you're practicing democracy, but it's
[54:32] Speaker 2: not working. It's not working well.
[54:35] Speaker 4: I used to feel that it was designed.
[54:38] Speaker 1: So for instance, I personally feel that we got independence
[54:42] Speaker 1: at the time that we're not already structured.
[54:45] Speaker 2: No, I think we should not even have been colonized,
[54:48] Speaker 2: not to talk of being told, you know, I shouldn't
[54:50] Speaker 2: be thinking that we got independence, but also.
[54:53] Speaker 1: Of the opinion that we put our colonial masters and
[54:55] Speaker 1: are currently dere side by side. Some younger people say
[54:58] Speaker 1: seem to believe that they prefer the colonial mass.
[55:00] Speaker 2: They shouldn't think that way. They should they should correct
[55:04] Speaker 2: what's wrong at home, because it's a defeatist mindset. My goodness,
[55:10] Speaker 2: how can you possibly say your your your your you
[55:13] Speaker 2: were you're better rough with some external explain came to
[55:17] Speaker 2: exploit you, to extract out of you. That's like, you know,
[55:22] Speaker 2: that's it annoys me when I when I see this
[55:25] Speaker 2: lend helplessness. Are you crying your you're doing victimhood? What
[55:31] Speaker 2: kind of victimhood is that? Oh? You know the the
[55:34] Speaker 2: other people that made me a victim are better than
[55:38] Speaker 2: this new people? What's that? Gosh? That is that's despicable?
[55:45] Speaker 2: It is, you know. So what you should know is
[55:49] Speaker 2: that you should say to yourself, there is absolutely no reason.
[55:52] Speaker 2: That was the that was the basinis of Liquys leadership.
[55:57] Speaker 2: He said, Lique you was a man of dignity and
[56:00] Speaker 2: you know, such a honorable fellow. He just said, have
[56:04] Speaker 2: there the British thing that they're superior to have? Have
[56:07] Speaker 2: to have colonized us? So we're going to prove to them.
[56:11] Speaker 2: Well he did, because canna is something. Britain's incompact capita
[56:18] Speaker 2: is half that of Singapore today. Singapore is that eighty five?
[56:24] Speaker 2: This on something? Wow, Britain is that forty two thousand? Wo?
[56:30] Speaker 2: He proved it. So would you tell the person from
[56:34] Speaker 2: Singapore that they would have been better off with Britain?
[56:39] Speaker 2: They worked themselves out of it. They worked themselves out
[56:45] Speaker 2: of it. They had reason to prove that this was
[56:52] Speaker 2: an anomaly. Have we done the same? Have we done
[56:58] Speaker 2: the same? It? Look, let's really accept that the values
[57:08] Speaker 2: discussion hmm, that entered into the way that public leadership
[57:18] Speaker 2: is perceived was the undoing of our continent. People basically said,
[57:27] Speaker 2: if it has to do with the public interest, dear
[57:34] Speaker 2: interest would override it and became a non got normalized
[57:43] Speaker 2: as And because where where that nexos between colonial rule
[57:54] Speaker 2: and the post independence Africa where I can agree that
[58:03] Speaker 2: there is some causation and correlation is that in the
[58:13] Speaker 2: modern modern I normally do this in the modern post
[58:25] Speaker 2: independent state that Africa now had the institutions of accountability
[58:37] Speaker 2: that we heard before Africa was carved up and then
[58:43] Speaker 2: colonized were left behind. They didn't get integrated into the
[58:53] Speaker 2: alien one that either the French or the or the
[58:58] Speaker 2: British or the which are the country the portug you know,
[59:02] Speaker 2: the Portugues, you know, had had left behind. Okay, so
[59:08] Speaker 2: not bring in bridging that left the gap. That's why
[59:14] Speaker 2: you have this bifocation. That's why you can go to
[59:18] Speaker 2: a Budja still and you would say be a hero
[59:21] Speaker 2: to your community. But you can't come to the community
[59:24] Speaker 2: and still the god of the other family members, they
[59:27] Speaker 2: would come, all of them would join together to finish it. True,
[59:31] Speaker 2: so that there there's an issue, okay. So so that
[59:36] Speaker 2: gap created the the almost what I call the off
[59:41] Speaker 2: farming of the public space wos. It would take a
[59:55] Speaker 2: generation of and I love I, I love me the genesis.
[1:00:01] Speaker 2: I love them. I just really want them to have
[1:00:09] Speaker 2: the understanding that they can't design. Solving Africa's problem is
[1:00:17] Speaker 2: a design issue. They can. They can go back to
[1:00:20] Speaker 2: the table and with all the kinds of data that
[1:00:24] Speaker 2: I'm asking them to be interested in, they can design
[1:00:27] Speaker 2: a part way. There's even much more opportunity to transform
[1:00:32] Speaker 2: the continent today than there was during my time. Knowledge
[1:00:39] Speaker 2: is that it's cheapest today than any other time.
[1:00:45] Speaker 5: Have you have you ever had anything giving up on
[1:00:47] Speaker 5: your own generation?
[1:00:50] Speaker 2: I so you know me to be a fighter. I
[1:00:53] Speaker 2: don't like to think of helplessness. I don't like to
[1:00:59] Speaker 2: think of you know, I just don't like to think
[1:01:02] Speaker 2: of helplessness. So even if I'm just the one person
[1:01:06] Speaker 2: walking that I'm just going to keep working, you know,
[1:01:09] Speaker 2: So I don't I don't like the what what takes
[1:01:13] Speaker 2: away nature from me? Yeah? If I thought of my
[1:01:17] Speaker 2: own generation all the time, I would be too sad.
[1:01:20] Speaker 2: I'll be too sad because I feel like sometimes we
[1:01:24] Speaker 2: even the refusal to acknowledge our failures is very dangerous.
[1:01:30] Speaker 2: It is too dangerous, you know. You see, you see,
[1:01:35] Speaker 2: I've sometimes been in a place and somebody of my
[1:01:40] Speaker 2: generation starts telling the story with such with such relish
[1:01:45] Speaker 2: of how you know we were we used to be
[1:01:49] Speaker 2: just one person in one room in the university, or
[1:01:51] Speaker 2: two people in one room, and you're telling little children
[1:01:55] Speaker 2: who went to hostels that were now like, but words,
[1:01:59] Speaker 2: what are you doing telling that kind of a story?
[1:02:02] Speaker 2: Why are you doing that? You know? And you're not
[1:02:05] Speaker 2: telling it with remarks, you know, because yes, you're not
[1:02:10] Speaker 2: even telling it. It's almost like a total lack of
[1:02:13] Speaker 2: awareness that how can you be how can you be present?
[1:02:19] Speaker 2: The past and the present is so bad and this
[1:02:25] Speaker 2: present is something that we all accountable for as a generation.
[1:02:30] Speaker 2: So even though I've done my beat in this society,
[1:02:34] Speaker 2: I still feel uncomfortable for the fact that we don't
[1:02:38] Speaker 2: have the best of a country, of a continental hand
[1:02:43] Speaker 2: over to the generations after us. But even at that
[1:02:48] Speaker 2: I didn't say. I didn't so because it's it's on
[1:02:51] Speaker 2: the one hand, this is how I feel about my generation,
[1:02:55] Speaker 2: But on the other hand, I said to the younger generation,
[1:02:58] Speaker 2: for you to be cripple by this poor performance of
[1:03:03] Speaker 2: the older generation, just blaming and blaming, it's not going
[1:03:08] Speaker 2: to be hereful. So it gets to the point where
[1:03:11] Speaker 2: you say, Okay, this is what it is.
[1:03:14] Speaker 5: What should we do?
