Transcript of President Bill Clinton's Address to the 2012 Democratic National Convention

PRESIDENT BILL CLINTON: Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. (Sustained cheers, applause.) Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Now, Mr. Mayor, fellow Democrats, we are here to nominate a president. (Cheers, applause.) And I’ve got one in mind. (Cheers, applause.)

I want to nominate a man whose own life has known its fair share of adversity and uncertainty. I want to nominate a man who ran for president to change the course of an already weak economy and then just six weeks before his election, saw it suffer the biggest collapse since the Great Depression; a man who stopped the slide into depression and put us on the long road to recovery, knowing all the while that no matter how many jobs that he saved or created, there’d still be millions more waiting, worried about feeding their own kids, trying to keep their hopes alive.

I want to nominate a man who’s cool on the outside — (cheers, applause) — but who burns for America on the inside. (Cheers, applause.)

I want — I want a man who believes with no doubt that we can build a new American Dream economy, driven by innovation and creativity, but education and — yes — by cooperation. (Cheers.)

And by the way, after last night, I want a man who had the good sense to marry Michelle Obama. (Cheers, applause.)

You know — (cheers, applause). I — (cheers, applause).

I want — I want Barack Obama to be the next president of the United States. (Cheers, applause.) And I proudly nominate him to be the standard-bearer of the Democratic Party.

Now, folks, in Tampa a few days ago, we heard a lot of talk — (laughter) — all about how the president and the Democrats don’t really believe in free enterprise and individual initiative, how we want everybody to be dependent on the government, how bad we are for the economy.

This Republican narrative — this alternative universe — (laughter, applause) — says that every one of us in this room who amounts to anything, we’re all completely self-made. One of the greatest chairmen the Democratic Party ever had, Bob Strauss — (cheers, applause) — used to say that ever politician wants every voter to believe he was born in a log cabin he built himself. (Laughter, applause.) But, as Strauss then admitted, it ain’t so. (Laughter.)

We Democrats — we think the country works better with a strong middle class, with real opportunities for poor folks to work their way into it — (cheers, applause) — with a relentless focus on the future, with business and government actually working together to promote growth and broadly share prosperity. You see, we believe that “we’re all in this together” is a far better philosophy than “you’re on your own.” (Cheers, applause.) It is.

So who’s right? (Cheers.) Well, since 1961, for 52 years now, the Republicans have held the White House 28 years, the Democrats, 24. In those 52 years, our private economy has produced 66 million private sector jobs.

So what’s the job score? Republicans, 24 million; Democrats, 42 (million). (Cheers, applause.)

Now, there’s — (cheers, applause) — there’s a reason for this. It turns out that advancing equal opportunity and economic empowerment is both morally right and good economics. (Cheers, applause.) Why? Because poverty, discrimination and ignorance restrict growth. (Cheers, applause.) When you stifle human potential, when you don’t invest in new ideas, it doesn’t just cut off the people who are affected; it hurts us all. (Cheers, applause.) We know that investments in education and infrastructure and scientific and technological research increase growth. They increase good jobs, and they create new wealth for all the rest of us. (Cheers, applause.)

Now, there’s something I’ve noticed lately. You probably have too. And it’s this. Maybe just because I grew up in a different time, but though I often disagree with Republicans, I actually never learned to hate them the way the far right that now controls their party seems to hate our president and a lot of other Democrats. I — (cheers, applause) — that would be impossible for me because President Eisenhower sent federal troops to my home state to integrate Little Rock Central High School. (Cheers, applause.) President Eisenhower built the interstate highway system.

When I was a governor, I worked with President Reagan and his White House on the first round of welfare reform and with President George H.W. Bush on national education goals.

(Cheers, applause.) I’m actually very grateful to — if you saw from the film what I do today, I have to be grateful, and you should be, too — that President George W. Bush supported PEPFAR. It saved the lives of millions of people in poor countries. (Cheers, applause.)

And I have been honored to work with both Presidents Bush on natural disasters in the aftermath of the South Asian tsunami, Hurricane Katrina, the horrible earthquake in Haiti. Through my foundation, both in America and around the world, I’m working all the time with Democrats, Republicans and independents. Sometimes I couldn’t tell you for the life who I’m working with because we focus on solving problems and seizing opportunities and not fighting all the time. (Cheers, applause.)

And so here’s what I want to say to you, and here’s what I want the people at home to think about. When times are tough and people are frustrated and angry and hurting and uncertain, the politics of constant conflict may be good. But what is good politics does not necessarily work in the real world. What works in the real world is cooperation. (Cheers, applause.) What works in the real world is cooperation, business and government, foundations and universities.

Ask the mayors who are here. (Cheers, applause.) Los Angeles is getting green and Chicago is getting an infrastructure bank because Republicans and Democrats are working together to get it. (Cheers, applause.) They didn’t check their brains at the door. They didn’t stop disagreeing, but their purpose was to get something done.

Now, why is this true? Why does cooperation work better than constant conflict?

Because nobody’s right all the time, and a broken clock is right twice a day. (Cheers, applause.)

And every one of us — every one of us and every one of them, we’re compelled to spend our fleeting lives between those two extremes, knowing we’re never going to be right all the time and hoping we’re right more than twice a day. (Laughter.)

Unfortunately, the faction that now dominates the Republican Party doesn’t see it that way. They think government is always the enemy, they’re always right, and compromise is weakness. (Boos.) Just in the last couple of elections, they defeated two distinguished Republican senators because they dared to cooperate with Democrats on issues important to the future of the country, even national security. (Applause.)

They beat a Republican congressman with almost a hundred percent voting record on every conservative score, because he said he realized he did not have to hate the president to disagree with him. Boy, that was a nonstarter, and they threw him out. (Laughter, applause.)

One of the main reasons we ought to re-elect President Obama is that he is still committed to constructive cooperation. (Cheers, applause.) Look at his record. Look at his record. (Cheers, applause.) Look at his record. He appointed Republican secretaries of defense, the Army and transportation. He appointed a vice president who ran against him in 2008. (Laughter, applause.) And he trusted that vice president to oversee the successful end of the war in Iraq and the implementation of the recovery act. (Cheers, applause.)

And Joe Biden — Joe Biden did a great job with both. (Sustained cheers, applause.)

He — (sustained cheers, applause) — President Obama — President Obama appointed several members of his Cabinet even though they supported Hillary in the primary. (Applause.) Heck, he even appointed Hillary. (Cheers, applause.)

Wait a minute. I am — (sustained cheers, applause) — I am very proud of her. I am proud of the job she and the national security team have done for America. (Cheers, applause.) I am grateful that they have worked together to make us safer and stronger, to build a world with more partners and fewer enemies. I’m grateful for the relationship of respect and partnership she and the president have enjoyed and the signal that sends to the rest of the world, that democracy does not have a blood — have to be a blood sport, it can be an honorable enterprise that advances the public interest. (Cheers, applause.)

Now — (sustained cheers, applause) — besides the national security team, I am very grateful to the men and women who’ve served our country in uniform through these perilous times. (Cheers, applause.) And I am especially grateful to Michelle Obama and to Joe Biden for supporting those military families while their loved ones were overseas — (cheers, applause) — and for supporting our veterans when they came home, when they came home bearing the wounds of war or needing help to find education or jobs or housing.

President Obama’s whole record on national security is a tribute to his strength, to his judgment and to his preference for inclusion and partnership over partisanship. We need more if it in Washington, D.C. (Cheers, applause.)

Now, we all know that he also tried to work with congressional Republicans on health care, debt reduction and new jobs. And that didn’t work out so well. (Laughter.) But it could have been because, as the Senate Republican leader said in a remarkable moment of candor two full years before the election, their number one priority was not to put America back to work; it was to put the president out of work. (Mixed cheers and boos, applause.) (Chuckles.) Well, wait a minute. Senator, I hate to break it to you, but we’re going to keep President Obama on the job. (Cheers, applause.)

Now, are you ready for that? (Cheers, applause.) Are you willing to work for it. Oh, wait a minute.

AUDIENCE MEMBERS: (Chanting.) Four more years! Four more years! Four more years! Four more years!

PRESIDENT CLINTON: In Tampa —

AUDIENCE MEMBERS: (Chanting.) Four more years! Four more years!

PRESIDENT CLINTON: In Tampa — in Tampa — did y’all watch their convention?

I did. (Laughter.) In Tampa, the Republican argument against the president’s re-election was actually pretty simple — pretty snappy. It went something like this: We left him a total mess. He hasn’t cleaned it up fast enough. So fire him and put us back in. (Laughter, applause.)

Now — (cheers, applause) — but they did it well. They looked good; the sounded good. They convinced me that — (laughter) — they all love their families and their children and were grateful they’d been born in America and all that — (laughter, applause) — really, I’m not being — they did. (Laughter, applause.)

And this is important, they convinced me they were honorable people who believed what they said and they’re going to keep every commitment they’ve made. We just got to make sure the American people know what those commitments are — (cheers, applause) — because in order to look like an acceptable, reasonable, moderate alternative to President Obama, they just didn’t say very much about the ideas they’ve offered over the last two years.

They couldn’t because they want to the same old policies that got us in trouble in the first place. They want to cut taxes for high- income Americans, even more than President Bush did. They want to get rid of those pesky financial regulations designed to prevent another crash and prohibit future bailouts. They want to actually increase defense spending over a decade $2 trillion more than the Pentagon has requested without saying what they’ll spend it on. And they want to make enormous cuts in the rest of the budget, especially programs that help the middle class and poor children.

