'RETURN TO ENGLAND'

I guess a return to the land of my birth was always on the agenda and almost inevitable you might say.  I had dreamt for so many years of what it would be like to savour and saunter down the fabled paved streets of London. But I never once believed the myth that it had paving made of gold and opportunities which were littered all through along the paths.  Months of correspondence with my cousin had made me more circumspect about the reality.  I was impatient to complete the Youth Service Corp programme in Abeokuta, a mandatory service year all Nigerian graduates had to be enrolled on and they were posted to various work establishments.  During my law school years after much toil, much going back and forwards I had obtained a black coloured British passport, to ensure I was allowed entry into the shores of the United Kingdom without a visa.  Yes I had enjoyed my time work as a prosecutor at the State Ministry of Justice, I appreciated serving God as an executive of the Christian Corpers Fellowship but above all I was seriously in love with Olajumoke, the beautiful, dark enameled lady with elegantly sculptured body and perfectly shaped almond eyes, who was to become my wife.  None of these, however, were enough to mitigate the draw of England at the time.

However, a few obstacles stood in the way of my ambition, the finances needed to acquire an air ticket, accommodation on arrival, the imminent possibility of my twin sister’s wedding and the thought of leaving my fiancé on her own whilst I returned to England.  I had approached my uncle, Dr. Adigun for a soft loan to buy a ticket, and he agreed.  My terms were simple I would pay him back within a year once I got to England.  However, my uncle reconsidered his promise and decided rather than offer a loan he would advance me a significant gift.  The gift, however, still left me significantly short, my mother then decided to part with her savings and pay the difference for the cost of my ticket.  She had been saving for the raining day and my travel back to UK was considered such.

In 1990, I attended my twin’s introduction held at my uncle, Mr. Oladejo Ojedele’s Ibadan home, but no dates were fixed for the wedding.  Introduction was customary in Nigeria where the families of prospective bride and groom got to know each other over the informality of food and drinks.  I had sketched out plans with ’Jumoke deciding that I would go ahead and settle down to a job in England and then return to marry her once it was feasible.  With her agreement secured and with financial support from Dr. Adigun and my mother I booked a Nigerian Airways one-way ticket to Heathrow Airport in London. 

I made arrangements with ‘Ranti Oguntokun nee Lawunmi my cousin to arrive and stay in their home whilst I sorted myself out.    I enjoyed the last moments of my time with Olajumoke, who prepared a delicacy of coconut rice, said my goodbyes to friends and relatives and then on an Harmattan filled evening in October 1990 made my way through the cluttered roads of Lagos and I flew out from Murtala Mohammed Airport Ikeja on a Nigerian Airways DC 10 flight.  On the way through the mist of traffic, I saw the legendary Akintunde Asalu, the President of the Shareholder’s Solidarity Association he had abandoned his car because it had broken down. I waved him goodbye, reminiscing about his unremitting kindness to me in times past.  I thought my return to the United Kingdom would only be for a few years but remained in England for more than two decades.

My arrival at Heathrow Airport early on Saturday morning and was shaken by the sudden cold blast of autumn air that rushed through from outside, my jacket and coat, ‘a pass me down’ from Uncle Ayo Akinsonmi, offered little in the place of warmth, I was shivering to the marrow.   I was armed with forty pounds and expended half of it on my taxi fare to Ponyders Court in South Clapham.  I returned to the exact area where in 1966 we were born as twins.  ’Ranti and ’Yinka welcomed me by establishing a few ground rules, it was clear my stay there would be very temporary for my cousin was now heavily pregnant with her first son.  She navigated me through the cultural issues of my new country, took me to my first church Bonneville Christian Centre where I met Pastor Les Ball and she ensured I went to the Department of Social Security office to sign on for dole, the government’s handout to the unemployed.  In no time through Threshold Housing, I acquired accommodation on 26 Montrose Gardens, Mitcham, Surrey in a small box room, big enough to contain a wardrobe and a chest of drawers but it suited my finances. 

My first night in the room was intolerable, it seemed the cold sneaked up on me, I came with a blanket and wore thick clothing to bed, but these were no match for the unrelenting and unremitting cold that seeped through the crevices and gaps into my tiny room.  I lay shivering in bed, wondering why I had decided to leave the warm shores of Lagos to subject myself to torture of this kind. 