[1:03:15] Speaker 2: What shall we do now? And that's why I'm saying
[1:03:17] Speaker 2: that there there is actually a real opportunity for this
[1:03:22] Speaker 2: generation to learn all of the reasons that we failed. Okay,
[1:03:28] Speaker 2: for example, you know, our generation always operate at the
[1:03:34] Speaker 2: scarcity mindset, and I'm saying it show up in your
[1:03:37] Speaker 2: own generation. It's this person or that person. M why
[1:03:43] Speaker 2: can't you have one hundred people? You know, you guys,
[1:03:48] Speaker 2: you put all over your stars that you like, I
[1:03:52] Speaker 2: am fan something something, I am fun that other person,
[1:03:57] Speaker 2: and you just really go for each other. Why shouldn't
[1:04:00] Speaker 2: we have ten thousands of you being stars? I don't know,
[1:04:07] Speaker 2: it's a scarcity mentality. This was always the problem. People
[1:04:15] Speaker 2: just fighting to be that one person. Why should there
[1:04:20] Speaker 2: be one person? Why? You know? So that has to
[1:04:24] Speaker 2: be abandoned. It has to be abandoned. You have to
[1:04:27] Speaker 2: have an abundant mindset knowing that you can succeed. He
[1:04:32] Speaker 2: can succeed, she can success, she can succeed. All of
[1:04:35] Speaker 2: us can succeed. What does it take for all of
[1:04:38] Speaker 2: us to succeed? That mindset has to be one of
[1:04:41] Speaker 2: your design paths. Okay, Your design path has to be
[1:04:45] Speaker 2: the one that says, what is the thing that has
[1:04:49] Speaker 2: most harmed our society? It is selfishness of those who
[1:04:54] Speaker 2: should govern the public the common good. That selfishness, it
[1:04:59] Speaker 2: should not be seen amongst us. Wow, we cannot, you know,
[1:05:04] Speaker 2: love ourselves to the detriment of society. That's a design part.
[1:05:10] Speaker 2: When you're sitting to say how do we walk away
[1:05:12] Speaker 2: from this? That will be given? Those are the kinds
[1:05:15] Speaker 2: of things that should matter to you, because you then
[1:05:19] Speaker 2: shouldn't say, oh, do you know see what they have
[1:05:21] Speaker 2: told you know? And then you say, well, if we
[1:05:24] Speaker 2: can just insult all of them, you know, that's the
[1:05:31] Speaker 2: that it doesn't go anywhere, doesn't go anywhere. You know,
[1:05:37] Speaker 2: two people are handled same situation, and one works the
[1:05:42] Speaker 2: part of a lip by you. The other works the
[1:05:45] Speaker 2: part of our old generation. Wow, Wow, it's your tone again.
[1:05:54] Speaker 2: Now which one are you going to work? And I'm
[1:06:00] Speaker 2: saying to you that today's world has leveled some things
[1:06:05] Speaker 2: in my generation. For you to be global, you'd send
[1:06:11] Speaker 2: pempal letters from magazines you see, you know, people put
[1:06:15] Speaker 2: their picture say I'm looking for friends in Africa and
[1:06:19] Speaker 2: in Melsia and all of that that you would you
[1:06:21] Speaker 2: would write a pamper letter to the address that they
[1:06:26] Speaker 2: have sent. And then of course we had a night
[1:06:28] Speaker 2: post that may keep your letter that you wrote for
[1:06:32] Speaker 2: months before the person that you write into in Europe
[1:06:36] Speaker 2: or Asia gets it, God knows. And then you probably
[1:06:40] Speaker 2: would send a hundred of those kinds of letters and
[1:06:43] Speaker 2: maybe just two in some cases, maybe just one in
[1:06:47] Speaker 2: some cases. Nobody would respond today every one of who's
[1:06:51] Speaker 2: got a global footprint? Am I lie? You have friends
[1:06:57] Speaker 2: that you have never it's online, real time, it's instantaneous, right,
[1:07:06] Speaker 2: your global You have a global footprint. It's an opportunity
[1:07:11] Speaker 2: that we didn't have. It converts to something, It converts
[1:07:16] Speaker 2: to something. Think of the kind of knowledge I mean,
[1:07:20] Speaker 2: like today's skills are not defined in the way that
[1:07:25] Speaker 2: we define it. I recently was cannot speaker to the
[1:07:31] Speaker 2: vice chancellors from Commonwealth universities New Zealand, Australia cannot in
[1:07:38] Speaker 2: the UK, African countries and the Asian countries of course,
[1:07:43] Speaker 2: you know Commonwealth. And I said to them, I said
[1:07:47] Speaker 2: to them, I said, I hope you realize that those
[1:07:51] Speaker 2: young people in your classrooms would rather not be there
[1:07:55] Speaker 2: mm hmm everywhere everywhere you know. But trust me to
[1:08:02] Speaker 2: say it as it is right. I said, they would
[1:08:05] Speaker 2: better not be there. A lot of what they're learning
[1:08:08] Speaker 2: is not what you're teaching them. Wow, I said, today's
[1:08:12] Speaker 2: university has designed is not fit for purpose for the
[1:08:19] Speaker 2: gen Z generation. I said, they've already designed their own university.
[1:08:23] Speaker 2: There melod doing this to fulfill some righteousness. And what
[1:08:27] Speaker 2: I can tell you is it that in a few
[1:08:29] Speaker 2: years from now, they're going to abandon the whole thing. Yes,
[1:08:35] Speaker 2: universe as correctly constituted. You will argue, it will happen.
[1:08:41] Speaker 2: I think Nigerians are still sleeping on on what AI
[1:08:47] Speaker 2: is doing to the world. I think they're sleeping. So
[1:08:52] Speaker 2: your generation is going to be a generation that is
[1:08:55] Speaker 2: about these skills, and these skills are not about sitting
[1:09:00] Speaker 2: for a four year programmed to get it certificate Now
[1:09:06] Speaker 2: that's a that's an incredible opportunity. Or you have to
[1:09:11] Speaker 2: understand it. You have to understand it, you have to
[1:09:15] Speaker 2: link in to it, you have to master it. But
[1:09:18] Speaker 2: above all, what your generation doesn't seem to realize is
[1:09:23] Speaker 2: that with AI being able to do the most complex
[1:09:28] Speaker 2: of things or humanity, that what the world will be
[1:09:33] Speaker 2: needed is human beings. Well, the fact that you know
[1:09:41] Speaker 2: calculus will not give you your edge anymore, because A
[1:09:46] Speaker 2: I can do, who needs who needs you doing that?
[1:09:51] Speaker 2: What the world is going to need in the In
[1:09:54] Speaker 2: the we are at a civilizational inflection point. It's yes,
[1:10:01] Speaker 2: this particular civilization is going out. It's going out. It's
[1:10:07] Speaker 2: similar to Hunter Gadhra gave way to agricultural revolution changed
[1:10:15] Speaker 2: the world, and then agricultural revolution gave way to industrial revolution.
[1:10:21] Speaker 2: Steam engine changed the world radically. So we are at
[1:10:25] Speaker 2: an civilizational inflection point. And what that essentially means is
[1:10:31] Speaker 2: that you have to play with a different set of rules.
[1:10:35] Speaker 2: If you have to, you have to completely just win
[1:10:40] Speaker 2: yourselves of the past paradigm of thought, your thought process,
[1:10:48] Speaker 2: your way that you see the world, and now be
[1:10:52] Speaker 2: prepared for what is this new context requiring of me
[1:10:57] Speaker 2: and I am here to just tell you all that
[1:11:01] Speaker 2: that it is not going to is it is. It
[1:11:05] Speaker 2: is going to require your technical skills, but more important
[1:11:09] Speaker 2: to give you a competitive edge, it's going to be
[1:11:13] Speaker 2: your value skill set.
