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good afternoon ladies and gentlemen
I stopped complaining about government
many years ago because I believe that
the muscle you developed to be a critic
and the most developed to be a problem
solver are two kinds of muscles and is
difficult for you to be a problem solver
if you invest heavily by being a critic
and so what happened to me many years
ago about 20 years ago when chief
luchenko Obasanjo was president of
Nigeria was that I sat down one day like
every Nigerian complaining and then it
didn't hit me if you are Nigeria's
president what would you do differently
and so as I thought my brain knocked
because really I couldn't find a
coherent
you know solution to the problems that
you know I thought where prevailing in
Nigeria and so from then on I committed
myself to finding out how do you solve
Nigeria's problems how do you solve
problems so I said looking for ways to
solve problems from then on so I have
three basic assumptions whether you are
dealing with communities organizations
or nation-building the truth is that
every organization and every group is
only as great as the individuals that
make up that organization the second is
that great groups organizations of great
nations are organized and third the
potential of a great organization or
nation in the case of Nigeria can be
measured and so if you look at this
picture I am Not sure you know what do
you think this is right now this was a
bank test in 2008
and I thought I had seen it all until a
few years after I saw this now these
people will are all job seekers right
and the truth is when people say that
they are looking for a job and they
don't get one I want to reach the
capacity of our young people what we are
really saying is how do we develop the
problem-solving capacity of our young
people how do we create opportunities on
one hand and also with capabilities on
the other hand and how do we ensure that
the opportunities match the capabilities
being developed and so if you look at
this it's a huge national problem but
it's also huge opportunity because
therein lies the opportunity we have for
our young people and our nation
and so I would speak with regards to how
do we you know stimulate this energy
that we have you know locked within each
of our young people here now you can see
that there is a simple equation I have I
have before us that organization is the
summation of the individuals within the
organization and you look at this
equation here it's from physics but am i
boring that from physics is that
potential energy has the same equation
as work done right and that's the
equation right there but let me do a
little breakdown for you when we say
that somebody has potential what we are
really saying again from physics is that
the person has the capacity to apply
personal force to make progress in a
defined direction right and though it is
true in physics it's also true in social
environments or social life that we are
saying in essence that work done is how
we produce how we create value the value
creating capacity of our young people
and I say that they about 5 elements
that we need to consider 3 listed under
my slide the first is to say you build
the internal character or discipline
ability to embrace routines embrace the
boring stuff the things that make life
work at the boring things the Sun rises
the Sun sets the Earth revolves around
the Sun as
the Sun the Moon around the earth you
know electrons around atoms if you look
at these things these are boring things
but things that cost life to happen you
breathe in you breathe out these are the
things that define us our routines the
boring things not fantastic initiatives
but how we are able to you know follow
procedures and con maintain those
procedures every day that I call
character second is rate of progress how
was the speed of speed how quickly are
you making progress again in that
defined direction okay
the like the term would say that the
more money you have the moment you can
have the more friends you have the more
friends you can have the more knowledge
you have the mana Regina you can have it
since ironical that in order for you to
have more knowledge you need to get more
knowledge you know because the more you
have the more you can soak up and lastly
is what I call distance or defined
direction this is the power of
imagination and vision and if you think
about it those who complain lack the
power if I'm a bit of an imagination
lack the power of vision your ability to
see clearly this is where I intend to go
and how do I get from this point to the
next point so I've defined these things
here and these things are true they are
true for individuals they are true for
corporations they are cute for
governments and they are true for
nations now lest I forget two other
things that we need to capture when
looking at that equation is that first
you must overcome the law of inertia and
for many of us we find it difficult to
overcome that inertia how do we stand up
and how do we get up and go right and
there are two ways either you bootstrap
yourself in order to make that progress
or you jump on a moving train so I have
found that to be quite useful in my
career initially I set out as a
freelance consultant it got to a point I
was livin like a retired man having done
some work and some money and then you
leave and you know maximize yourself and
I said how can i you know achieve much
more with my life and I looked around
and found people who were doing greater
things than I was and so I decided to go
join them and go volunteer in my case I
volunteered with a well known person in
my law professor Paso to me and I went
and I took on his own
consultant outfit and I ran the Consol
they have it for a while what many
people did not realize was that in my
contract there was no salary but there
was work and so that work allowed me to
expose me to all kinds of things and so
I quickly build capacities skills
relationships and all that and it was in
the course of doing that that I got