Ian, a young Caribbean boy became my closest mate in the house, introduced me to all the cheap shops, and gave me a crash course on life in the UK.  I settled down, savoured my new reality and began to think about securing a job.  Macdonald Restaurant came calling in the meantime, but after only three days, I gave it up.  I reckoned that losing my entitlement to unemployment benefits and housing benefits for a low paid job was not my best option.  I needed to devote my time to securing a well-paid job and being unemployed offered me the space and time to do that.  I linked up with ’Dele Olawoye my old friend and over a weekend we reminisced over our past.  With time, it became apparent that my search for a job would be much harder and more frustrating than imagined. I joined the Job Club at Bonneville Christian Centre in Clapham South, where I was put through my paces in the search for a job and where I had the opportunity to volunteer.  

I became re-acquainted with Morounke Jacobs, a niece of Professor Wole Soyinka. We became like brother and sister quite inseparable; my name for her was ‘Aburo’, which meant younger sibling.  She had returned to England to study for her Master of Arts in International Relations at University of Leeds.  It was because of her that I ventured up to Leeds and the City of York.  Through her I was introduced to her uncle, Pastor ‘Kayode Soyinka to whom my wife and I became very close. I was privileged to travel with her to attend her wedding to Mr. Akin Somorin in Lagos, Nigeria in 1994 and by mere coincidence we were on the same flight with her uncle, the Nobel Laureate Professor ‘Wole Soyinka. 

In the end after two hundred and seventy applications, visits as far as Liverpool and eighteen months of uncertainty I received the offer of three jobs, Administrative Officer at the Home Office, Prison Officer and Executive Officer at the Inland Revenue.  The Prison Officer job was a very well paid position and the security checks took over 12 months to complete, but with an eye on the Nigerian scene I could not see any transferability of skills.   After much careful consideration, I settled for the Inland Revenue job in Thames Ditton, Surrey, a position that would later take me to Nottingham in the Midlands.  It was at the Revenue I was reunited with Sheyi Oriade for a period and met ‘Banjo Aromolaran an Ijesha Prince and Brother ’Tunde Jayeibo a minister of the gospel.

'THIS BOOK - I FOUND MY VOICE'

I found my voice' -  "This book and its words continues to grow from the strength of my friends, Kolawole Onifade, Hillary Okoronkwo, Ismaila Zakari, Victor Amokeodo, Mukthar Bakare Anyante Ephraim, Oba ’Dokun Thompson, ’Femi Suleiman, Olumide Adisa, ’Sheyi Oriade, The Revd Gideon Para-Mallam, Folayan Osekita and ’Dayo Oleolo. These are people who reject the myth of their generation’s apathy; they have challenged me to take on the orthodoxy of current thinking and to ask the hard questions. You have challenged me because you understand the gravity of our task, which lies ahead and the futility of doing nothing. I hope I have been able to resist being imprisoned in a polemic that obscures the import of my story telling.

The pathway ahead remains hard, our ascent steep, and we may not get there with one book, but I am filled with more hope now than ever before that we will get there and we will reclaim our voice. I do not in a thousand years suggest that a book conceived in the depths of my anguish should end in the hype of a book launch. I am certain that this book is not the change others and I seek; but it creates a space for us to make that change. This is our chance to reclaim our voice to answer the call for this is our moment and this is our time. By default, we have had bad governments in Nigeria because we have allowed the past and present rulers to operate on the unending margins of despair and apathy. They acquired power not because they had a genius about them but because we were asleep in deep slumber and the coalition of progressives was fractured.

In the past, I have made reference to the template of President Obama, the improbability of a black man becoming the President of the United States. I have written about the near impossibility that was overcome when the first man was sent to the moon. The obstacle that Apartheid presented and the dismantling of it without a bloodbath, the impregnability of the Berlin Wall which came tumbling down! I therefore lay down a challenge to the cynics who claim that Nigeria is an impossible case and that without our abject surrender to corruption and its accompanying violence we simply do not have a chance at mounting a challenge to the status quo.