[1:11:15] Speaker 5: Values.
[1:11:16] Speaker 2: Yes, that's what that's always worried about. Now when we gather,
[1:11:21] Speaker 2: I mean, that's what we're worried about now when we
[1:11:25] Speaker 2: gather in board meetings that that I am part of,
[1:11:30] Speaker 2: and we're having those discussions when we're talking about the
[1:11:34] Speaker 2: value skill sets, because that's the only way we can
[1:11:38] Speaker 2: protect ourselves against the dangers that I will unleash on
[1:11:42] Speaker 2: the world. Huge, dangerous, but the opportunities are incredible and
[1:11:50] Speaker 2: it could be what changes our continent if we had
[1:11:54] Speaker 2: good governance. It's the absence of I am never because
[1:11:59] Speaker 2: this apps sense of good governance could mean that true,
[1:12:05] Speaker 2: the level of gap between Africa and the rest of
[1:12:09] Speaker 2: the world, which will be so much I mean like
[1:12:13] Speaker 2: literally it could be. It could resemble what Ellen Musk
[1:12:18] Speaker 2: is already imagining. It carries the ones that you would
[1:12:22] Speaker 2: like to carry to Mars and then leave the rest
[1:12:26] Speaker 2: to be discussion of.
[1:12:26] Speaker 1: They to see countries like Luanda who seen care they
[1:12:30] Speaker 1: have structures in their country where they are preparing the
[1:12:33] Speaker 1: youth working with them. In terms of air revolution, I've
[1:12:36] Speaker 1: not seen that in Ideria at the moment.
[1:12:38] Speaker 2: I think the government, you know, Bosuti Journey is doing
[1:12:41] Speaker 2: something around ai, you know, engaging young people. Oh, yes,
[1:12:46] Speaker 2: that's something I don't I don't know the quite the
[1:12:49] Speaker 2: name of it, the name of that one thousand something,
[1:12:54] Speaker 2: and I think I have sometimes seen conversations around it.
[1:13:00] Speaker 2: But but you know what what Nigeria could be doing
[1:13:05] Speaker 2: right now is just unbelievable. Yeah, it could be unbelievable
[1:13:10] Speaker 2: because you've got to mobilize the entire society. Africa needs
[1:13:14] Speaker 2: to be mobilizing Africans for a post. You know, this
[1:13:22] Speaker 2: whole particular structure. That's the way. And the interesting thing
[1:13:31] Speaker 2: is that education is key for it. But you know,
[1:13:37] Speaker 2: the level of education that's most important for the for
[1:13:43] Speaker 2: this revolution is what I started with. Foundational learning. The
[1:13:49] Speaker 2: foundational learning, literacy, numeroucy, social emotional skills, the power of
[1:13:56] Speaker 2: critical thinking. Once you have this foundation, leave the child.
[1:14:04] Speaker 2: University education is not going to be in the normal
[1:14:09] Speaker 2: or you know, I'm going to study sociology for four years.
[1:14:13] Speaker 2: I'm going to you know, I hope you know that
[1:14:16] Speaker 2: medicine is going to be completely We've said it.
[1:14:21] Speaker 5: We said it.
[1:14:22] Speaker 2: Medicine. Medical doctors have to prepare themselves, just accountants, lawyers.
[1:14:31] Speaker 2: I mean, it's unbelievable. A number of the number of
[1:14:34] Speaker 2: the the financial companies, the banks, and the investment companies
[1:14:40] Speaker 2: in the US already letting go of their retained the
[1:14:44] Speaker 2: retainers that they used to have. They don't need them.
[1:14:49] Speaker 2: It's a complete transformation of economic structure, you know. And
[1:14:57] Speaker 2: without good governance. That's why if there's anything that the
[1:15:01] Speaker 2: young Africans should be fighting for with all their lives,
[1:15:04] Speaker 2: is to just retire all the all the bad ways
[1:15:08] Speaker 2: of politics. That's the most important. It cannot be difficult.
[1:15:13] Speaker 2: It cannot be difficult if they understand how to work
[1:15:17] Speaker 2: as it collected it, you know, they and the thing
[1:15:20] Speaker 2: that that is important is to say, what's what's the vision?
[1:15:25] Speaker 2: The vision is to have good governance. Right if studies
[1:15:31] Speaker 2: have shown you that without good governance, you cannot get
[1:15:36] Speaker 2: economic groot. Without economic groot, you cannot reduce poverty without
[1:15:43] Speaker 2: economic grout, you cannot get prosperity without economic growth, you
[1:15:48] Speaker 2: cannot get to development. What are you going to do?
[1:15:51] Speaker 2: You're going to face that particular thing they tell you
[1:15:54] Speaker 2: is your biggest barrier. Once you face that then and
[1:15:58] Speaker 2: you you tackle it, then it's easier to begin to
[1:16:04] Speaker 2: do the things that I don't. You know, one of
[1:16:06] Speaker 2: the things that I said to people is nobody is
[1:16:09] Speaker 2: so China coming three decades ago.
[1:16:12] Speaker 5: True, very true.
[1:16:16] Speaker 2: Nobody is so China coming. They just mustard they the
[1:16:23] Speaker 2: whole template of how economies grow. Yes, it's the easiest
[1:16:29] Speaker 2: thing to do. But if the toughest thing to do
[1:16:33] Speaker 2: is to create the environment for that mastery, that's what happened, right,
[1:16:40] Speaker 2: So creating the environment is you see a lot of
[1:16:42] Speaker 2: the bunch of politicians you have in Nigeria, you think
[1:16:45] Speaker 2: they are they are not thinking beyond Some of them
[1:16:47] Speaker 2: are celebrating the world going on in the Middle East. Hey,
[1:16:51] Speaker 2: and because it's bringing more money from oil. True, that's
[1:16:55] Speaker 2: what they're saying.
[1:16:56] Speaker 5: True, true, true.
[1:16:57] Speaker 2: They are saying, Hey, finally our budget will be which budget? Budget?
[1:17:03] Speaker 2: That leads to what what are the outcomes from twenty
[1:17:07] Speaker 2: twenty four twenty twenty five budget? Have they told you?
[1:17:11] Speaker 2: Have they given you the indicators of what the budget
[1:17:15] Speaker 2: of twenty twenty four twenty twenty five achieved? Now they're saying, Ah,
[1:17:22] Speaker 2: the budget they may have budgeted on whatever amount a barrel,
[1:17:29] Speaker 2: now it's probably like eighty percent more more than the
[1:17:34] Speaker 2: price at which they budgeted, or maybe maybe would be conservative.
[1:17:38] Speaker 2: Let's just even say forty percent. That's significant, right. So
[1:17:44] Speaker 2: for the for a lot of them, they're not thinking,
[1:17:48] Speaker 2: how do we translate this buffer into more human capital
[1:17:55] Speaker 2: that is fit for purpose, that can be the business
[1:17:59] Speaker 2: of economic rood. How do we translated to critical infrastructure.
[1:18:04] Speaker 2: It's a conversion thing. You have money coming from capital
[1:18:09] Speaker 2: that easily that easily dwindles because whether it's oil, like
[1:18:14] Speaker 2: I was telling you, whether it's oil, where it's gas.
[1:18:17] Speaker 2: There is a cell by date. Okay, Now, what countries
[1:18:22] Speaker 2: do is to make sure that they plan for the
[1:18:26] Speaker 2: cell by date. By all the money that comes, they
[1:18:30] Speaker 2: spend it well, they put some of it away. So
[1:18:33] Speaker 2: Norway is a typical story of that. Norway has the
[1:18:37] Speaker 2: largest sovereign wealth fund in the world trillion plus something something.