As another president once said, there they go again.

(Laughter, cheers, applause.)

Now, I like — I like — I like the argument for President Obama’s re-election a lot better. Here it is. He inherited a deeply damaged economy. He put a floor under the crash. He began the long, hard road to recovery and laid the foundation for a modern, more well- balanced economy that will produce millions of good new jobs, vibrant new businesses and lots of new wealth for innovators. (Cheers, applause.)

Now, are we where we want to be today? No.

AUDIENCE MEMBERS: No!

PRESIDENT CLINTON: Is the president satisfied? Of course not.

AUDIENCE MEMBERS: No!

PRESIDENT CLINTON: But are we better off than we were when he took office? (Cheers, applause.)

And listen to this. Listen to this. Everybody — (inaudible) — when President Barack Obama took office, the economy was in free fall. It had just shrunk 9 full percent of GDP. We were losing 750,000 jobs a month.

Are we doing better than that today?

AUDIENCE MEMBERS: Yes! (Applause.)

PRESIDENT CLINTON: The answer is yes.

Now, look. Here’s the challenge he faces and the challenge all of you who support him face. I get it. I know it. I’ve been there. A lot of Americans are still angry and frustrated about this economy. If you look at the numbers, you know employment is growing, banks are beginning to lend again. And in a lot of places, housing prices are even beginning to pick up.

But too many people do not feel it yet.

I had the same thing happen in 1994 and early ‘95. We could see that the policies were working, that the economy was growing. But most people didn’t feel it yet. Thankfully, by 1996 the economy was roaring, everybody felt it, and we were halfway through the longest peacetime expansion in the history of the United States. But — (cheers, applause) — wait, wait. The difference this time is purely in the circumstances. President Obama started with a much weaker economy than I did. Listen to me, now. No president — no president, not me, not any of my predecessors, no one could have fully repaired all the damage that he found in just four years. (Cheers, applause.)

Now — but — (cheers, applause) — he has — he has laid the foundation for a new, modern, successful economy of shared prosperity. And if you will renew the president’s contract, you will feel it. You will feel it. (Cheers, applause.)

Folks, whether the American people believe what I just said or not may be the whole election. I just want you to know that I believe it. With all my heart, I believe it. (Cheers, applause.)

Now, why do I believe it?

I’m fixing to tell you why. I believe it because President Obama’s approach embodies the values, the ideas and the direction America has to take to build the 21st-century version of the American Dream: a nation of shared opportunities, shared responsibilities, shared prosperity, a shared sense of community.

So let’s get back to the story. In 2010, as the president’s recovery program kicked in, the job losses stopped and things began to turn around. The recovery act saved or created millions of jobs and cut taxes — let me say this again — cut taxes for 95 percent of the American people. (Cheers, applause.) And, in the last 29 months, our economy has produced about 4 1/2 million private sector jobs. (Cheers, applause.)

We could have done better, but last year the Republicans blocked the president’s job plan, costing the economy more than a million new jobs.

So here’s another job score. President Obama: plus 4 1/2 million. Congressional Republicans: zero. (Cheers, applause.)

During this period — (cheers, applause) — during this period, more than 500,000 manufacturing jobs have been created under President Obama. That’s the first time manufacturing jobs have increased since the 1990s. (Cheers, applause.) And I’ll tell you something else. The auto industry restructuring worked. (Cheers, applause.) It saved — it saved more than a million jobs, and not just at GM, Chrysler and their dealerships but in auto parts manufacturing all over the country.

That’s why even the automakers who weren’t part of the deal supported it. They needed to save those parts suppliers too. Like I said, we’re all in this together. (Applause.)

So what’s happened? There are now 250,000 more people working in the auto industry than on the day the companies were restructured. (Cheers, applause.)

So — now, we all know that Governor Romney opposed the plan to save GM and Chrysler. (Boos.) So here’s another job score. (Laughter.) Are you listening in Michigan and Ohio and across the country? (Cheers.) Here — (cheers, applause) — here’s another job score: Obama, 250,000; Romney, zero.

AUDIENCE MEMBERS: (With speaker.) Zero. (Cheers, applause.)

PRESIDENT CLINTON: Now, the agreement the administration made with the management, labor and environmental groups to double car mileage, that was a good deal too. It will cut your gas prices in half, your gas bill. No matter what the price is, if you double the mileage of your car, your bill will be half what it would have been. It will make us more energy independent. It will cut greenhouse gas emissions. And according to several analyses, over the next 20 years, it’ll bring us another half a million good new jobs into the American economy. (Cheers, applause.)

The president’s energy strategy, which he calls “all of the above,” is helping too. The boom in oil and gas production, combined with greater energy efficiency, has driven oil imports to a near-20- year low and natural gas production to an all-time high. And renewable energy production has doubled.

(Cheers, applause.)

Of course, we need a lot more new jobs. But there are already more than 3 million jobs open and unfilled in America, mostly because the people who apply for them don’t yet have the required skills to do them. So even as we get Americans more jobs, we have to prepare more Americans for the new jobs that are actually going to be created. The old economy is not coming back. We’ve got to build a new one and educate people to do those jobs. (Cheers, applause.)

The president — the president and his education secretary have supported community colleges and employers in working together to train people for jobs that are actually open in their communities — and even more important after a decade in which exploding college costs have increased the dropout rate so much that the percentage of our young people with four-year college degrees has gone down so much that we have dropped to 16th in the world in the percentage of young people with college degrees.

So the president’s student loan is more important than ever. Here’s what it does — (cheers, applause) — here’s what it does. You need to tell every voter where you live about this. It lowers the cost of federal student loans. And even more important, it give students the right to repay those loans as a clear, fixed, low percentage of their income for up to 20 years. (Cheers, applause.)

Now what does this mean? What does this mean? Think of it. It means no one will ever have to drop out of college again for fear they can’t repay their debt.

And it means — (cheers, applause) — it means that if someone wants to take a job with a modest income, a teacher, a police officer, if they want to be a small-town doctor in a little rural area, they won’t have to turn those jobs down because they don’t pay enough to repay they debt. Their debt obligation will be determined by their salary. This will change the future for young America. (Cheers, applause.)

I don’t know about you — (cheers, applause) — but on all these issues, I know we’re better off because President Obama made the decisions he did.

Now, that brings me to health care. (Cheers, applause.) And the Republicans call it, derisively, “Obamacare.” They say it’s a government takeover, a disaster, and that if we’ll just elect them, they’ll repeal it. Well, are they right?

AUDIENCE MEMBERS: No!

PRESIDENT CLINTON: Let’s take a look at what’s actually happened so far.

First, individuals and businesses have already gotten more than a billion dollars in refunds from insurance companies because the new law requires 80 (percent) to 85 percent of your premium to go to your health care, not profits or promotion. (Cheers, applause.) And the gains are even greater than that because a bunch of insurance companies have applied to lower their rates to comply with the requirement.

Second, more than 3 million young people between 19 and 25 are insured for the first time because their parents’ policies can cover them.

(Cheers, applause.)

Millions of seniors are receiving preventive care, all the way from breast cancer screenings to tests for heart problems and scores of other things. And younger people are getting them, too.

Fourth, soon the insurance companies — not the government, the insurance companies — will have millions of new customers, many of them middle-class people with pre-existing conditions who never could get insurance before. (Cheers, applause.)

Now, finally, listen to this. For the last two years — after going up at three times the rate of inflation for a decade, for the last two years health care costs have been under 4 percent in both years for the first time in 50 years. (Cheers, applause.)

So let me ask you something. Are we better off because President Obama fought for health care reform? (Cheers, applause.) You bet we are.

Now, there were two other attacks on the president in Tampa I think deserve an answer. First, both Governor Romney and Congressman Ryan attacked the president for allegedly robbing Medicare of $716 billion. That’s the same attack they leveled against the Congress in 2010, and they got a lot of votes on it. But it’s not true. (Applause.)

Look, here’s what really happened. You be the judge. Here’s what really happened. There were no cuts to benefits at all. None. What the president did was to save money by taking the recommendations of a commission of professionals to cut unwarranted subsidies to providers and insurance companies that were not making people healthier and were not necessary to get the providers to provide the service.

And instead of raiding Medicare, he used the savings to close the doughnut hole in the Medicare drug program — (cheers, applause) — and — you all got to listen carefully to this; this is really important — and to add eight years to the life of the Medicare trust fund so it is solvent till 2024. (Cheers, applause.)

So — (chuckles) — so President Obama and the Democrats didn’t weaken Medicare; they strengthened Medicare. Now, when Congressman Ryan looked into that TV camera and attacked President Obama’s Medicare savings as, quote, the biggest, coldest power play, I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry — (laughter) — because that $716 billion is exactly, to the dollar, the same amount of Medicare savings that he has in his own budget. (Cheers, applause.) You got to get one thing — it takes some brass to attack a guy for doing what you did. (Laughter, cheers, applause.)

So — (inaudible) — (sustained cheers, applause) — now, you’re having a good time, but this is getting serious, and I want you to listen.

(Laughter.) It’s important, because a lot of people believe this stuff.

Now, at least on this issue, on this one issue, Governor Romney has been consistent. (Laughter.) He attacked President Obama too, but he actually wants to repeal those savings and give the money back to the insurance company. (Laughter, boos.)

He wants to go back to the old system, which means we’ll reopen the doughnut hole and force seniors to pay more for drugs, and we’ll reduce the life of the Medicare trust fund by eight full years. (Boos.)