I ask what do we have to lose by trying? I suggest we lose more in not trying at all. I go further to state today that by helping the people find their voice across the diaspora in Nigeria from Sokoto to Lagos, Kwara to Taraba, Borno to Imo, Cross River to Kano, we will be able to proclaim with all certainty and voices soaring above the skies of Nigeria that our time has come!" Read more...https://www.createspace.com/4943826

'JUST LOVED THIS MANDELA TRIBUTE SONG'

Please enjoy the video:

facebook.com/video.php?v=10152273074233419&set=vb.792363418&type=2&theater …

'MY INTERVIEW ON THE CHIBOK GIRLS'

My interview on the Chibok Girls on TVC news can be viewed on: http://youtu.be/Mz7nroFDKkY

This is a better video of my interview today on the rescue of ChibokGirls: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iNxVPwRiQSo&sns=em …

'LIFE SO TRANSIENT, SO FLEETING, DEATH SO INEVITABLE…...'

Today, it is expected that after receiving news about the loss of Tony Egbe, Valentine Ojo and others unsung on the cyberspace and beyond that we may feel impaled by grief and immobilised for a moment.  But because death is a mocker, its easy so soon to revert back to routine and behave as if we are indestructible.  Each loss however, must bring a realisation that we, each and every one of us is on a relentless march to eternity.  We must never forget, that we are all brothers and sister with a common debt to fulfill, service to those alive and honor to those recently departed.  Now is the time to focus on matters of substantial or i dare say eternal value. Today is not one for so many words…..  

'IN MY MOTHER'S WOMB'

She kicked me again with a forceful thrust!  I had grown rather frustrated with this other little person with whom I was sharing the tiny corralled space.  I was wearisome from her constant-mini tantrums.  It seemed there was not enough room for both of us.  It was no great surprise that true to her character trait when the ‘call was sounded’ she heard and responded first, bawling her eyes out in delight, scampering out, taking the first opportunity to exit the womb, grabbing a gush of fresh oxygen and leaving me to spend the next eleven minutes trying to follow in her wake.  After a fitful struggle, I bit my way through my mother’s canal and I joined my twin sister in the outside world.  The snatched recollection of this improbable memory was to define our relationship for more than forty-three eventful years.

This is how deep in my subconscious I recall my first encounter with my twin sister.  She was always there, a familiar presence, one that occupied my every thought.  Now I confirm that since she transitioned into the heavenlies, leaving me to carry on the ‘good work’ my memories have been accentuated and my power of recall exaggerated.  However, deep down I believe in the authenticity of the experiences recounted here.  What is indisputable is that as a twin I had and still have a unique relationship, which non-twins may never fully comprehend.  When presented with the knowledge of my twin’s transition, a common question from some about the nature of our relationship is ‘Where you close?’  I suggest this sums up the limitations of their understanding. 

Our relationship as twins was a complicated and intense one and sometimes as we were growing up it ranged from over-identification and excessive closeness to profound estrangement and conflict.  We had to deal with the significant emotional pain of separation in adolescence but as we matured as adults and got married, we came to love each other more and admire each other more as individuals.

We were born in a South Clapham Hospital, London which used to occupy an imposing but now dilapidated Victorian building opposite the Clapham South tube station in early 1966, and from there we moved with our parents to their home in Wandsworth, a suburb of London.   Both of us were very chubby and big babies, however, my twin sister took upon my father’s resemblance from the darker skin tones to his looks, his lips and his smile, and this accounts for her second name, ‘Feyisara’, ‘we used this one as a covering’ and I was mostly blessed with my mother’s fairer looks. 

“Snow, snow, Mummy why is it so white?”

I was only three years old in 1969 but my inquisitive nature had the better of me, I needed my mother to spell out to us why the white powdery stuff falling from above was so freezing cold.  My twin the more resilient and reserved stared at me wondering what was the matter with all these questions.  We trod carefully along the slushy path on the way through Clapham Commons with my mother pushing the enormous pram, which contained my younger brother’s bounteous frame.  He, ’Debo had big rosy cheeks, its tenderness invited a stroke from many onlookers, he was quite a handful and large for his age, some portend to the six feet three inches in height he later attained.  