[1:18:43] Speaker 2: You know, I've lost kind of what it is now,
[1:18:47] Speaker 2: but Norways you know, sovereing well fund. But also whatever
[1:18:53] Speaker 2: they were budgeting, they were making sure that they efficient
[1:18:57] Speaker 2: they are effectively invested in the right place. Priorities to
[1:19:01] Speaker 2: give them the society in which people could think of
[1:19:06] Speaker 2: ideas and flourishing their ideas. Because ultimately it is your
[1:19:11] Speaker 2: human capital that drives your growth. The principle these lot
[1:19:15] Speaker 2: of infrastructure and institutions and regulatory systems are bureaucratic, you know,
[1:19:22] Speaker 2: context that supports them. All of those ones will happen
[1:19:28] Speaker 2: by the agency of the human being. So if you
[1:19:31] Speaker 2: don't train those human beings, even though even if you
[1:19:34] Speaker 2: have power, but the end the people are not trained,
[1:19:39] Speaker 2: they can't keep the power one and they so human
[1:19:45] Speaker 2: capital is so important. But my point back again to
[1:19:50] Speaker 2: the AI world that we're already in in in fact
[1:19:54] Speaker 2: we've long been in it, you know, is to say
[1:20:00] Speaker 2: every child that goes to school grade one, grade two,
[1:20:10] Speaker 2: grade three, by the time they are the age of ten,
[1:20:15] Speaker 2: they must have those critical skills of literacy, numercy, social, emotional. Yeah. Yes,
[1:20:24] Speaker 2: so that with those foundational skills they can navigate the world.
[1:20:29] Speaker 2: That's what that's what research is showing us. And today
[1:20:34] Speaker 2: it's not so nine out of everything don't have it. Wow,
[1:20:40] Speaker 2: that's a disaster. In an AI world. Nine out of
[1:20:46] Speaker 2: every ten African children that you see they go to school,
[1:20:50] Speaker 2: but they are not learning. Schooling is not learning.
[1:20:55] Speaker 5: Mm hmm. Schooling is not learning?
[1:21:00] Speaker 2: What true schooling is not learning? And the way to
[1:21:08] Speaker 2: solve it where we know, you know, structured pedagogy. The
[1:21:17] Speaker 2: method of teaching matters. It's not just about the quality
[1:21:21] Speaker 2: of the teacher, but the method of teaching. Teaching at
[1:21:26] Speaker 2: the right level. Have making sure that every child has
[1:21:31] Speaker 2: access to the kind of textbook that they need. Some
[1:21:36] Speaker 2: of the children doing multilingual teaching, we know evidence of
[1:21:44] Speaker 2: what works. That's why, you know, when I saw the
[1:21:47] Speaker 2: data in twenty nineteen, twenty twenty, I saw that data
[1:21:54] Speaker 2: of the study on foundational learning, like what mm hm,
[1:22:03] Speaker 2: not that it didn't exist when you know, when I
[1:22:05] Speaker 2: was Minister of Education, I saw that children were not
[1:22:09] Speaker 2: really you know, the level of learning. You know, we're
[1:22:12] Speaker 2: losing more children to being you know, being promoted from
[1:22:16] Speaker 2: one class to the other without having that strong foundation.
[1:22:20] Speaker 2: So part of what we began to we had the
[1:22:23] Speaker 2: textbook policy that would address it, so that access to
[1:22:27] Speaker 2: textbook you know, instructional and then instructional materials for the teachers.
[1:22:32] Speaker 2: So the kind of training one of the lessons one
[1:22:36] Speaker 2: of the things that we launched when I was Minister
[1:22:40] Speaker 2: of Education was focused on the teachers. So we had
[1:22:45] Speaker 2: uh I think we had step you know, uh the
[1:22:49] Speaker 2: we we also had the program that was addressing in
[1:22:56] Speaker 2: service training for teachers so that you could just improve
[1:23:02] Speaker 2: their method of teaching. We had the teacher upgrade program.
[1:23:11] Speaker 2: Stop where what were we doing with this? I met
[1:23:16] Speaker 2: a Ministry of Education, where an education sector where twenty
[1:23:23] Speaker 2: something years before I got there, we had outlawed teacher
[1:23:31] Speaker 2: grid to certificate being all that teachers had in order
[1:23:35] Speaker 2: to teach in primary and secondary school. Because people were
[1:23:41] Speaker 2: holding teacher grade to certificate that they acquired like you know,
[1:23:46] Speaker 2: and we're in the classroom teaching and there had not
[1:23:49] Speaker 2: been any kind of upgrade of that. Wow. And so
[1:23:52] Speaker 2: when I when I saw that, you know, stay had
[1:23:55] Speaker 2: a significant number of the teachers. So we designed that
[1:24:02] Speaker 2: program and it was basically it's an upgrade program. So
[1:24:07] Speaker 2: all the colleges of education in the country, all the
[1:24:12] Speaker 2: departments of educating, you know, the faculties of education in
[1:24:16] Speaker 2: the country. The National Teacher Institute in Carduna designed an
[1:24:23] Speaker 2: upgrade program to take people to n c A level.
[1:24:28] Speaker 2: See yes, that is National Certificates for Education. That is
[1:24:32] Speaker 2: that is that became the minimum qualificationation for you to
[1:24:38] Speaker 2: be in the classroom.
[1:24:39] Speaker 5: That that was done when you were.
[1:24:41] Speaker 2: When I was, yes, most of my reforms in education,
[1:24:47] Speaker 2: I wasn't one of those that were trying to build
[1:24:49] Speaker 2: kinds of classrooms that were not going to be of
[1:24:52] Speaker 2: any use except opportunity for corruption. A lot of those
[1:24:57] Speaker 2: people telling you we built classrooms, so it was a corruption.
[1:25:01] Speaker 2: Content ah was a corruption. The things that improve learnin
[1:25:07] Speaker 2: for children. It's not the classroom that you're building.
[1:25:11] Speaker 5: I don't think it's now you wish you had done
[1:25:13] Speaker 5: then that you didn't do them.
[1:25:14] Speaker 2: No, my minute. The only thing that I wish had
[1:25:21] Speaker 2: happened was that Nigerians would have been strong enough to say,
[1:25:28] Speaker 2: you don't unravel reforms. A true I am wont for
[1:25:34] Speaker 2: taking accountability, but if you every time that people read
[1:25:41] Speaker 2: through the reforms in education for the actually for the
[1:25:46] Speaker 2: young older generation that followed the reforms, every time they're
[1:25:49] Speaker 2: seeing they actually hold me. They cry on my shoulder
[1:25:53] Speaker 2: and say, THI what a miss. Yes, so I don't.
[1:25:58] Speaker 2: I don't you know because it was incisive when I
[1:26:01] Speaker 2: was Minister of Minerals, because I do. I'm a policy.
[1:26:09] Speaker 2: I just I live for policies, you know. So I
[1:26:13] Speaker 2: enjoy policy issues because policies are really looking at the
[1:26:18] Speaker 2: problem and analytically figuring out how to sty you know.