So if he’s elected, and if he does what he promised to do, Medicare will now grow (sic/go) broke in 2016. (Boos.) Think about that. That means, after all, we won’t have to wait until their voucher program kicks in 2023 — (laughter) — to see the end of Medicare as we know it. (Applause.) They’re going to do it to us sooner than we thought. (Applause.)

Now, folks, this is serious, because it gets worse. (Laughter.) And you won’t be laughing when I finish telling you this. They also want to block-grant Medicaid, and cut it by a third over the coming 10 years.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: No!

PRESIDENT CLINTON: Of course, that’s going to really hurt a lot of poor kids. But that’s not all. Lot of folks don’t know it, but nearly two-thirds of Medicaid is spent on nursing home care for Medicare seniors — (applause) — who are eligible for Medicaid.

(Cheers, applause.) It’s going to end Medicare as we know it. And a lot of that money is also spent to help people with disabilities, including — (cheers, applause) — a lot of middle-class families whose kids have Down’s syndrome or autism or other severe conditions. (Applause.) And honestly, let’s think about it, if that happens, I don’t know what those families are going to do.

So I know what I’m going to do. I’m going to do everything I can to see that it doesn’t happen. We can’t let it happen. (Cheers, applause.) We can’t. (Cheers, applause.) Now — wait a minute. (Cheers, applause.) Let’s look —

AUDIENCE MEMBERS: Four more years! Four more years! Four more years!

PRESIDENT CLINTON: Let’s look at the other big charge the Republicans made. It’s a real doozy. (Laughter.) They actually have charged and run ads saying that President Obama wants to weaken the work requirements in the welfare reform bill I signed that moved millions of people from welfare to work. (Jeers.) Wait, you need to know, here’s what happened. (Laughter.) Nobody ever tells you what really happened — here’s what happened.

When some Republican governors asked if they could have waivers to try new ways to put people on welfare back to work, the Obama administration listened because we all know it’s hard for even people with good work histories to get jobs today. So moving folks from welfare to work is a real challenge.

And the administration agreed to give waivers to those governors and others only if they had a credible plan to increase employment by 20 percent, and they could keep the waivers only if they did increase employment. Now, did I make myself clear? The requirement was for more work, not less. (Cheers, applause.)

So this is personal to me. We moved millions of people off welfare. It was one of the reasons that in the eight years I was president, we had a hundred times as many people move out of poverty into the middle class than happened under the previous 12 years, a hundred times as many. (Cheers, applause.) It’s a big deal. But I am telling you the claim that President Obama weakened welfare reform’s work requirement is just not true. (Applause.)

But they keep on running the ads claiming it. You want to know why? Their campaign pollster said, we are not going to let our campaign be dictated by fact-checkers. (Jeers, applause.) Now, finally I can say, that is true. (Laughter, cheers, applause.) I — (chuckles) — I couldn’t have said it better myself. (Laughter.)

And I hope you and every American within the sound of my voice remembers it every time they see one of those ads, and it turns into an ad to re-elect Barack Obama and keep the fundamental principles of personal empowerment and moving everybody who can get a job into work as soon as we can. (Cheers, applause.)

Now, let’s talk about the debt. Today, interest rates are low, lower than the rate of inflation. People are practically paying us to borrow money, to hold their money for them.

But it will become a big problem when the economy grows and interest rates start to rise. We’ve got to deal with this big long- term debt problem or it will deal with us. It will gobble up a bigger and bigger percentage of the federal budget we’d rather spend on education and health care and science and technology. It — we’ve got to deal with it.

Now, what has the president done? He has offered a reasonable plan of $4 trillion in debt reduction over a decade, with 2 1/2 trillion (dollars) coming from — for every $2 1/2 trillion in spending cuts, he raises a dollar in new revenues — 2 1/2-to-1. And he has tight controls on future spending. That’s the kind of balanced approach proposed by the Simpson-Bowles Commission, a bipartisan commission.

Now, I think this plan is way better than Governor Romney’s plan. First, the Romney plan failed the first test of fiscal responsibility. The numbers just don’t add up. (Laughter, applause.)

I mean, consider this. What would you do if you had this problem? Somebody says, oh, we’ve got a big debt problem. We’ve got to reduce the debt. So what’s the first thing you say we’re going to do? Well, to reduce the debt, we’re going to have another $5 trillion in tax cuts heavily weighted to upper-income people. So we’ll make the debt hole bigger before we start to get out of it.

Now, when you say, what are you going to do about this $5 trillion you just added on? They say, oh, we’ll make it up by eliminating loopholes in the tax code.

So then you ask, well, which loopholes, and how much?

You know what they say? See me about that after the election. (Laughter.)

I’m not making it up. That’s their position. See me about that after the election.

Now, people ask me all the time how we got four surplus budgets in a row. What new ideas did we bring to Washington? I always give a one-word answer: Arithmetic. (Sustained cheers, applause.)

If — arithmetic! If — (applause) — if they stay with their $5 trillion tax cut plan — in a debt reduction plan? — the arithmetic tells us, no matter what they say, one of three things is about to happen. One, assuming they try to do what they say they’ll do, get rid of — pay — cover it by deductions, cutting those deductions, one, they’ll have to eliminate so many deductions, like the ones for home mortgages and charitable giving, that middle-class families will see their tax bills go up an average of $2,000 while anybody who makes $3 million or more will see their tax bill go down $250,000. (Boos.)

Or, two, they’ll have to cut so much spending that they’ll obliterate the budget for the national parks, for ensuring clean air, clean water, safe food, safe air travel. They’ll cut way back on Pell Grants, college loans, early childhood education, child nutrition programs, all the programs that help to empower middle-class families and help poor kids. Oh, they’ll cut back on investments in roads and bridges and science and technology and biomedical research.

That’s what they’ll do. They’ll hurt the middle class and the poor and put the future on hold to give tax cuts to upper-income people who’ve been getting it all along.

Or three, in spite of all the rhetoric, they’ll just do what they’ve been doing for more than 30 years. They’ll go in and cut the taxes way more than they cut spending, especially with that big defense increase, and they’ll just explode the debt and weaken the economy. And they’ll destroy the federal government’s ability to help you by letting interest gobble up all your tax payments.

Don’t you ever forget when you hear them talking about this that Republican economic policies quadrupled the national debt before I took office, in the 12 years before I took office — (applause) — and doubled the debt in the eight years after I left, because it defied arithmetic. (Laughter, applause.) It was a highly inconvenient thing for them in our debates that I was just a country boy from Arkansas, and I came from a place where people still thought two and two was four. (Laughter, applause.) It’s arithmetic.

We simply cannot afford to give the reins of government to someone who will double down on trickle down. (Cheers, applause.) Really. Think about this: President Obama — President Obama’s plan cuts the debt, honors our values, brightens the future of our children, our families and our nation. It’s a heck of a lot better.

It passes the arithmetic test, and far more important, it passes the values test. (Cheers, applause.)

My fellow Americans, all of us in this grand hall and everybody watching at home, when we vote in this election, we’ll be deciding what kind of country we want to live in. If you want a winner-take- all, you’re-on-your-own society, you should support the Republican ticket. But if you want a country of shared opportunities and shared responsibility, a we’re-all-in-this-together society, you should vote for Barack Obama and Joe Biden. (Cheers, applause.) If you — if you want —

AUDIENCE MEMBERS: (Chanting.) Four more years! Four more years!

PRESIDENT CLINTON: If you want America — if you want every American to vote and you think it is wrong to change voting procedures — (jeers) — just to reduce the turnout of younger, poorer, minority and disabled voters — (jeers) — you should support Barack Obama. (Cheers, applause.)

And if you think — if you think the president was right to open the doors of American opportunity to all those young immigrants brought here when they were young so they can serve in the military or go to college, you must vote for Barack Obama. (Cheers, applause.) If you want a future of shared prosperity, where the middle class is growing and poverty is declining, where the American dream is really alive and well again and where the United States maintains its leadership as a force for peace and justice and prosperity in this highly competitive world, you have to vote for Barack Obama.

(Cheers, applause.)

Look, I love our country so much. And I know we’re coming back. For more than 200 years, through every crisis, we’ve always come back. (Cheers.) People have predicted our demise ever since George Washington was criticized for being a mediocre surveyor with a bad set of wooden false teeth. (Laughter.) And so far, every single person that’s bet against America has lost money because we always come back. (Cheers, applause.) We come through ever fire a little stronger and a little better.

And we do it because in the end we decide to champion the cause for which our founders pledged their lives, their fortunes, their sacred honor — the cause of forming a more perfect union. (Cheers, applause.) My fellow Americans, if that is what you want, if that is what you believe, you must vote and you must re-elect President Barack Obama. (Cheers, applause.) God bless you and God bless America. (Cheers, applause.)