In 1968 my father had returned to Nigeria on the successful completion of his doctorate in International Relations which focused on Nigeria’s economic relationship with Britain so it was now just the three of us and we were coping as best as we could.   We continued staying with Mrs. Cox our nanny in Maidstone, Kent to allow my mother time and the space to work.  The arrangement was we were dropped off with Mrs. Cox during the week while my parents went about their business of study and work.  Years later after we returned to Nigeria she dutifully kept in touch by sending toys, comics and books to us.   When my father was around he was on a full Commonwealth scholarship so he did less of ‘working’ and more of studying, it was my mother who supplemented our income with a series of part time jobs.  I imagine one of the conversations my mother had with the prospective white employers to have started like this:

 “You are not Janet Noble are you?”

The burly Caucasian man who was in charge of the office my mother had gone to seek work said with barely disguised disdain.  He had sent my mother an interview letter on the assumption that she was white, and he had no intention of employing an African or any black person.  My mother’s maiden surname was Noble and hence the reference from the gentleman but she did not let her frustrations show.  She went on to enroll in Pitman’s College training as a secretary and busied herself with a few catering classes to improve her job prospects.  

Our temporary sojourn in the United Kingdom had to end, by 1970, the Nigerian Civil War was over and my father who was settled in his job as a lecturer at the University of Lagos, living a bachelor existence with his younger brother Ayoku in the Igbobi College area, now wanted us around him.  The affordable option of travel was by the sea, through the stormy Atlantic Ocean.  It was fully paid for by the very eager University of Lagos.  All our earthly possessions were neatly arranged in trunk boxes and crated up.  We sailed on the Elder Dempster, a passenger and cargo ship.  We boarded in Southampton and it took a journey of over two weeks to reach the ports of Lagos in Apapa.  I remember we constantly fell sea sick, also the nursery I attended with my twin sister on the ship’s deck.   We arrived at the staff quarters of the University of Lagos at C36 where my father had managed to secure.  It was a comfortable grey encrusted terraced house within a row of five; it all seemed different but rather idyllic.  On arrival we were welcomed by Uncles Ayo and ‘Lawale into the realities of Lagos life.

Read more by buying 'I have found my voice' https://www.createspace.com/4943826

'PLEASE HELP SPREAD THE NEWS!'

Please help spread the news! #ChibokGirlsSolidarityMarchDAY130 Unity Fountain Abuja. 2.30pm for 3pm. Tomorrow, August 22nd 2014. Thanks!

‘THE VICE-CHANCELLOR - WANDE ABIMBOLA’

Only a selected few knew of my relationship with Professor ’Wande Abimbola and they assumed that because he was my ‘guardian’ I might let him off lightly.  However, they were proved wrong.  Whilst I had become more circumspect in pursuit of power, I was still capable of verbally trampling on anyone who stood in the way.  We had many thorny issues to resolve with the University authorities and the Vice-Chancellor called a number of meetings.  Typically the University’s Principal Officers and Students’ Union Executives attended these meetings.  At the meetings, I was always quick to speak and was rather hard on the Vice-Chancellor, who never quite understood why I never learnt the virtue of restraint with him.  It was as if my picking on him allowed me to demonstrate virility.  I think for me it was simply business and no hard feelings as I felt the needs of students were paramount.  Mr. Dipeolu, the bald and dark complexioned man, whose legs had a pronounced bow was the University Librarian and was usually the one that brought wise counsel to proceedings when we reached a stalemate.  There was Dr. Adetunji, the Ibadan man whose face was patterned with decorative tribal marks, the willy University Registrar who was always impatient with our antics. 