[1:26:23] Speaker 2: So in minerals, in the mineral sector, the process of
[1:26:29] Speaker 2: identifying what we needed to do to transform the sector
[1:26:35] Speaker 2: to the level of the country with I benchmarked our
[1:26:39] Speaker 2: reform too. At that time it was Chile. Chile had
[1:26:44] Speaker 2: taken its copper industry as a mining sector, as a
[1:26:48] Speaker 2: mining country and done some important reforms. And then I
[1:26:53] Speaker 2: also then had to read every piece of relevant literature
[1:26:58] Speaker 2: on mining jurisdic and what are the critical success factors
[1:27:04] Speaker 2: for those ones that succeeded. And by doing that and
[1:27:10] Speaker 2: using all the indicators of success and measures that were taken,
[1:27:14] Speaker 2: and then putting it side by side the ministry the
[1:27:18] Speaker 2: sector that I had inherited as a minister, I could
[1:27:21] Speaker 2: see clearly what reforms we needed to do and the
[1:27:25] Speaker 2: number of reforms we needed to do for me at
[1:27:28] Speaker 2: the Ministry of Minerals were tight. Hundred and seven reforms tasks. Yes,
[1:27:36] Speaker 2: And the President had said to me, you know, I
[1:27:40] Speaker 2: need you to reform the sector in six months. Of course,
[1:27:44] Speaker 2: I didn't let him get away with it. I said,
[1:27:46] Speaker 2: all these your ministers before you asked me to go
[1:27:49] Speaker 2: to solid minerals. How many months did you give them
[1:27:52] Speaker 2: to reform theirs? I mean, I had to find that right.
[1:27:58] Speaker 2: So but I said, he said, I know you will,
[1:28:01] Speaker 2: I know you will. Yes, So I went to that
[1:28:05] Speaker 2: sector and one hundred and seven tasks, including the new
[1:28:13] Speaker 2: the Act that under pins the sector. Yes, that was
[1:28:17] Speaker 2: my work with my team, the new Minerals Act, because
[1:28:21] Speaker 2: we needed to have a Minerals Act that was not
[1:28:23] Speaker 2: destroying this sector. The Minerals Act that I had, that
[1:28:27] Speaker 2: I inherited, had Minister Shall, Minister Shall, Minister Shall in
[1:28:32] Speaker 2: a sector that is a private sector sector in the
[1:28:35] Speaker 2: other parts of the world, so you give the minister
[1:28:38] Speaker 2: all the powers. That's not a sector that is that
[1:28:43] Speaker 2: is what do you call it? That is ready. It
[1:28:47] Speaker 2: is a sector that is concentrated power and that discretionary
[1:28:51] Speaker 2: power is it is a turn off for global capital.
[1:28:55] Speaker 2: So we had to work on a new legislation that
[1:28:59] Speaker 2: on the stood the context of global capital and how
[1:29:06] Speaker 2: decision making concerning that sector needed to be based on
[1:29:12] Speaker 2: the rule of law. So we changed that legislation. That's
[1:29:16] Speaker 2: why in that legislation you don't define minister's authority.
[1:29:21] Speaker 4: In just a few sections because they're not given for expectations.
[1:29:25] Speaker 2: Because, for example, the the idea that I would sit
[1:29:32] Speaker 2: in the office and all of you will come and
[1:29:35] Speaker 2: line up in my in my office waiting for to
[1:29:40] Speaker 2: have a meeting with me, so I will give you license.
[1:29:42] Speaker 2: What is that? That is social? That is social lesslie
[1:29:47] Speaker 2: annoying theater. So I was like, no, no, no, sorry,
[1:29:53] Speaker 2: that's not what my contemporary in other parts of the
[1:29:57] Speaker 2: world that doing your time mm hmm with your time. Yeah,
[1:30:02] Speaker 2: I supposed to be taking strategy. I'm supposed to be
[1:30:05] Speaker 2: ambition in the sector, thinking strategy, articulating policy, and I'm
[1:30:11] Speaker 2: going to sit and be haggling license with you people. No,
[1:30:15] Speaker 2: so what do you do? We designed what is known
[1:30:18] Speaker 2: as a mining cadastral system. You don't have to come
[1:30:22] Speaker 2: anywhere near my office. There is a technology that enables
[1:30:27] Speaker 2: you go. You ready, you go. First of all, we
[1:30:30] Speaker 2: had to do air bond your physical survey before I
[1:30:35] Speaker 2: became minister, before the administration of President of Passenger. The
[1:30:39] Speaker 2: last airbone at the airborne survey, and it was very limited,
[1:30:43] Speaker 2: was done by the British Wow. So we didn't know
[1:30:47] Speaker 2: where we had occurrences of minerals. So so when I
[1:30:52] Speaker 2: when I was minister, we didn't air bond your physical
[1:30:55] Speaker 2: comprehensive and your physical service. And know, the Geological Survey
[1:31:01] Speaker 2: Agency used to be a department of the Ministry. Now
[1:31:04] Speaker 2: it's not global practice, so we have to give it
[1:31:07] Speaker 2: its autonomy. We did the legislation that enabled what you
[1:31:11] Speaker 2: call today NGSA Nigerian Geological Survey Agency. It was during
[1:31:16] Speaker 2: my time. So they the data from that air bund
[1:31:20] Speaker 2: your physical survey. You have to translate it that data.
[1:31:24] Speaker 2: When you go you say, I'm interested in exploring the
[1:31:28] Speaker 2: existence of uh you know colony in mineral I will
[1:31:33] Speaker 2: tell you the number that that we eventually found. And
[1:31:37] Speaker 2: and then you go to the Geological Survey they said
[1:31:40] Speaker 2: to you, oh, well, this is the data disk that
[1:31:43] Speaker 2: we have on it. You purchase your data disc. Then
[1:31:46] Speaker 2: you go to what replaced that power of the Minister
[1:31:51] Speaker 2: known as the Mining Cadastral Office. The Mining Cadastral Office
[1:31:56] Speaker 2: is a system that you go to you say, these
[1:32:01] Speaker 2: are the coordinates of where this data is showing I
[1:32:06] Speaker 2: would be able to find literer. Wow. You enter the
[1:32:10] Speaker 2: coordinates and it pops up information and says on the exploration,
[1:32:15] Speaker 2: meaning somebody has a hold on it to explore on it,
[1:32:20] Speaker 2: and it tells you what date that cold will be
[1:32:23] Speaker 2: over for them to reapply. Okay. Now he could also
[1:32:28] Speaker 2: say to you it is available. So what do you do?
[1:32:32] Speaker 2: You just register your interests and it recordeds to the
[1:32:36] Speaker 2: level of the second in which you did. Now, when
[1:32:39] Speaker 2: you've done that, and your assistant comes and he's also interested,
[1:32:44] Speaker 2: and he enters the exactly this and coordinate, the system
[1:32:47] Speaker 2: tells him it's already under consideration. No consideration now all right.
[1:32:53] Speaker 2: And then ultimately what you're require to do is to
[1:32:58] Speaker 2: now put in place all the documentation that is required.
[1:33:02] Speaker 2: You take it back into this system. The system tells
[1:33:05] Speaker 2: you that you are recognized as one that has an
[1:33:11] Speaker 2: exploration license and it is called first come, first set.
[1:33:19] Speaker 2: It's a technology then so so so so so basically,
[1:33:23] Speaker 2: what the Mining Cadastral Office exists to do is to
[1:33:28] Speaker 2: remove discretion. It cannot be a like Fermi, let me
[1:33:33] Speaker 2: give you license now, okay. So it brought that level
[1:33:38] Speaker 2: of transparency to the final sect of that is this
[1:33:46] Speaker 2: is I'm talking about legislation, all right. So so that
[1:33:51] Speaker 2: I diverted because we're talking education, and I wanted to
[1:33:54] Speaker 2: show you the difference. So in minerals one or seven
[1:33:58] Speaker 2: tasks that includ you did these legislations and building those
[1:34:02] Speaker 2: kuyds of agencies that are necessary to und uppear. But
[1:34:06] Speaker 2: you know what happened. I did the same thing. I
[1:34:08] Speaker 2: benchmarked Nigeria against. I used Singapore as a benchmark contribution
[1:34:16] Speaker 2: for education. By the time I did the same kind
[1:34:19] Speaker 2: of process that I did in solid miners, we needed
[1:34:24] Speaker 2: to do four hundred and six reforms four six, yes,
[1:34:31] Speaker 2: one O seven for thirty six. Why they have three
[1:34:35] Speaker 2: levels of education? That that is three phases of education.