END

Ordering tea may not be such an easy task.....where a robot is the maid

MAID: What would you like to have? Fruit juice, yoghurt, tea, chocolate, capuccino, frapuccino, or coffee?
OKON: Tea, please, thank you.
MAID: Ceylon tea, Indian tea, herbal tea, kerichogold tea, bush tea, or green tea?
OKON: Ceylon tea, please, thanks.
MAID: Plain or white?
OKON: White, please.
MAID: With whole milk or fresh cream?
OKON: Milk.
MAID: Cow milk or goat milk?
OKON: Cow milk.
MAID: Friesland cow or Afrikaaner cow?
OKON: um....Friesland cow.
MAID: What sweetener would you prefer, sugar, honey, or none?
OKON: Sugar.
MAID: Cane sugar or beet sugar?
OKON: Cane sugar.
MAID: White, brown, or yellow sugar?
OKON: Abasi!!!! Common sugar sef na him I dey answer mcq!!! Abeg, forget the tea. Gimme a glass of water.
MAID: Tap, distilled, or mineral water?
OKON: Mineral water.
MAID: Flavored or non-flavored?
OKON: Ette mi. Oya free d water. Just bring me an empty glass.
MAID: Tumbler, wine-glass, champagne-glass, or beer mug?
OKON: Free me abeg. I go swallow my spit.
MAID: Fasting spit........
OKON: IF I HEAR ANYTHING FROM YOU AGAIN, I GO KILL YOU AND I NO GO GIVE YOU CHOICE WHETHER TO GO HEAVEN OR TO GO HELL. IDIOT!!!!!!!
MAID: Stupid idiot, lazy idiot, crazy idiot, or plain idiot?
OKON: (praying): Father forgive the maid. She is only a robot from the future.