I also attended some statutory University committees as a Union official.  During one of those meetings I struck a very close relationship with Professor ’Wale Omole, an alumnus of the University and a Professor of Agricultural Economics who later became the Vice-Chancellor of the University.  He was open, very friendly and always dressed in a smart cream coloured French suit.  He chaired the New Bukateria Complex Committee, a complex of mini restaurants the University had built and let out to private caterers.  Prior to this, the government had subsidised all student meals and provided them through the caterers employed by the University.  The Students’ Union was granted one of the units in the Bukateria to run and the Welfare Committee, which, I chaired, was responsible for its management.  ’Gbenga Ojo was secretary to the Welfare Committee and the Buka Manager, he gave up so much of his time to run it and I trusted him implicitly.    I am afraid that despite all the hard work, we never made any money and it was simply a drain on the Union resources.  It was at this point that I began to question my views on natioinalisation of industry.  Good intentions were never good enough to run a business.   At the Buka, we employed staff, went to wholesale markets and ensured that all students paid for their meals and yet made no profit. I was careful never to eat free meals at the Buka in order to avoid any potential conflict of interest.  

The Bukateria was the place to eat if you were awash with cash, with rows of open restaurants, you had a wide variety of choice and you could adapt your finances to suit your preferences.  There was Mama ’Funke’s Buka, ‘the fried rice o!’  Fried rice laced or garnished with slices of dodo (fried plantain), crowned and decorated with a choice selection of meat and fish.  You could then decide to cleanse your palate with water or a selection of soft drinks.  There was always a long lingering queue there as people rushed there to be fed in sumptuous style.  These were the kind of competitors we faced at the Buka even our lower prices did not dissuade the students from visiting Mama ’Funke.   However, for those hard up with little cash, up on one of the hills of the campus lay the ‘Old Buka’, a collection of shanties made from corrugated iron sheets where you could indulge in some ‘Lafu and eran hu hu.’  ‘Hu hu’ was the phrase coined for those who eat their morsels from a variety of pounded yam and cassava with no meat and it was popularised by ‘Jasper’.  This was never out of choice but rather a function of lack of financial means.    On a few occasions I would visit the Old Buka with ’Segun Carew aka ‘Jasper’ who had introduced me to this money saving alternative.  You could have a dish for about Thirty Kobo (a few pence) provided you were prepared to forgo the delicacies of meat or fish. 

In any case, I have arrived at the conclusion that whilst I am not for ‘unregulated markets’, governments simply should have no business running some utilities.  Yes there might be one or two strategic utilities governments needs to run but we must explore other means of ownership that is for the common good and ensures profit is reinvested accordingly.

1986 was a time of great crises in Nigeria there was the introduction of the much-derided Structural Adjustment Plan (SAP), the IMF loan, and the Austerity Measures etc.  In response to all these measures, Ife Students’ Union was in the vanguard of opposition.  This meant we were always in the eye of the storm and addressed regular ‘World’ Press Conferences.  In reality, these were local press conferences at NUJ Headquarters at Iyanganku, Ibadan.  I can still picture ‘Shadow’, Olurotimi, the Student’s Union Representative Council Speaker, in his navy blue academic gown and mortarboard on his head, the traditional grab for his office seated beside the Union President as we addressed the Press.

However, the incident that shook me the most was when one of our students was killed in the Ile-Ife Township, his head was almost severed from machete cuts.  I received a call to go to the Teaching Hospital to identify some remains, which, the hospital authorities thought might be our student.  Sunday, the Union driver drove me over to the hospital and as soon as I entered the cold and freezing morgue, the transience of life hit me in the face, seeing the row of corpses I gasped at the inexorable lowliness of mortality, which is usually obscured by the vibrancy of life.  Instantly I recognised the student, he was one of us I had dealings with him in the past!  Immediately I felt shivers running down my spine.  It was a beheading gone wrong; the head clung on to the body but it was almost severed off.  This brought memories flooding back of ’Bukola Arogundade who was beheaded a decade earlier.  I suspected ritualists were at work and we were determined to seek justice.

When the news filtered out to the students they urged us to invade the town, but taking lessons from history, we knew it would be unwise.  We met with the University authorities who counseled restraint.  We summoned a ‘Supreme Congress’, a gathering of all students and gave emotional speeches, however, the students wanted action and only that would assuage them. 

“Greaaaaaaaaaaat Ife, Greeeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat! In the nameeeeeee of every student martyr, in the nameeeeee of ’Bukola Arogundade, in the nameeeeee of Akintunde Ojo, in the name of Wemimo Akinbolu… I counsel your attention….”