[1:34:40] Speaker 2: You are at three level. You have many multiple issues
[1:34:45] Speaker 2: in education, you have multi layered matters on governance of education.
[1:34:53] Speaker 2: All of those things required changes, all right. So when
[1:34:59] Speaker 2: you now take that kind of a sector and you
[1:35:03] Speaker 2: have analytically outlined what these issues are, what these problems are,
[1:35:10] Speaker 2: and you've started solving for them as a country, and
[1:35:13] Speaker 2: suddenly a bunch of people come along and they say, ah,
[1:35:18] Speaker 2: that's the question, these ideas, that's where the politics enter
[1:35:24] Speaker 2: and who pays the children of the poor. That's the
[1:35:29] Speaker 2: saddest part for me. People can do whatever they like
[1:35:34] Speaker 2: but it doubly hurts me when the impact of that
[1:35:39] Speaker 2: action is on those that are poor and followable, because
[1:35:45] Speaker 2: the part way for social and economic mobility is that education.
[1:35:51] Speaker 2: So I was saying to you that at that time
[1:35:54] Speaker 2: in education, we already saw what was going on in
[1:35:58] Speaker 2: the disconnect between school and learning. The public school system
[1:36:02] Speaker 2: was failing the children of the poor because they were
[1:36:06] Speaker 2: the ones that were in those weak public schools where
[1:36:11] Speaker 2: quality of teacher as well as method of teaching, access
[1:36:17] Speaker 2: to instructional materials, access to textbooks, being able to evaluate
[1:36:24] Speaker 2: and monitor performance in order to measure the data and
[1:36:29] Speaker 2: then learn from it didn't exist. And one of my
[1:36:34] Speaker 2: reforms was precisely on that. So I had seen that
[1:36:37] Speaker 2: there was a problem. We were solving that problem. So
[1:36:40] Speaker 2: all that needed to happen was to continue to solve it,
[1:36:44] Speaker 2: not to stop it and begin to look for opportunities
[1:36:48] Speaker 2: to award contracts. I used to say to my team
[1:36:52] Speaker 2: in education, are you now Ministry of Works? Why are
[1:36:57] Speaker 2: you so interested in the things that consent contracts, you know,
[1:37:02] Speaker 2: purchasing and buying when there are policy directions that make
[1:37:08] Speaker 2: a difference. Right now, imagine Nigeria, Kenya, Senegal, Bakiner in
[1:37:17] Speaker 2: this same port doing that. That's how come whereas the
[1:37:23] Speaker 2: rest of the world the average is six out of
[1:37:27] Speaker 2: every ten children not achieving. Our own continent is nine
[1:37:31] Speaker 2: out of every ten children.
[1:37:33] Speaker 5: That's huge.
[1:37:35] Speaker 2: India came out as eight out of every ten children.
[1:37:41] Speaker 2: The Prime Minister was offended by it. You know what
[1:37:44] Speaker 2: he did, He saw that data went to work. Wow,
[1:37:47] Speaker 2: in the last four or five years, they have improved
[1:37:50] Speaker 2: learning outcomes of their children by twenty percent by twenty
[1:37:56] Speaker 2: What does this say to you, I'm back to the
[1:37:59] Speaker 2: young generation. You don't see something that offense and then
[1:38:02] Speaker 2: you say I'm angry and then you walk away. It's
[1:38:05] Speaker 2: like a man who looks at himself in the mirror,
[1:38:07] Speaker 2: like the Bible says right. No, he didn't work away.
[1:38:10] Speaker 2: He simply said, not under my watch, it will not happen.
[1:38:13] Speaker 2: I was a guest of the Indian government together with
[1:38:17] Speaker 2: colleagues within the global system for improving this situation. And
[1:38:23] Speaker 2: it was simple. A leader said, not under my watch
[1:38:28] Speaker 2: will children go to school and not learn.
[1:38:31] Speaker 5: So for them nights about five everything.
[1:38:33] Speaker 2: No, you know, no, No, they've improved the learning outcome
[1:38:37] Speaker 2: by by twenty percent, meaning that children who when failing that,
[1:38:43] Speaker 2: now twenty percent in terms of improvement in their learning outcomes.
[1:38:49] Speaker 2: So over time, it would just be that the system
[1:38:54] Speaker 2: enables a child that comes through it to be in
[1:38:58] Speaker 2: grade one, grade two Great Tree. By the age of ten,
[1:39:02] Speaker 2: they are ready with all these skills that are foundational
[1:39:07] Speaker 2: for future learning. It's a predictor of life long skills.
[1:39:15] Speaker 5: It is.
[1:39:16] Speaker 2: So we're joking and in an AI world, this is
[1:39:20] Speaker 2: the this is it. So imagine an I world when
[1:39:24] Speaker 2: nine out of all these are children don't have this minimum.
[1:39:30] Speaker 2: So it's not even a case of they didn't go
[1:39:32] Speaker 2: to university. It's that the minimum that they need to
[1:39:36] Speaker 2: engage this new world we didn't even give to them. Ah. No,
[1:39:41] Speaker 2: So being angry it is not enough. He's being effectively angry.
[1:39:49] Speaker 2: State you have to be effectively angry.
[1:39:53] Speaker 5: It's been a long week for you. That's really a
[1:39:56] Speaker 5: long day today.
[1:39:56] Speaker 2: Yeah, but when you get be talking about the development.
[1:40:00] Speaker 2: You can be talking about development because I kind of look,
[1:40:03] Speaker 2: I'm a retired person. I don't have to lift the
[1:40:06] Speaker 2: finger to do anything. But when I look at the continent,
[1:40:11] Speaker 2: you know, so this issue of the foundational learning I
[1:40:14] Speaker 2: am carrying. I'm like you know the world knows me
[1:40:17] Speaker 2: to be carrying it on my head like there's no tomorrow,
[1:40:20] Speaker 2: and there are countries that are ready because we know
[1:40:23] Speaker 2: what works. Do you understand you need the political will
[1:40:28] Speaker 2: for people to say these are the things that work,
[1:40:30] Speaker 2: we will do it. I will use my leadership to
[1:40:34] Speaker 2: ensure that it is when we do the budgeting for education,
[1:40:38] Speaker 2: those things that work are the things we will be
[1:40:41] Speaker 2: putting money to work, not building some ramshackle classrooms that
[1:40:46] Speaker 2: they're not building it for the children. I am telling
[1:40:49] Speaker 2: you on good I know, I know. I did the
[1:40:53] Speaker 2: public pocurementary form in this country. I've advised countries on
[1:40:59] Speaker 2: the continent their public procurement issues. The most of the
[1:41:04] Speaker 2: things you see where the where the politicians are happiest
[1:41:08] Speaker 2: to do around construction. It's all a bad corruption. It
[1:41:12] Speaker 2: has nothing to do with you know, the provision of
[1:41:16] Speaker 2: of of something that for the people now none, no,
[1:41:20] Speaker 2: forget it. This is the creamy part of their lives.
[1:41:24] Speaker 2: So so so frankly speaking for me, your effective anger
[1:41:31] Speaker 2: is to solve this problem of governance. If we don't
[1:41:36] Speaker 2: solve it, we can. You know, God has given us
[1:41:42] Speaker 2: the faculty for the things that we must do. God
[1:41:45] Speaker 2: is not going to be the one that would tell
[1:41:47] Speaker 2: us to say, you know, we shouldn't be governed by rubbish.
[1:41:51] Speaker 1: Ah, looking at your work at it at this age,
[1:42:01] Speaker 1: I was at you. I was on goring at your
[1:42:04] Speaker 1: talks of by.