THE GENERATION THAT TURNS THE POINT - OBY EZEKWESILI

THE GENERATION THAT TURNS THE POINT ~ OBY EZEKWESILI

In the last six months of this year, I have had the great privilege of being asked by an eclectic range of young people led organizations across the world to speak to their gathering on different topics of their interest. As diverse as their issues of interest have been there has been one common thread that stood out for me. It was the palpable sense that today’s young believe that the old world is over and that they have a responsibility to birth an entirely new globe that reflects their own uniquely different reality.
When I earlier this year read an article authored by a certain church leader, David Wraight characterizing the young of today, I simply could relate. I can relate because through my deep friendship with my sons and other contemporaries of your generation I have been privileged to learn how much of a purpose driven generation majority of you are. Wraight posited that there is a globalized generation of youth – often referred to as the Millennial Generation. He rightly said your generation “believes that you can change the world for the better, but you are unsure what you should change the world to; so you search for an ideology or system of belief to use as a foundation for the change you seek. You are actually searching for something worth living for and dying for.” “You are optimistic and idealistic with a deep desire to make your mark in the world. You dream of what can be, and follow your dreams with passion and perseverance. You are no longer prepared to be spectators watching the world go by, but want to be ‘players’, to get your hands dirty, to make a difference. You are knowledgeable about the affairs of the world and very mobile, travelling as much as resources and opportunity allow.”
As globalization and modern technology continue to shrink our world people are connecting worldwide as never before – particularly young people – overcoming cultural, geographical, language and ethnic barriers with ease. For the first time in human history we are seeing the emergence of a global youth culture with common values, dreams and desires. I actually call you, the Nigerian, nay; African kindred group, the Turning Point Generation- TPG. Why TPG? Well, for a couple of reasons.
First, you are the generation that has come of age @ a time that the world as we knew it is changing dramatically before us- no longer the first world and third world divide that my generation was born into; no longer the developing and developed country divide, but a world where universalism of knowledge spread is spreading development solutions rapidly across those regions of the world that for a very long time where little imagined to have the capability to become the economic engines holding up the flailing global economy. Just thirty years ago for China and twenty for India, no one could have imagined the double digit growth records over the decades that have enabled China life over 500 million people out of poverty. China’s economic miracle proved to the world that it can be done within a generation!
Although much less amazing than this, the fact is that Africa has over the last decade also turned the corner and is increasingly doing better in its economic growth and reduction of poverty than it did in the past. So, for example while the OECD economies continue to struggle following the global financial and economic crisis of 2008/2009 with growth rates of less than a 3%pa since then, 1.6 for this year and 2.4 for 2013. The average rate for economies in Africa rebound after the dip to 1.9% for 2009 from the average of 5.7% pre-crisis but it remarkably rebound in 2010 to 3.9, 2011 to 4.5% and forecast of 4.6% and above 5% in 2012 and 2013 making Africa the third highest economic growth rate region after Asia and Latin America. Clearly, the looming second round global economic crisis occasioned by the Eurozone crisis is certainly one that all African countries would do well to watch as a potential dampener of growth.
This improved performance from the laggard records of the past is driven by the same principle of better macroeconomic, microeconomic and structural reforms that supported the economic transformation of the countries that our continent looked on with awe over the decades. The morale of the turning is quite simple. It is that as with other countries, constant improvement of Africa’s policy environment is fundamental to our emerging on the higher rungs of the global economic ladder. Recent policy gains have earned Africa increasing respect as a potential economic growth pole of reckoning. Publications like the Wall Street Journal, the Economist and such like across the world mostly known for their “single story” characterization of Africa could not but bow on the altar of evidence to acknowledge that Africa has indeed become a “a rising continent”. It is a continent on the move and you were born for such a time as this!
Considering the enormity of challenges it still faces, it does not always feel like Africa has made such significant progress worthy of note. This is even much more so @ the personal level of the family where two out of every four members of African families are yet to benefit from the much lauded economic growth of the continent. And yet, the reality is that it is a good first step in the economic development process that is a Necessary though not a Sufficient Condition for the ultimate improvement in the quality of life of the 48% poor in Africa. I shall come again to this point of disconnect between economic growth, poverty reduction and deepening inequality later in my speech but just hold my main point in your mind for now. And that point is that you are privileged to be a Generation coming of age at the same time that Africa is moving away from being singularly viewed as a “basket case continent” by the rest of humanity. You are my friends, our Turning Point Generation.
That Africa is emerging as a credible destination for the inflow of global private capital into diverse sectors of opportunities gradually moving away from the single commodity story of the past. Achieving the structural transformation that such economic diversification heralds will yet be the most revolutionary milestone that differentiates your generation from the rest. Your Generation is best positioned to challenge the archaic model of natural resources driven development model of your parents. Observing your choices of vocation thus far across the continent, suggests you are in a hurry to replace the commodity driven model with a knowledge driven, economic structural transformation approach. And to boot, you do so deploying technology for your crowd sourcing entrepreneurship techniques. How then can this not possibly be Africa’s momentous turning point? I believe it is, because the bane of the continent’s several decades of checkered economic performance and poverty travails have been evidently situated in the resource endowment curse. It was the commodity centered development that brought with it the near intractable problems of poor governance and elite capture of state alongside the conflict and contest for control of rents.
Whether it be the maturing sectors of information and communication technology (ICT), or the still emerging sectors of financial services, tourism, real estate, agriculture and agribusiness, green growth technology solutions, infrastructure systems and logistics solutions, energy, human capital development and such like, the reality today is that the one billion population of Africa is emerging as a formidable USD2 Trillion market that any investor ignores at their own peril. Now, if the rest of the world is in a new wave of discovery of the opportunities in your continent, then you much more must apply your intellectual and network skills at strategically preparing yourselves as important players that will provide the necessary leadership of the new opportunities for higher productivity.
So then if we all agreed that Africa’s future prospect is very promising we must be strategic in understanding the risks and threats that should be managed to avoid a train wreck. The risk factors that will constantly threaten Africa’s great future and which we all must work hard to mitigate are numerous ranging from exogenous to country specific structural and political economy type risks. However of all these, the one that most threatens the optimistic trajectory would be continued absence of expanding access to quality and relevant education to the myriad citizens still excluded from this important basic service. This is more so because of Africa’s burgeoning population of which African youths would account for 29% of young people in the world by 2025. Without access to education, such population ceases to be the potential demographic dividend that supports economic growth through enhanced productivity but rather becomes the other end of the double edged sword of menacing millions of angry and illiterate citizens trapped in low productivity.
As I had early noted, with the fledging economic growth rates of the past decade has come serious worries about disconnect between economic growth and poverty in the face of widening inequality. Instructively, it would take massive but effective public investment in education to narrow this manifest gully between those that have and those currently excluded from the benefits of growth wither due to a lack of education or access to a poor quality and economy irrelevant one that produced persons without life skills. The Education you have just acquired has been an important determinant of the economic prosperity of nations as economists have established through the centuries. Education remains the most effective vehicle for helping people lift themselves out of poverty while contributing positively to the aggregate social outcome of the society. I believe in nations learning from the experiences of other nations.
So I went back in time to look at a period in US history in the early 80’s when it feared that it was losing its solid top position on the global economic competitiveness ladder. At that time, in 1983 a study aptly captioned “A Nation at Risk” by the National Commission on Excellence in Education, had just been released and alarmed the entire nation into a fast paced attention to education reforms. “If only to keep and improve on the slim competitive edge we still retain in world markets, we must dedicate ourselves to the reform of our educational system for the benefit of all—old and young alike, affluent and poor, majority and minority.”
The economic benefits of higher levels of school attainment and the benefits of higher levels of cognitive skills was once examined by Commission that the US Government set up to lead the effort for America’s reemergence as a leader in OECD education ladder for English and Math. The Commission examined their relationship to the average annual growth rate in the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) per capita from 1960 through 2000. They found, as other economists before them, that when the average number of years of schooling in a country was higher, the economy grew at a higher annual rate over subsequent decades. Specifically, they found that, across 50 countries, each additional year of average schooling in a country increased the average 40-year growth rate in GDP by almost 0.5% which is significant. It also found that a highly skilled work force can raise economic growth by about two-thirds of a percentage point every year. Is it therefore any wonder that countries like China, India, Brazil and South Africa which have attained above 20-25% of tertiary education level have given a wide berth to most of the other countries including ours outside of the OECD countries. Therefore, the more that we can push up the current below 6% tertiary education level in Nigeria up the higher the prospects of shared and inclusive economic growth for a larger number of our citizens.
The same study had investigated which is more important for growth—having a substantial cadre of high performers or bringing everyone up to a basic level of performance? The answer they found is “not one or the other but both!” That is, both the performance of countries in ensuring that almost all students achieve at basic levels and their performance in producing high-achieving students both matter for economic growth. This therefore argues for the necessity to have government drive an education system and sector that produces a substantial cadre of highly skilled citizens and near-universal basic skills as a matter of national emergency if our country will be in a position to compete for global and even our own nationals’ investment flows coming into Africa. “The more workers that have at least basic skills, the easier it will be for them to make use of those new technologies”. As the Report had concluded, “some workers need a high level of skill so they can help adapt the new technologies to their countries’ particular situation. In countries on the technological frontier, substantial numbers of scientists, engineers, and other innovators are obviously needed. But so is a labor force that has the basic skills needed to survive in a technologically driven economy”.
On this matter of building an expanded labor force, I never let pass my opportunity to push my personal campaign for countries in Africa to commit through policies, institutional reforms and effective public investment to bridge the productivity gap between men and women arising from the latter’s poorer access to education and skills training opportunities. When girls and women, more broadly are empowered to participate actively in a modern society, their inclusion enlarges the scope, size and range of human capital that is available to power our country’s economic growth. Every society that disrespects and threats with contempt the rights of women to access basic services, ignores their right to participate in the decision making process in the family and society at large, tramples on their right to non-violent, non-abusive, non-assaulting relationships of any kind has always significantly operated below its potentials. The simple message that came out a recent World Bank study on the issue of Women and Equality of Opportunities is that countries that do not place sufficient premium on their women will end up losing grounds to other countries that value their girls and women. Investing in girls and women is smart economics!
For you graduating today (especially the girls) I once again congratulate you because your parents, guardians and the University have accorded you a rare privilege. With your access to education from preschool until your successful undergraduate study that we celebrate with you, your parents and guardians today, you stand the chance of competing globally depending on what choices you make after the certificate is handed over to you. For even though education quality may be failing many of your contemporaries who are either completely excluded from the opportunities of access or are where they have access are trapped in some of the failing public institutions where poor governance of public resources or inadequate funding hamstrung learning outcomes; here you are being celebrated as graduates of one of the most prestigious private universities in the land.
Furthermore, because of the more open and wider flow of information, many of you during the period of your study and going forward constantly acquire more of your learning not just through what you sometimes consider the boring lecture of your teachers but also through other platforms within your reach. These days, with all due respect to your excellent faculty here at Covenant University, your Generation does in fact sometimes know much more than your teachers and parent especially if they have failed to upgrade their own skills in navigating the multi modal sources of information for any concept worthy of learning. As for you, you endlessly search for new knowledge with all the “swag” you can muster and when you find it, you publish it instantly so that many more may know. You are the Generation that the words Access, Freedom and Connectivity define. You lead us all in this new era of all things possible!
For you therefore, there is no reason why any human problem should be allowed to fester without someone working hard at finding a solution. You are the generation of IDEAS people. You celebrate new ideas and are profligate in generating innovative options either driven by technological application or even mere common sense generated but well organized service delivery. Considering what we know of ideas and curiosity which is that they are the key to exploding private enterprise and deepening the culture of incentives-driven economic model in every society, you are indeed the TPG that pulls Africa out of the trap economic morass.
The growing number of technology hubs led by your peers across the continent is a testament to the distance already covered with the telecom revolution that has seen the continent expand telephone access to over 500 million from a pitiful 20 million barely a decade ago. As internet penetration accelerates and data complements voice in providing access to information and connectivity, your expertise in deploying these tools of technology to solving Development problems will become a matter of profound academic interest. You “rep” through what your intellectual capital can produce and you take delight in enjoying the fruit of your own productive effort.
The nascent expertise many of you are acquiring in deploying technology in such amazing multidimensional and multi sector manner may yet be the most important distinguishing factor between Africa’s own economic emergence and those of other regions that went ahead. Already for you, the whole idea of Development as an owned local concept and process comes is expressed in the uniquely Africa originated Apps, fashion trends, entertainment, social activism etc that some of your peers have already registered on the global map. You find Solutions that are very local and appropriate and yet stand on their merit as world class options like Ushahidi and such like.
Your education here which has culminated in Covenant University branding you as Eagles conveys to all that you have been found worthy in character and learning. Your great University is sending you into the world of works confident that you have acquired the basic prerequisite character, aptitude and competencies necessary for identifying opportunities, confronting challenges, mobilizing solutions and excelling in entrepreneurship and public service for the progress of humanity. You are after all an Eagle! The Eagle as a big bird of course has certain core characteristics that you should from hence model. Just like the eagle you are supposed to be absolutely without fear no matter the size of your prey, you are supposed to be tenacious with a readiness like the eagle to look for and fly into storms, you are supposed to be nurturing of those in need of support- just like the eagle, you pay gentle attention to the needs of the younger ones, you are now a highflier but you are one with a realism like the eagle which is able to swiftly lad on the ground form as high an altitude as 10,000 feet.
For me personally, the characteristic of an Eagle that I find most appealing is the non-retreating mindset of strenuous effort, of protestant work ethics, of hard work of the kind that shuns ignoble wealth accumulated by a life of contemptible ease. Like the eagle you set your standards for effort and reward so that you never eat “dead meat that you did not kill”, like vitality of the eagle, you will be full of life and have the power to endure and finally, you like the eagle are supposed to have a keen vision that enables you the necessary long distance focus and clarity that you need for your competitive edge amongst your global peers. You have no sense of disempowerment as you confidently draw strength from each new success someone in your generation accomplishes. You celebrate as much as you sanction yourselves.
You are the new Africans that seek to create wealth rather than simply wait for their turn to share rent from natural resources into which no effort was put by those who control, distribute and then misgovern them. Your paradigm shift is of the kind that does not consider the public treasury as the most “exciting” source of your personal wealth creation. Wealth that is founded on corruption, distortion of rules or inefficacy and incompetency of public policy, unproductive public investment, influence peddling and the like cannot and should not appeal to you as your know that the rest of the world looks on with contempt at unearned prosperity.
If all the qualities of the eagle were rolled into a single description, it would be “independent mindedness”. That independence of thoughts and direction explains yet another distinguishing feature of your generation. It is that unlike ours and those before us, you have no illusions that the role of government as the all-time provider of employment for all is at best an illusion. You are the generation that finally gets it! You know that wealth and poverty of nations are determined by the necessary interplay of roles of government, private sector and citizens. From government, you demand sound policies, effective investment and provision of public goods like infrastructure and education as well as predictable legal and regulatory frameworks including security and order. As citizens you and the private sector while guided by the rules make myriad of decisions bordering on savings and investments in allocating scarce resources to accomplish certain ends a precursor to the attraction of foreign investors.
Your generation understands the power of incentives and disincentives from a positive dimension and so possesses the tool to be better economic decision makers and players. What a remarkable departure you can be if you embraced this advantage from your forebears whose negative variant of responding to incentives perpetuated the prevalent culture of pillage of public resources! The best among you will be the ones that will make one very important personal choice. That choice would be to adamantly refuse to be like your forebears who were held down by some inferiority complex mind set that consigned the continent for many decades following independence to “an unworthy and negative Exceptionalism. It was a mindset challenge that resulted in the very different paths and outcomes seen in Asian countries like Singapore with similar historical experiences when compared to ours. The self-defeating attitude posits often that “something a little less than outstanding is quite good enough since it is after all for Africa” and it has been very destructive as basic philosophy of life. No! There is absolutely no reason why Africa, more broadly and Nigeria, more specifically should be closeted in mind boggling robe of dwarfism just because some among us think that some things are simply beyond our reach!
Your generation thankfully does not carry the albatross of post-colonial trauma bequeathed by the conquering armies of Europe or the burden of militarization and despotism inflicted by our own armies and despotic leaders of the past. What you often ask is colonialism? Sometimes you are stupefied by the explanation that there was actually a time when foreigners reigned supreme in your homeland and were called “Masters”. God forbid, many of you say, as you release your hot headed irreverent questions like “how could our ancestors have allowed that to happen?” Told of the season of anomie when military adventurism ruled supreme of which many of us your parents had to endure as we grew up, you look bewildered and truly puzzled that we permitted such aberrant rule that is responsible for the almost institutionalized opacity of leadership that has been our nemesis for so long to happen.
This benefit of absence of a yoke explains your absolute sense of freedom to question EVERY as well as ANY authority. With obvious confidence and sometimes much to the great irritation of your parents, elders, superiors and constituted authorities who simply do not take kindly to being “scrutinized” by their own children, you push for Accountability. How many times have you sat through and endured a lecture by your mom, dad, another adult or government official rebuking you for demanding accountability for their action that you considered inappropriate or a breach of trust? Well, the good thing is that you are hard nuts to crack! No amount of intimidation or adult blackmail will stop you from tweeting, updating your Facebook page or even more painfully (to the generation that has a lot to learn from you about aligning private piety and public accountability), doing a real time recording that makes its way to You Tube on the world wide web! Considering that we know by economic evidence that Accountability does impressive positive things for economic progress of nations, we all must be wise, rein in our ego and support your thirst for Accountability, Transparency and Probity in the affairs of families, government and corporations.
But then, I am the first to caution you in the manner you exercise your enviable role as custodians of good governance and social responsibility. First is that for you to persist in credibility for others to be above board, you also must endeavor to model the behavior you advocate. Second, you cannot afford to be reckless in using anecdotes drawn from perceptions, suppositions or assumptions that are not backed by facts and evidence in your very important role in social activism. Third, you must recognize that you can disagree on issues of public debates and dialogues about the directions the country should go without being disagreeable, objectionable and adversarial. Why? Your generation does better when it leverages the power of collaborative partnership among yourselves, across your older and younger generation, with government, with private sector, domestically and globally.
For some of you possessing the liberating and dignifying mind set of enterprise, you may have in fact already worked out the outlines of your business plan, looking not just within our country, but seeing that the continent if not the world could become your oyster. Like most entrepreneurs worldwide, you are impatient to see the governments play their enabler role through the pursuit of the right kind of structural transformation of the economy so that current growth levels can be sustained, accelerated and accompanied by much needed productive employment for more people. The structure of African economies has not changed much in the last fifty years and so is still dominated by low productivity typed agriculture and mining which even if high productivity does not yield much employment.
As governments play their part by using a program of low cost sharply focused public policies to exploit the continent’s latent comparative advantage in certain light manufacturing industries like leader goods, garments and agricultural processing for example; you as motivated entrepreneurs will do well to use your learning and wider connectivity to other people and knowledge to pioneer the production activities that will step into the grounds vacated by Chinese firms. Due to steep costs increases associated with rising wages and non-wage labor costs, escalating land prices and mounting regulatory costs the most daring among you can actually become the private sector leaders that will move the nation and continent from low-productivity agriculture and the informal sector to higher productivity activities.
You value economic freedom as the main driver of economic development just like your contemporaries do in other economies where citizens have thrived by driving the economic progress of their nations because Government played its noble role. Research findings validate clearly that those countries with the most economic freedom have higher rates of economic development than those with less economic freedom. You therefore seek to see government play a strong and effective role as an enabler, facilitator and umpire. You demand good governance from government not because you wish to be critical of those that govern but because you know that countries which prioritize good governance are more attractive, competitive and generally perform better than societies where government failure stunts productivity. As such you are hard on your parents, hard on your peers and harder on your government whenever you conclude that what is at best mediocre performance is celebrated as exceptional or even sometimes as transformational.
Second you are a generation that is not restricted to the boundaries of Nigeria; nay Africa, in defining standards and performance. You belong to a universal club of confident young people with humongous dose of curiosity and in perennial search for solutions to the problems. Like your friends from all other continents on your preferred social media platform ranging from Twitter to Facebook to Google+ etc., you have set higher standards of performance for yourselves and others including your country. You do so, because you know that in your truly globalized world, your competitor is not your class mate sitting next to you, not even those in other Universities in Nigeria, West Africa or Africa. Your competition is the youth whose Commencement I recently attended while still resident in the United States for one of my twin son’s graduating class. For you, therefore, there is no cutting yourself or anyone else a slack. The ones among you who would continue to lead in your generation are those that keep pushing themselves, daily learning new knowledge, unlearning unproductive or useless attitudes and values while relearning patterns that create and enhance their value.
Certainly although several of you will not be catching the private sector entrepreneurship bug choosing rather to pursue further academic studies in medicine, physical or social sciences, business and education et al, or to tread the path of public service or to delve into social activism or even social entrepreneurship. That is exactly as it should be. What already emerges among the older segment of your generation is the wide diversity of areas of occupational triumphs that are possible and your refreshing openness to accepting that there is no superiority of one set of career path over the other. The only thing that matters is how much social value beyond your personal benefit you used your career to create.
Therefore, whatever your choice of a calling may end up being, one thing I know we can expect to see of you as part of this generation of “doers” is an energetic and almost frenetic accomplishment of newer grounds for societal improvements than your parents. Not for you the paralyzing incrementalism that inculcated inertia into the delivery of generations ahead of yours. You like to do big and dramatic things to help “save the world”. Studies have shown how your generation is much more interested in dedicating your lifetime to a cause and so are likely to prioritize a life of purpose over just about any ordinary thing like money, fun or brings excitement. Your social consciousness and peer pressure to “join the cause” may yet be the catalyst for change in the relationship dynamics between the governed and their leaders.
It is not all awesome for your generation, though. You will be leaving your gated life of comfort where parents, guardians and school authorities struggled to give you a good life to one ridden with uncertainties and turmoil. There will be moments in your new found life of freedom when you will confront the anxiety pangs associated with identity crisis- times when you will ask yourself, “who am I really?”, seasons of ebbing confidence when you suddenly are not so sure of your great worth, seasons when you will struggle to keep your bubbly optimism of today but are rather filled with a sense of hopelessness, seasons when you will be confused and faced with the tensions of moral ambiguity not quite knowing your breaking point threshold for defending what you consider to be right. When those seasons come, embrace and own your fears and failing. Stay authentic not just to others but to yourself. Fall hard if you must and then pick up strength quickly. With absolute humility you may wish to try what I always did when like you I came of age and wondered a lot about where my journey of life would take me.
Most of the time, I was very sure but those fewer moments when I was not so sure, were potential destiny wrecking seasons. As soon as I understood that much to be true, I made a decision that I continue to live by even today. The longest period that I permit myself to binge on the dark clouds of pessimism, misery, despair and weakness is twenty hours! No matter the nature of challenges that I have faced since that year in 1981 when I was like you are today, a fresh faced graduate of the University of Nigeria, God was and has always been my security blanket. In fact I know of two Truths in so far as my life purpose is concerned. The first Truth is that driven by a deeply ingrained sense of purpose and sacrificial service by our parents, I give to every Assignment, absolute effort to finding the right solutions and diligent commitment to staying the course regardless of any odds that come with the effort. The second Truth is that I do so knowing that my ultimate currency is absolute reliance on God. That He never ever fails is story that I can tell eloquently. I am not ashamed to shout out that I never could have made it all these years without the God of everlasting grace on my side.
So, what should you then do as soon as you decided your next step after this graduation? If I were you, I would get on my knees and enter into a purposeful life partnership with my Maker. I would promise that if He helped me realize every milestone necessary to my fulfillment of purpose, I would give my absolute all to His Assignments for my life. Should you decide to try the advice of this older- generation-badge- of- honor -carrier, then let Him at least know that you would hold nothing back from this moment forward as you constantly try to fulfill His purpose for your life. That way, the God who has brought you to a good place of celebration today, will see in you, not just the fertile seed you carry for Turning the Point for a greater Nigeria and Africa but that even better, you Turned it all to Him. Turn Eagles!
Congratulations! Fly off and go birth a New Nigeria and a New Africa. Soar. Never stop! Just keep soaring!! We all stand in awe of you………..
Obiageli Ezekwesili,
7th Convocation Speech, Covenant University, Otta.
June 29th, 2012