These were my emotive-laden words to a very charged audience of students in the Obafemi Awolowo Hall Cafeteria.  In the end, our tactic of making speeches upon speeches had worked this time and calm was restored.  Then as a cabinet, we took the decision to travel to Ibadan to visit the then Oyo State Military Governor, His Excellency, Colonel Adetunji Olurin and present him with a list of demands.  After a few days, we were invited to the Government Secretariat in Ibadan.  The Governor dressed in his green military uniform received us listened to our demands and then responded.  He counseled restraint and promised his government would take action. 

It was my responsibility as the Welfare Officer to liaise with the family in respect to the burial arrangements.  I had the sad and painful task of accompanying the brother to the mortuary to identify the student’s remains.  We made arrangements to transport the remains in our union Volkswagen Kombi bus to Ibadan, but when the coffin arrived, it was too small.  We had asked the family whether they wanted us to arrange the coffin, but the family insisted they had the arrangements in hand.  The wooden coffin they managed to purchase was unfortunately not the right size. Through the journey to Ibadan, the student’s remains kept on popping out of the coffin because its lid would not shut.  However, despite that mishap we were able to give him a befitting burial.  This time we had managed to contain a potentially explosive situation but that would not last long.

However, it would only be a partial impression to suggest we were only dealing with tragedies during our time.  We organised some events that made University of Ife the envy of many.  I recall the ’Fela Anikulapo-Kuti extravaganza that we organised and the ‘Miss Culture’ event put on by Taiye Taiwo, the Director of Socials and compered by the irrepressible ’Deji Balogun who had previously contested for the Presidency of the Union.  The event that remains etched in my memory, however, is the ‘Major Kaduna Nzeogwu Day’ we organised.   We invited the retired Major ’Wale Ademoyega to deliver a lecture to mark the event.  I was his compere so I had the responsibility for organising his accommodation and transport arrangements and thanks to Mrs. Kuku the Chief Catering Officer and wife of Mr. Femi Kuku a former President of the Student Union he received first class treatment.  The Vice-Chancellor was scheduled to meet with the Major but at the last minute he pulled out pleading prior engagements. 

The Major who had been part of the original five majors who took part in Nigeria’s first coup was a dark, tall, brooding and a contemplative character.  He did not speak much and it was obvious that the events leading to the assassination of the Prime Minister Alhaji Abubakar Tafawa Balewa and the Finance Minister Okotie Eboh still haunted him.  When we settled into his suite at the University guesthouse with some reluctance he described to me in stark and gruesome terms the last moments…..Read more from https://www.createspace.com/4943826

'THE CONCLUDING CHAPTER FROM I FOUND MY VOICE'

After my father’s death, impaled by grief and immobilised by circumstances the odds were stacked against me. My progress, my development and my chances of a break- through in life were greatly diminished. I faced a Harmattan period, with heavy fog filling the sky above and the Saharan dust choking out any hint of hope. But in my darkest hours, something kept the flame of hope burning and I refused to give up. My own history challenges me that walls can be torn down but the task is never easy. True progress requires constant work and sustained sacrifice. I project my story on to Nigeria’s, its problems, its frustrations and its tragedy with an unstinting belief that it can overcome. In the last twenty-three years, I have lived abroad, but not too far from the scene of Nigeria’s devastating stagnation and pervading cynicism. My relatives and friends have ensured that I have maintained a watching brief through my regular visits.

To Nigeria, I sound a clarion call, to those who are dissatisfied with the current status quo I conclude with a series of posers. If there is anybody out there who still disbelieves that my life is an example of someone who demonstrates the art of the impossible becoming possible; who still wonders about the legacies that my ancestors left me; who still questions whether a small diminutive boy with little academic potential can rise to great heights; then this book is your answer. Is there is anyone that doubts the potential of the question called ‘Nigeria’, this book is my response. If there is anyone who asserts that our country will only end in sorrow and tears and blood, this book challenges that assertion.