[1:42:04] Speaker 2: Sixty Well next on the twenty eight, I'll be sixty
[1:42:09] Speaker 2: three now. So but I you know, like Caleb, I
[1:42:13] Speaker 2: can very much tell you that I feel like I'm
[1:42:15] Speaker 2: mad twenty three. Yes, you know, because it's it's in
[1:42:20] Speaker 2: the mind. Yes, And for me, there's so much the
[1:42:23] Speaker 2: continent has no business feeling. Oh no, we have no
[1:42:28] Speaker 2: business felling. We're not in another round where the minerals
[1:42:32] Speaker 2: on our continent will power the next the technologies of today.
[1:42:38] Speaker 2: So whether it's lithium battery is going to be so
[1:42:42] Speaker 2: important for everything. Minerals therese critical mineral assets. Now there's
[1:42:49] Speaker 2: a race going on for it. And yet we're not
[1:42:52] Speaker 2: already with governance. If you don't if that's why I'm
[1:42:55] Speaker 2: telling you guys that if you don't understand the power
[1:42:59] Speaker 2: of good governance to take us out of the the depth,
[1:43:05] Speaker 2: the what you guys normally called the trenches, what do
[1:43:09] Speaker 2: call that? And that you know your linked Yes, you know,
[1:43:12] Speaker 2: that's what if we don't understand the power of good governance.
[1:43:16] Speaker 2: This is the greatest obstacle. When somebody tells you that
[1:43:19] Speaker 2: this is your greatest obstacle, what do you do? You
[1:43:22] Speaker 2: face that thing. You don't go and be looking for
[1:43:26] Speaker 2: little little You know there's too much majoring in the minors. Oh,
[1:43:32] Speaker 2: you know, too much of majoring in the minors. So
[1:43:36] Speaker 2: you face that big obstacle, remove it. And it's saying
[1:43:40] Speaker 2: because it is your biggest obstacle, it means that all
[1:43:43] Speaker 2: the other obstacles can easily be worked on when you
[1:43:46] Speaker 2: have taken that one out. So so here we are.
[1:43:49] Speaker 2: Africa is once again in this thing where Kai, China, America,
[1:43:54] Speaker 2: Europe you're all competing for who can get a hold
[1:43:57] Speaker 2: of that the pot of these critical minerals and the continent.
[1:44:03] Speaker 2: Right now, what governance system do you have different from
[1:44:07] Speaker 2: the one that massively misused what Africa got from from oil, copper, diamond,
[1:44:20] Speaker 2: just name them. But what is different? The only thing
[1:44:24] Speaker 2: that can be different is you've been effectively angry and
[1:44:28] Speaker 2: saying we can't be governed by rubbish across the entire continent.
[1:44:34] Speaker 2: You need to say to yourself, you see character, competence, capacity.
[1:44:42] Speaker 2: Just character without competence and capacity won't help us because
[1:44:46] Speaker 2: you just have a very good nice man or woman
[1:44:49] Speaker 2: you cannot get we cannot mean's not competent, so it
[1:44:53] Speaker 2: won't help us. So they must have the three because
[1:44:56] Speaker 2: if they if they, if they also become Character is fundamental.
[1:45:01] Speaker 2: It is the it is the you know, it is
[1:45:05] Speaker 2: the what do you call it? The there's a word
[1:45:08] Speaker 2: I'm looking for, the bedrock, and the non negotiable. It's
[1:45:13] Speaker 2: the non negotiable. You must have it. And then that
[1:45:17] Speaker 2: person must come with competence and capacity, because with competence
[1:45:22] Speaker 2: they have the cognition to be able to follow to
[1:45:25] Speaker 2: new things, to read it thin and to comprehend it.
[1:45:29] Speaker 2: Then that capacity to be able to mobilize solutions to
[1:45:33] Speaker 2: problems and do not faint in the day of adversity.
[1:45:37] Speaker 2: You see leaders in Africa when oil prices or copper
[1:45:41] Speaker 2: prizes stumble, they start crying. You're crying. So you came
[1:45:46] Speaker 2: for the world of flourish. You don't know if we're
[1:45:50] Speaker 2: in the world of flourish, why do we need you
[1:45:52] Speaker 2: as a leader? Ah? True, it is time for me
[1:46:00] Speaker 2: to go.
[1:46:01] Speaker 1: Yes, last question, Then I let you go, the way
[1:46:04] Speaker 1: you work, the years of your track record, the things
[1:46:08] Speaker 1: you've done with world back education, solid minerals, something definitely
[1:46:12] Speaker 1: still keeping you awake at night concerning Africa.
[1:46:15] Speaker 2: Yeah, what is it? Our children and our grandchildren? You know,
[1:46:27] Speaker 2: it's I think it's unfair to them that they should
[1:46:34] Speaker 2: continue to be looked on as the laggards of the earth.
[1:46:41] Speaker 2: It's not a good heritage. It shouldn't be what we
[1:46:48] Speaker 2: live for them. It's an error. The Bible says, what
[1:46:53] Speaker 2: does it say about living an inheritance? You know, it's fair?
[1:47:01] Speaker 2: And for me it's it's it's my father raised us
[1:47:05] Speaker 2: with one of many things that we could and the
[1:47:13] Speaker 2: one that has actually really made me be this person
[1:47:20] Speaker 2: that some people look at and they think, how is
[1:47:26] Speaker 2: it a business? He raised us to say that the
[1:47:34] Speaker 2: only usefulness of privilege mm hmm is to use it
[1:47:39] Speaker 2: to bring those with that privilege into a privilege. Otherwise
[1:47:46] Speaker 2: so good, you know. So every time that I think
[1:47:52] Speaker 2: of life, I say, my privilege is useless except I
[1:48:01] Speaker 2: am doing. When I went to government all that time,
[1:48:05] Speaker 2: I mean the government I I did the Public Procurement reform,
[1:48:11] Speaker 2: did the nity, did Minister of minerals did Minister of Education.
[1:48:17] Speaker 2: In fact, one of my colleagues in the book that
[1:48:19] Speaker 2: they wrote, said that of the Economic Team members, I
[1:48:23] Speaker 2: was the one moved by the President to do so
[1:48:26] Speaker 2: many more things than the others. Maybe some too, but
[1:48:30] Speaker 2: due process extractive industries, nating solid minerals education, I was
[1:48:37] Speaker 2: a member of the Economic Team. I was a member
[1:48:39] Speaker 2: of the past sector reform team.
[1:48:41] Speaker 5: Wow.
[1:48:42] Speaker 2: So my using my privilege was important for me to
[1:48:51] Speaker 2: buy in the work that I did and in the
[1:48:53] Speaker 2: way that I did the work. Like Samuel I Will,
[1:48:58] Speaker 2: I have constantly said it, if I took your good
[1:49:02] Speaker 2: or your cow, please hmm, let us see it. Wow.
[1:49:08] Speaker 2: Because I didn't go to government too it chocolate. I
[1:49:12] Speaker 2: went because I've been fighting for a good society. And
[1:49:17] Speaker 2: so once I then stayed in government, it was all
[1:49:22] Speaker 2: my actions were going to go in the direction of
[1:49:24] Speaker 2: that fight for a good society. I had the leverage
[1:49:27] Speaker 2: to be able to do it in my sphere of responsibility,
[1:49:31] Speaker 2: so I did it. Now outside of government, I must
[1:49:35] Speaker 2: continue to use my privilege to fight for a society
[1:49:41] Speaker 2: that works, because that's the only way those people outside
[1:49:45] Speaker 2: of privilege, or those that are weakened by one overpowering
[1:49:50] Speaker 2: Nigeria state and politicians that don't care about the weak
[1:49:55] Speaker 2: and the vulnerable. They would get at least my voice.