MAJOR GENERAL MUHAMMADU BUHARI'S FIRST SPEECH AFTER THE MILITARY COUP OF 31ST DECEMBER 1983

In pursuance of the primary objective of saving our great nation from total collapse, I, Major-General Muhammadu Buhari of the Nigerian army have, after due consultation amongst the services of the armed forces, been formally invested with the authority of the Head of the Federal Military Government and the Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. It is with humility and a deep sense of responsibility that I accept this challenge and call to national duty.

As you must have heard in the previous announcement, the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (1979) has been suspended, except those sections of it which are exempted in the constitution. The change became necessary in order to put an end to the serious economic predicament and the crisis of confidence now afflicting our nation. Consequently, the Nigerian armed forces have constituted themselves into a Federal Military Government comprising of a Supreme Military Council, a National Council of States, a Federal Executive Council at the centre and State Executive Councils to be presided over by military governors in each of the states of the federation. Members of these councils will be announced soon. The last Federal Military Government drew up a programme with the aim of handing over political power to the civilians in 1979. This programme as you all know, was implemented to the letter. The 1979 constitution was promulgated.

However, little did the military realise that the political leadership of the second republic will circumvent most of the checks and balances in the constitution and bring the present state of general insecurity. The premium on political power became so exceedingly high that political contestants regarded victory at elections as a matter of life and death struggle and were determined to capture or retain power by all means.

It is true that there is a worldwide economic recession. However, in the case of Nigeria, its impact was aggravated by mismanagement. We believe the appropriate government agencies have good advice but the leadership disregarded their advice. The situation could have been avoided if the legislators were alive to their constitutional responsibilities; Instead, the legislators were preoccupied with determining their salary scales, fringe benefits and unnecessary foreign travels, et al, which took no account of the state of the economy and the welfare of the people they represented.

As a result of our inability to cultivate financial discipline and prudent management of the economy, we have come to depend largely on internal and external borrowing to execute government projects with attendant domestic pressure and soaring external debts, thus aggravating the propensity of the outgoing civilian administration to mismanage our financial resources. Nigeria was already condemned perpetually with the twin problems of heavy budget deficits and weak balance of payments position, with the prospect of building a virile and viable economy.

The last general election was anything but free and fair. The only political parties that could complain of election rigging are those parties that lacked the resources to rig. There is ample evidence that rigging and thuggery were relative to the resources available to the parties. This conclusively proved to us that the parties have not developed confidence in the presidential system of government on which the nation invested so much material and human resources. While corruption and indiscipline have been associated with our state of under-development, these two evils in our body politics have attained unprecedented heights in the past few years. The corrupt, inept and insensitive leadership in the last four years has been the source of immorality and impropriety in our society.