In 20I0, I lost my beloved twin Folashade Feyisara and I was convulsed and imprisoned by grief, it was even more traumatic than the loss of my father and it took me so long to recover from it. My life was in shambles and it took prayers and counselling to arrest my slow descent into depression and to set me free from its shackles. My work and ministry were affected and it appeared there was no way forward, as I stumbled around blindly in the wall of darkness. Today I still continue to feel the effects of her absence, the power of the present silence of her voice, one so complete and assuredly speaking to us from the past. My country Nigeria which has faced so many traumas, so many false dawns and is in a slow decent into anarchy can draw a leaf from my present circumstance.

I realise that I would not be writing this book without the unflinching support of my earthly rock and the love of my life, Olajumoke and that of my family. However, above all the ownership of this book really belongs to the long suffering Nigerian people, those who are subjected to the daily scandal of mis-governance, to those who deserve better healthcare, to the child who has a right to decent education and also the family who simply want to live in security.

This book and its words continues to grow from the strength of my friends, Kolawole Onifade, Hillary Okoronkwo, Ismaila Zakari, Victor Amokeodo, Mukthar Bakare Anyante Ephraim, Oba ’Dokun Thompson, ’Femi Suleiman, Olumide Adisa, ’Sheyi Oriade, The Revd Gideon Para-Mallam, Folayan Osekita and ’Dayo Oleolo. These are people who reject the myth of their generation’s apathy; they have challenged me to take on the orthodoxy of current thinking and to ask the hard questions. You have challenged me because you understand the gravity of our task, which lies ahead and the futility of doing nothing. I hope I have been able to resist being imprisoned in a polemic that obscures the import of my story telling.

The pathway ahead remains hard, our ascent steep, and we may not get there with one book, but I am filled with more hope now than ever before that we will get there and we will reclaim our voice. I do not in a thousand years suggest that a book conceived in the depths of my anguish should end in the hype of a book launch. I am certain that this book is not the change others and I seek; but it creates a space for us to make that change. This is our chance to reclaim our voice to answer the call for this is our moment and this is our time. By default, we have had bad governments in Nigeria because we have allowed the past and present rulers to operate on the unending margins of despair and apathy. They acquired power not because they had a genius about them but because we were asleep in deep slumber and the coalition of progressives was fractured.

In the past, I have made reference to the template of President Obama, the improbability of a black man becoming the President of the United States. I have written about the near impossibility that was overcome when the first man was sent to the moon. The obstacle that Apartheid presented and the dismantling of it without a bloodbath, the impregnability of the Berlin Wall which came tumbling down! I therefore lay down a challenge to the cynics who claim that Nigeria is an impossible case and that without our abject surrender to corruption and its accompanying violence we simply do not have a chance at mounting a challenge to the status quo.

I ask what do we have to lose by trying? I suggest we lose more in not trying at all. I go further to state today that by helping the people find their voice across the diaspora in Nigeria from Sokoto to Lagos, Kwara to Taraba, Borno to Imo, Cross River to Kano, we will be able to proclaim with all certainty and voices soaring above the skies of Nigeria that our time has come!

My dream is of a Nigeria governed by policies based upon welfarism, premised on programmes, decisions and/or rules evaluated on the basis of their consequences on the governed. Welfarism based on the view that the actions of the rulers have significant consequences that impact on the human beings they serve. Welfarism, which, produces ideas that stem from having a human face. Our Welfarism must personify every structure of government. These structures must be treated with dignity and care because failure on any part will have dire consequences on others and have fatal effect on the governed.

I visualise a quality of leadership whose style is outstanding. Leadership that influences others through inspiration, generated by a passion and ignited by a genuine and sincere purpose. Not a leader who lords it over the governed and is only after personal aggrandizement and avarice. The vision is of a new crop of leadership, which demonstrates the passion and willingness to serve and serve responsibly.

I suggest that the principle of good governance is acknowledged as essential for the success of any Nation. Leaders at the helm of our affairs should play a vital role in serving their causes and communities through committed passion as well as skills and experience to the instruments of governance and the governed. The principle of good governance enhances the provision of long-term vision and protects the reputation and values of a Nation. To make a difference our politicians need to have proper procedures and policies in place. The principle of good governance will ensure the delivery of welfarist promises made through a team that is accountable, sincere and astute.

For me my search has come to an end, ‘I have found my voice’. My fervent hope is that you discover what you seek as you tread your own path, read my story and as you follow the end of the journey presented in this book.