[1:50:00] Speaker 2: Why I'm never going to keep quiet when anything is
[1:50:03] Speaker 2: wrong in this society. I won't keep quiet. You're not
[1:50:07] Speaker 2: afraid afraid of who? They should be afraid of me,
[1:50:12] Speaker 2: and I think they are. They are afraid of my voice.
[1:50:17] Speaker 2: It annoys them, and I like it because someday perhaps
[1:50:22] Speaker 2: it would achieve what it is meant to achieve, which
[1:50:27] Speaker 2: is unlock the minds of everyone to knowing that we
[1:50:31] Speaker 2: don't have to accept this thanks to the way they are.
[1:50:34] Speaker 2: No A, it's unfair. The children of the poor need
[1:50:41] Speaker 2: government to work. Yes, If government does not work, the
[1:50:46] Speaker 2: children of the poor cannot escape poverty.
[1:50:50] Speaker 5: Oh true.
[1:50:53] Speaker 2: The basic services that they need, a functional education system,
[1:50:57] Speaker 2: a functional health system is dependent on the effective governance
[1:51:02] Speaker 2: of Nigeria or Botswana, or Tanzania or Ghana. They need.
[1:51:08] Speaker 2: The poor need functioning governments. And when you think of
[1:51:17] Speaker 2: of the way that the politicians who are ruining the
[1:51:24] Speaker 2: chances of the majority, when you think of their pedic
[1:51:29] Speaker 2: where they've come from, their trajectory, I don't like to
[1:51:33] Speaker 2: use the word pedigree. You know, the trajectory. These people
[1:51:39] Speaker 2: mostly came from the bottom. So they now you take
[1:51:45] Speaker 2: off the ladder to enable the children of the poor
[1:51:51] Speaker 2: escape poverty. You're ruining society and sadly they're doing it
[1:51:57] Speaker 2: in a way that is not even intelligence. Because the
[1:52:02] Speaker 2: theory of enlightened self interest says that the middle class
[1:52:07] Speaker 2: have more to lose when society collapses, they are more
[1:52:14] Speaker 2: to lose. So they are more because why they have
[1:52:17] Speaker 2: more at stake. Okay, so what's enlightened self interest says
[1:52:24] Speaker 2: is that it is they now take responsibility for ensuring
[1:52:29] Speaker 2: that there is social mobility and economic mobility. But in
[1:52:34] Speaker 2: our own variant of middle class is some of these
[1:52:39] Speaker 2: people you see who think that you know, pillaging the
[1:52:42] Speaker 2: public treasury, how can it? In some account is the
[1:52:46] Speaker 2: way that you show that you're you're smart.
[1:52:50] Speaker 3: That is the.
[1:52:52] Speaker 2: Du'land who I don't even know how to how to
[1:52:55] Speaker 2: describe that. So so that's what you know, That's why
[1:52:59] Speaker 2: I I continue on this matter of we must get
[1:53:04] Speaker 2: good governance. Right, so you see me do the things
[1:53:09] Speaker 2: that I do, it's because of that. Look at and
[1:53:11] Speaker 2: then when I when I came to the conclusion that
[1:53:15] Speaker 2: persuading this political class that Africa has right now to
[1:53:22] Speaker 2: do the writings. You know, you you can have all
[1:53:26] Speaker 2: the conferences and invite them and talk to them and
[1:53:28] Speaker 2: preach to them, and they're not listening. I mean there's
[1:53:32] Speaker 2: no incentive. I described monopolical you know politics to you, right,
[1:53:37] Speaker 2: they have no incentive to change. So moral suasion doesn't
[1:53:42] Speaker 2: do anything for that. So what must we do. We
[1:53:45] Speaker 2: must build a new political class. That's why I designed
[1:53:49] Speaker 2: the School of Politics, Policy and Governance, the SPPG. So
[1:53:53] Speaker 2: we have to raise a new population of people who
[1:53:58] Speaker 2: think of public leadership on the basinis of the three
[1:54:01] Speaker 2: criteria that I talked about, character, competence, capacity. That's what
[1:54:05] Speaker 2: we train them for. So why should I you know,
[1:54:08] Speaker 2: I need to do this. So we have Nigeria, it's
[1:54:11] Speaker 2: in the sixth cohort. We have Kenya. They started their
[1:54:15] Speaker 2: first go Hurt last year. They will graduate the first
[1:54:18] Speaker 2: class their first go Hurt in August. They're already preparing
[1:54:23] Speaker 2: for their second admission. We have Senegal they are starting
[1:54:29] Speaker 2: the admission process for their second court. Then Ghana is
[1:54:33] Speaker 2: coming on starting in the next quarter of this year.
[1:54:38] Speaker 2: Where my vision is that at least twenty countries in Africa.
[1:54:43] Speaker 2: We have systems for raising these new kind of leaders This,
[1:54:49] Speaker 2: this is it. You're that leadership is what will tackle
[1:54:53] Speaker 2: the governance. And you know the admiration they are normally
[1:54:59] Speaker 2: they the bad governance that has held Africa around for
[1:55:03] Speaker 2: too long. So that's why I will not stop.
[1:55:09] Speaker 1: Wow, I believe everyone watching this right now few I
[1:55:14] Speaker 1: think there's mixed feelings. First, is your life, Like I said,
[1:55:18] Speaker 1: it's like a light, it's it burns, coruss, it eradicates
[1:55:24] Speaker 1: it and for me, I'm inspired by that and your
[1:55:29] Speaker 1: thoughts process.
[1:55:31] Speaker 5: I don't even have to describe it.
[1:55:33] Speaker 1: I just want to thank you profoundly for coming today
[1:55:36] Speaker 1: despite your very busy schedule. And there are things you've
[1:55:41] Speaker 1: said today that will go down history and as things
[1:55:43] Speaker 1: that will serve as compass for us as we navigate.
[1:55:46] Speaker 5: We do need your voice more.
[1:55:48] Speaker 1: Than ever at this time, and this platform is to
[1:55:50] Speaker 1: break that gap, to get it more closer to my generation.
[1:55:53] Speaker 4: And it's so impressive hearing this from you.
[1:55:56] Speaker 5: Thank you so much.
[1:55:58] Speaker 2: I want to thank you. I want to thank you
[1:55:59] Speaker 2: for you know, the things that you do. I want
[1:56:02] Speaker 2: to thank you for raising the generation to understand that
[1:56:08] Speaker 2: a life of purpose is the most meaningful life, you know,
[1:56:14] Speaker 2: rcially profiting man or to gain the whole world and
[1:56:17] Speaker 2: lose their soul. For every one of us born into
[1:56:20] Speaker 2: this world, there's a purpose behind us. And the worst
[1:56:24] Speaker 2: thing you can do is to take the lowest command
[1:56:29] Speaker 2: denominator of purpose. And I see people who are who
[1:56:34] Speaker 2: are becoming so tired, so discouraged by what they see
[1:56:41] Speaker 2: around them, and so they are opting for the least
[1:56:44] Speaker 2: common denominator. They shouldn't, especially the millennials and the gen zs.
[1:56:52] Speaker 2: They shouldn't. They should fight for official that that can
[1:56:58] Speaker 2: be anything desire for it to be. I believe that
[1:57:03] Speaker 2: Africa can claim the twenty first century. With China and
[1:57:08] Speaker 2: now India increasingly can begin to escape poverty in the
[1:57:13] Speaker 2: way that they have done. How much more Africa and
[1:57:19] Speaker 2: it's every generation is born for its own time.
[1:57:25] Speaker 5: Thank you, thank you so much for coming.
[1:57:29] Speaker 2: Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you
[1:57:31] Speaker 2: so much.

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