Since what happens in any society is largely a reflection of the leadership of that society, we deplore corruption in all its facets. This government will not tolerate kick-backs, inflation of contracts and over-invoicing of imports etc. Nor will it condone forgery, fraud, embezzlement, misuse and abuse of office and illegal dealings in foreign exchange and smuggling. Arson has been used to cover up fraudulent acts in public institutions. I am referring to the fire incidents that gutted the P&T buildings in Lagos, the Anambra State Broadcasting Corporation, the Republic Building at Marina, the Federal Ministry of Education, the Federal Capital Development Authority Accounts at Abuja and the NET Building. Most of these fire incidents occurred at a time when Nigerians were being apprehensive of the frequency of fraud scandals and the government's incapacity to deal with them. Corruption has become so pervasive and intractable that a whole ministry has been created to stem it.

Fellow Nigerians, this indeed is the moment of truth. My colleagues and I – the Supreme Military Council, must be frank enough to acknowledge the fact that at the moment, an accurate picture of the financial position is yet to be determined. We have no doubt that the situation is bad enough. In spite of all this, every effort will be made to ensure that the difficult and degrading conditions under which we are living are eliminated. Let no one however be deceived that workers who have not received their salaries in the past eight or so months will receive such salaries within today or tomorrow or that hospitals which have been without drugs for months will be provided with enough immediately. We are determined that with the help of God we shall do our best to settle genuine payments to which government is committed, including backlog of workers’ salaries after scrutiny.

We are confident and we assure you that even in the face of the global recession, and the seemingly gloomy financial future, given prudent management of Nigeria’s existing financial resources and our determination to substantially reduce and eventually nail down rises in budgetary deficits and weak balance of payments position. The Federal Military Government will reappraise policies with a view to paying greater attention to the following areas: The economy will be given a new impetus and better sense of direction. Corrupt officials and their agents will be brought to book.

In view of the drought that affected most parts of the country, the federal government will, with the available resources, import food stuffs to supplement the shortfalls suffered in the last harvest. Our foreign policy will both be dynamic and realistic. Africa will of course continue to be the centre piece of our foreign policy. The morale and combat readiness of the armed forces will be given high priority. Officers and men with high personal and professional integrity will have nothing to fear.

The Chief Justice of Nigeria and all other holders of judiciary appointments within the federation can continue in their appointments and the judiciary shall continue to function under existing laws subject to such exceptions as may be decreed from time to time by the Federal Military Government. All holders of appointments in the civil service, the police and the National Security Organisation shall continue to exercise their functions in the normal way subject to changes that may be introduced by the Federal Military Government.

All those chairmen and members of statutory corporations, parastatals and other executive departments are hereby relieved of their appointments with immediate effect.

The Federal Military Government will maintain and strengthen existing diplomatic relations with other states and with international organisations and institutions such as the Organisation of African Unity, the United Nations and its organs, Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries, ECOWAS and the Commonwealth etc. The Federal Military Government will honour and respect all treaties and obligations entered into by the previous government and we hope that such nations and bodies will reciprocate this gesture by respecting our country’s territorial integrity and sovereignty.

Fellow Nigerians, finally, we have dutifully intervened to save this nation from imminent collapse. We therefore expect all Nigerians, including those who participated directly or indirectly in bringing the nation to this present predicament, to cooperate with us. This generation of Nigerians, and indeed future generations, have no country other than Nigeria. We shall remain here and salvage it together.May God bless us all.

Nigerians don't crash; we bounce

The question of Randomness and the crash of DANA Air flight 9J -992

By Yemisi Ogbe

Captain Bode Olubiyi was my Uncle. He died on the 20th of April 2012. He had been ill for three years. In the stretch of his career as an airline pilot, he had flown for most of the major airlines in Nigeria: Nigerian Airways, Okada Air, Chachangi Airways, Virgin Airways etc. His career spanned over thirty years in flying Nigerians on Nigerian planes. I was of the opinion that he had impeccable instincts where his job was concerned.

But from his change of employment from one airline to the other and his temperament, one could deduce that he was not the model employee. He was known for speaking his mind often to his own detriment. On various occasions, he refused to fly a plane because he knew the history of the plane and he resented being asked to risk his life and the lives of those in his care. He resented enough, was strong enough to refuse to fly and consequently bear seasons of unemployment.

On more than one occasion, he got the sack for refusing to fly an airplane. He was regarded as a crank, suspended often yet no one that knew him doubted for one second that he knew his job in and out and that he was a good pilot. It was a contradiction that his family was often impatient with. On the 29th of December 2004 on route from Port Harcourt to Lagos, the Chachangi Boeing 727 with registration number 5N BEU which he was flying developed technical problems. The nose wheel gear of the plane failed to eject.

There were 81 people on board as well as 6 crew members. His experience in both navigating the faulty 727 and checking the emergency situation, saved the lives of 87 people and earned him a commendation…a signed piece of paper from the Minister of Aviation. I saw it hang on the wall. The plane crash-landed at Murtala Mohammed Airport that Wednesday night on its belly barely avoiding the usual sparks and fire.

The story was more glamorous than the shabby commendation hanging on the wall.There were many thanks given to God, many references to miracles. And above it all, the inevitable question-mark hanging over the condition of the airplane and whether the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority had its acts together.
I had known Captain Olubiyi for most of my life. He met and married my mother’s sister when I was a toddler. Our conversations about Nigerian Aviation began not because I was interested in airplanes but because Wings Aviation Beechcraft 1900D (5N JAH) belonging to James Ibori, managed by a suave Nigerian pilot Captain Nogie Meggison who had earned his stripes in the industry disappeared off the radar on the night of 15th March 2008.

*Charred carcase of the Dana aircraft after the crash

The plane was on its way to Obudu Cattle Ranch to pick up the Executive Council members of Cross River State Government. It was a private charter organised to take the Exco members to and fro their yearly retreat. The plane made the “to” leg, flew back to Lagos, and on its return at the end of the retreat to take the Exco members back to Calabar, it disappeared. The records state that it contacted Enugu ATC at 7:45pm and at 8:00pm on route to the Bebi Airstrip in Obudu. It had left Lagos at about 7:35pm.

Minutes after 9:00pm that night, I received a call from my Uncle, Captain Olubiyi. He wanted to know if my husband was with me. I responded that he was in Obudu at the retreat.

He asked if I had spoken to him. I said I had in fact just spoken with him. In that case he said, he could unreservedly tell me that the Wings Aviation plane that was on its way to pick up the Cross river state executive council members and the governor from Obudu had crashed. I argued with him that there was nothing on the news about the crash. It was a bit premature to conclude that it had crashed. We would have heard something. He became impatient with me. It was of course a naive statement. I allowed him to speak: To voice what at the beginning I classified as inordinate “allegedlys”: (1). The plane had crashed. (2). The wreckage of the plane had been sighted by helicopters belonging to the Accident Investigation Bureau. (3). The pilot was an old -hand. He had been coaxed out of retirement, offered a lot of money to fly the plane for Wings Aviation. (4). Wings Aviation had no flight plan for Obudu. (5). Obudu was not an area in which a pilot could rely on his instincts no matter how good they were.
The mountains over that whole area, the wind strength and velocity, the unpredictability of the weather, necessitated a flight plan. It was a necessity. Your instincts would fail you. It was mostly about the mountains: One minute you would be comfortably flying the plane, and the next you would be slapped against the side of a mountain, and there the story would end. This was the long and short of it in layman’s terms. (6). Aero contractors “were” (are possibly) the only fliers who have a legitimate flight plan for the Obudu terrain. They paid good for it and in the Aviation sector it is an edge. The “allegedlys” became more terrifying. (7).      The pilot’s body had been sighted outside the plane.The other two were probably inside the plane. I called my husband to give him the details. He made some calls. Then he called back. It was a fantastic story.

The Nigerian Aviation Authorities could confirm that the plane had gone off the radar but suggesting that they could confirm that the plane had crashed and that they were covering up a crash was going too far. It was out of the question. Matter closed. For the next couple of hours, I occupied the tense space between the two people; calling one, and then the other. Trying to tie the possibilities into something coherent. With every detail my uncle offered, my husband became more annoyed and impatient. My uncle on the other end was giving out information that you didn’t offer, not ever in a country like Nigeria. A country of intrigues.

7.The plane was owned by James Ibori and James Ibori was a powerful man. He was one phone call from the NCAA and a good friend of the president. As fantastic as the story was, he could indeed buy a whole industry’s silence with the promise of a few hundreds of thousands. What is the price of a live person in Nigeria?What is the price of someone who has died? What is the price of three crew members who are already dead anyway? My uncle stood his ground, so did my husband.

Our conversations continued over the next couple of days. On the night of the 15th, the media conceded that the plane had disappeared. On the next day, the 16th of March, the NCAA confirmed that the wreckage of the plane had been found at a village in Yala Local Government in Cross River State. Later, the confirmation was retracted. It was some sort of mistake. A strange sort to my mind. But we continued to follow the media. My uncle insisted that the plane had in fact been found the night it crashed.

On the 19th of March, The Daily Sun reported that the search for the plane had moved to neighboring Cameroon. On the 24th of March, ThisDay newspaper’s special feature headline read: “Famous Missing Aircraft…”It continued… “The disappearance of Wings Aviation’s Beechcraft 1900D is not the first mystery in the aviation industry.

For ages, there has always been one mysterious incident or the other. Here is a list of 20 famous missing aircraft…” Even if it was just nine days later, the writer of the feature thought the circumstances warranted a comparison to Amelia Earheart’s disappearance in the South Pacific in 1937.