engaged by a multinational consulting
firm and everything else you know
spilled from there and so when you find
young people you say look what are you
doing for yourself your studio you know
and in any any money but at the same
time your CV isn't growing your resume
is being built up you can you can lose
on both ends right so first thing is
that you know like like my wife and I
like to say that you know best friend is
what Gary get plan right the program as
I say you the soup Gary you don't get
plan you know so if you choose not to
earn not an end in the short term at
least doing things volunteer let your
resume the growing in the cost of all
the things you are doing and it is true
for individuals his truth organizations
is true for Nations so in the course of
all my work eventually I found myself
doing private sector work and also
public sector work and at some point
there was a need in the nineteen
government and someone in the village
said to me
Daniel we need this help we can afford
it but please come and join us and I
felt that I had a you know a unique
opportunity to come serve and so I
resigned from a consulting firm where I
was pay I was feeding had currency and I
took on a job you know with government
where for about a year I am no income it
was a very difficult time but I learned
a lot and I was able to achieve quite a
lot working you know in the space of of
government but I'll share got the lesson
that I learned doing this you know I was
engaging with junior level government
officials and I kept on hearing this
thing you know saying if only government
will government should government should
then I said to him with mid-level
government officials did you were saying
the government needs to do this the
government needs to do that
then I was healing with senior level
government officials they too were
saying comment suit government should
then I was now in the villa and I was
here it was to say if only the
government and I said come on
so where is government and I said to
myself and to my friends I am government
I am government if you see a problem do
something go solve it if then it does a
problem on your road go look for latter
right look for Sun look for whatever
cover that hole take responsibility we
need more leaders more leaders of
citizens because we are looking at the
top but our problem in citizenship the
average person knowing that he is
responsible he is government and he can
make a difference in his own society
this is what we need to do because
really there is no Organa talk is all of
us are responsible for the future of
Nigeria and the future of Africa and in
the course of doing that we have to
learn how to organize how to coordinate
and how to make things happen and then
we have to find ways of communicating
you know in coherent ways that allows us
to get buy-in and to bring other people
to make things happen around our local
communities and our societies I believe
that problem-solving and value creation
is at the local level not at the global
level because the global is the
aggregate of the local and community
activities and this is what I believe is
the future of Africa we need to find
solutions that are local and cultures
that come from within us and start
looking out there for our solutions so I
will share in another love I will share
one of the expresses we had you know
just my last assignment where we ran
what we called the ER GP labs here we
crowd-sourced intelligence from both the
public sector and private sector people
who had you know companies that we
believed could give us you know cascade
effect across the entire country and so
what we had we had over 300 participants
about 180 organizations represented and
about six weeks where we're all locked
in one location
representing 66 a 7200 man-hours having
20 syndicate sessions in these meetings
we had ministers coming heads of
agencies and all that and I had never
seen this kind of camaraderie anywhere
in Nigeria because you found civil
servants working passionately to solve
the problem of private sector though
there were labs though they were
experienced and experimental but we saw
huge results in those initiatives that
we ran it wasn't well televised it
wasn't you know usually publicized but
we saw the results that came out of this
of this of this program I remember the
sessions we had we had the public sector
people on left hand and privates of the
guys on the other hand and then we said
to them how many of you have sent
messages to the public sector Michael to
the public sector and you got no answers
and people with your hands how many of
you among my colleagues in the public
sector believe that your silence is an
answer and the origins of secrets of
their hats and so we said lesson on
packet and so we spend time trying to
resolve all these things but at the end
we found people working passionately
to genuinely solve problems so the truth
is that we are government and with all
the things that we did and all the
motion with all the the progress we saw
happened I remember a development
partner had a meeting with me and he
said you know what is your takeaway from
all this work that you guys did and I
said to him that my example is from the
movie predator and you remember in
previous earth there was this foreign
this alien creature that came in to us
and then this Navy SEAL kind of guys
where we're trying to fight you know the
the creature he was taking them out one
by one and at some point one of the guys
began to shoot no directions and I said
what shooting he grazed the creature and
then there was blood on the brain blood
on all of the leaves and just the body
Ventura went to it and then tapped it
and said it bleeds
therefore we can kill it and so my
conclusion is that we saw progress you
know working with the public sector
people and
we saw huge results in those labs that
we ran and I said as far as Nigeria is
concerned it bleeds therefore we can
solve
Nigeria's problem and create new
solutions thank you very much
[Applause]
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