Thank you very much Kehinde; that was a very insightful conversation with Benjamin and Fola.
I want to say first and foremost thank you to everyone who's here and who stayed the day.
It has been a wonderful conference, some very enlightening conversations.
I think it's a spiritual disaster to pretend that one doesn't love one's country.
You may disapprove of it, you may be forced to leave it, you may live your whole life as a battle.
Yet I don't think you can escape it. If you try to pretend you don't see
the immediate reality that formed you, you will go blind.
This is a quote by the famed author James Baldwin that seats deeply within me. For the past decade of
my life I have been fortunate enough to live between England, Scotland, Ghana, Switzerland,
France and if you visited many others. I have seen what was capable, what we are able to do.
I often marvel at the ingenuity of mankind and our propensity for greatness,
which is why it saddens me when if you fly into Europe or America at night you are greeted by
thousands of lights from the sky: if you fly into Africa, large parts still remain in darkness.
To me this is one of the most critical problems that must be solved. To actualize
our potential and bring those grandiose dreams of what Africa could be we must bring light to
every corner of the continent. The world as we have it right now is
in a very precarious moment, things are changing around us a lot more than we've ever seen before;
ideas and solutions we often took for granted are turning out to not work so great any more.
Many of Africa's nations are quite young and lots of them gaining their
independence in the latter part of the 20th century, as young as our grandparents.
We must understand that our path is different and it's not going to work
if we simply just look around us to copy the solutions that have been provided beforehand.
We must create new business models
and develop stronger institutions that have Africa at heart.
I believe this is a mission for each and every one of us who has a genuine love for country
and continent, to apply ourselves diligently to the tasks at hand in mostly solid foundations for the
home that we want to build, a home we don't have to leave for the best of what life has to offer.
I hope each and every one of you who has chosen what they're going to work on applies yourself
diligently and focuses on the task at hand like your life depends on it. For those who
are still trying to figure it out, keep going: the path will become clear as you go along.
I hope the conversations today don't stop here, There will be the Oxford Africa conference
in May of this year and the conversations must go on but the work does not stop there.
We must go back and roll our sleeves up and get to work. Before I got on to stage I received a
message from my mother saying it takes a village and a planet. She's right. I am a product of love,
which is evident with my family and my friends who are here today in person and watching online.
In my life journey I have learned the importance of going within,
of understanding yourself and of loving yourself for self-development. I think the same must be
said of Africa: we must go within because we have the solutions we need within ourselves.
I wonder often what Africa could look like if our leaders began to operate with a love ethic.
I'd like to thank you all for being here today, but as you go home I hope that the conversations
you've heard today sit with you, and they do not just sit with you and you forget them by tomorrow,
but you decide to do something, because each and every one of us is capable. It is down to us: there
is no one else that's going to come and save us. So thank you all for being here today. There will
be a drinks reception in the marquee and I wish you all a wonderful evening and a safe trip back home.