The media it seemed was anxious for whatever reason to prematurely conclude that the plane was in Cameroon and not in Nigeria and that the crew were alive and well. It seemed to be a good point to go to the commercials. Captain Olubiyi related the circumstances around his refusal to fly and his suspension from work: “I came out ready to fly the plane but there was a boy sitting in the engine of the plane. I asked who he was. I didn’t recognise him. He wasn’t an engineer. I walked away in disgust.

My employers demanded to know “why” I had refused to fly the plane. I motioned to the boy sitting in the engine of the plane as if that was not good enough reason. Why would I risk my life and the life of the people that I was responsible for by flying such a contraption…”

From my uncle’s employers’ point of view, who the hell was he to refuse to fly. Pilots didn’t refuse to fly in Nigeria because the Nigerian Aviation industry was one of the safest in the world. Nigerians never crashed! We bounced! We had both providence and sagaciousness on our side. We are a country that turns its nose up at M.O.Ts and Sell-by dates. If the car breaks down, you stop it, get down and put two wires together. Nigerians are so smart, mechanics don’t have to go to school or meticulously and efficiently learn how to handle an engine. They don’t even need to know how to read.

Handling an engine is pure inspiration. It is done as instinctively as praying or for those who learn slowly by apprenticeship. Nigerians scoff at manuals and insurance documents and drivers licenses. It is the way we have lived for decades and we like to think that it works for us. My uncle had battled this mindset for most of his career. He was progressively more impatient and brash. In his day, you couldn’t just pass the examinations to become a pilot. Many of his colleagues flunked, and if you handled the technicalities perfectly, you would still need to face to psychological evaluations to determine that you had the strength and presence of mind to responsibly bear the weight of people’s lives. All these examinations and tests mattered because flying a plane, handling it was a science, not a providential exercise. It was not “If God wills we will land!”

If the United Kingdom hoped in 2011 during a global recession that Rolls Royce manufacturing of aeronautical engines would save the economy it was because they had created a precise intelligent correlation of circumstances and brilliant minds and environment that was creating such engines. There is a science to whether a plane will take off or land. There is a science to how airports are built and how proximal buildings are to runways, and fire extinguishers to lavatories. It is not providence, or prayers or mechanics putting two wires together.

Nigerians love to talk about randomness because it is a psychological space within which they keep their family safe without being responsible. In that space, if you are good, or a good Christian or a good Muslim or you’ve paid your tithe or your trousers are the right length, you survive plane crashes. It really has nothing to do with whether the piece of equipment that you are riding in is taken care of. It is the story of our lives. The boy who plays truant in school is popular, admired for breaking the rules and getting away with it but in the end the admired truant leaves school without an education. The end inevitably justifies the means.

My uncle’s point of view was that in no other country would this be happening in broad day light. Would a man with no identification be sitting in an engine of an airplane purporting to be an engineer? In no other country would he be expected to then get into that airplane and fly one hundred and fifty people to their destination with a clear conscience.

My conversations with my uncle on the Wings Aviation plane ended on two stern warnings. “Yemisi. I have been in this industry for all my life. Tell your husband that the next time someone charters a plane to put your governor on it to Obudu, they better have insider information about the condition of the plane; on the Insurance up-to-dateness of the plane; on the pilot flying the plane… go and write it down, only a fool in this country will just step out on a plane without having information about that plane especially if you have the wherewithal to buy knowledge. The pilots who have spent long enough in this industry and know its ins and outs and are not just cowboys in it for the money will never put their families on some of these planes carrying people. No pilot in his right mind will put his family on a plane that he knows has a history and“we know’ the planes with histories even if it isn’t recorded on a piece of paper. It is unfortunate for the man on the street because he doesn’t have the information and can’t pay for it.”

“…Tell your husband that if they must fly to Obudu, they had better use Aero contractors. They are the only one with a legitimate flight plan for that area” We waited and nothing concrete or intelligent came from the media. The plane had begun to disappear from the radar of Nigerians’ minds even if not off the minds of the families of the crew members. I sat in a group with friends who insisted that the plane must be in Cameroon in the hands of Gendarmes who had detained the pilot and crew members in a dingy room and denied them phone-calls. It was that kind of conclusion no matter how unintelligent that allowed you to go back to living your life without thinking too much about any of it. It was that queer Nigerian brand of providence at work. These were the questions that my uncle had insisted that I must answer.

They resonate even today: “Was it possible that the plane had not in fact disappeared?’ “Was it possible that the plane had no insurance? or had some other outstanding paperwork issues that its owners had hoped to resolve over time and with the plane’s earning of income” “Was it possible that because the owner of the plane was so powerful he was the first phone-call from NCAA authorities especially the Accident Investigation Bureau who had in fact discovered the crash site on the night of the 15th of March?” “Was it possible that the plane would turn up when its insurance issues had been sorted out and when all those details of whether or not there was a legitimate flight plan had
faded with time?”

If one answered all these questions with a Yes then one had to look to the Accident Investigation Bureau, an autonomous agency reporting to the President of Nigeria. The Bureau’s two main functions are to investigate and prevent airplane crashed. On the 16th of March 2008, Thisday online quoted Mr. Nogie Meggison, the Managing Director of Wings Aviation as having confirmed that the wreckage of the aircraft had been found in Yala, Cross River State, but apparently there was no expert identification on the crash site by that date. The Bureau claimed that they could not confirm the exact location of the plane in Yala. How had they learnt that the aircraft wreckage was there? Yala by the way is the second most populated local government area in Cross river state.

It is not a village in the remote sense of the word. The average man on the street probably has a mobile phone. It was either an aircraft crashed in Yala on the night of the 15th or it did not.

The ThisDay online report which was the most extensive of all the media houses went further to say that the National Emergency Management Agency had also joined the search. The Cross River State government had also supposedly dispatched land search parties.

Harold Demuren, the Director General of the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority, supposedly confirmed to ThisDay that the Bureau and NCAA had taken over the papers of the airline to scrutinise them. It was he who was also quoted as saying that the Accident Investigation Bureau had mobilised a team to the site of the accident. It was either there was a site of the accident which people were mobilised to or there was none.

Some unnamed aviation experts also lent their voice to the report: They claimed that the ELT (Emergency Locator Transmitter) which triggers off Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacon either was not present on the plane or it was not working.

It was the same ThisDay newspaper that had gone out of its way to provide all this information that rushed to a conclusion on the 24th of March by drawing parallels with Amelia Earhart’s disappearance.

A similar crash to the Beechcraft 1900D 5N JAH one had occurred in the early hours of the morning of September 17th 2006. A Dornier 228 twin – turboprop utility aircraft carrying fifteen Army officers and three crew members on it had crashed on its way to Obudu. It might be relevant that the aircraft was being maintained by DANA Aviation company. The company also sold the aircraft to the Nigerian Air Force. No parallels were drawn between the two crashes as a pointer to what could have gone wrong. At least the public were not informed of the conclusions.

On the Aviation Safety Network, the accident description for the March 2008 Wings Aviation aircraft reads:

Probable Cause:  A lack of situational awareness which led to a controlled flight into terrain, and the inability of the crew to identify their position while navigating to their planned destination.

Contributory factors to the accident according to the report were: the flight crew’s deviation from initial filed plan to Bebi, poor Cockpit Resource Management and the crew’s inability to respond promptly to several EGPWS warnings.

Anyone reading these words can safely conclude that the pilot’s reasoning and instincts had failed him. The contributory aspect mentioned only holds water if in fact there was a flight plan.

The Beechcraft 1900D re-surfaced six months later. We were presented this news by the media. It was found in “thick rain forest of Besi in Obanliku local government area” by Hunters who presumably never went that way before. As my uncle had indicated six months earlier, the pilot’s body was outside the plane, the other two crew members were inside the wreckage.

It is Sunday evening on the 3rd of June 2012. Dana 9J-992 has crashed into a building in Iju-Ishaga in Lagos. One hundred and fifty three passengers have crashed with it. They sit suffocating in the wreckage waiting and praying for rescue workers to arrive. The minutes draw out. In twenty minutes there is an explosion and everything is presumed lost.

The crew warned of an emergency 11 nautical miles to the Murtala Mohammed Airport. Rescue workers could have been sent out to to cover the remaining distance and check the explosion. The locals in Iju-Ishaga attempt to put out the wreckage of a burning plane with pure water sachets and buckets of water.
On December 10 2005, Sosoliso Airlines Flight 1145 crashed at the Port-Harcourt International Airport. There were 61 Loyola Jesuit school children returning home for the holidays on the airplane. In a similar scenario, children were heard outside the plane screaming as they suffocated and were burnt alive. In a similar scenario, the system failed. The failure of Aviation safety in Nigeria is not random. “…the question remains as to whether the problems of this aircraft were resolved satisfactorily and whether the eventual buyers of the plane (Dana Air) and the Nigerian Ministry of Aviation were aware of this fact and took necessary measures to ensure that the aircraft was safe enough to operate within Nigeria’s airspace.”

It is not arbitrary. It is systematic. The Aviation industry in Nigeria is built and sustained to fail. The number of airplane crashes over the last ten years is proof of this. There is a lack of accountability. There is no expertise. Crucial managerial roles are not in the hands of experts nor competent personnel. Those who are in charge are too cocky to hire consultants but are shrewd enough to protect their own families from the system. The commercial enterprise is overseen by diplomats, autocrats and people who have difficulty just simply telling the truth. The system is corrupt in and out but this is not a car that we can jump out of and put two wires together. As we speak the Accident Investigation Bureau is on its way to the United States with the Black box. If that does not spell disaster, I don’t know what does. Worst of all the media is a tool in the hands of blatant corruption.

Even God knows we are not in his hands.