Transcription
We'll elect our governors. We'll have our ministers. That will happen. But they are not bothered. After we have elected them, you'll then see them sending their arrows head. You'll see Bill Gates come and meet your president. You'll see Tony Blair come and meet your president. You'll see Macron come and meet your president. You'll see all of them. And then they will never admit, but they'll be told, if you want money in agriculture, behave this way. If you want money in this area, behave this way. They will never tell that to the Chinese. They will never tell that to the Indians. They will never tell that to the Vietnamese. They will never tell that to the Koreans. But in Africa, they tell us.
That is why, as I speak to you now, under this new scramble, the IMF and the World Bank are back telling you who to hire in your universities, what to sell and what not to sell. It is a sad situation. So today, as I look at Africa in that new scramble, the Chinese are here. I hope that this institution was not built by the Chinese. The TS are here. The British are here. The French are here. The Qataris are here. The Americans are here. This time round, they are so subtle that we don't even recognize them, but they control us. What are we going to do about it in order to develop? We must do something.
And if we don't do that thing else, you who have been trained in this institution, you have traveled the world. You have traveled Nigeria. There are two things that you can do with your traveling. You can marvel. Says it is great in China. You can marvel. You can wonder or feel pain. I'm urging you to feel pain, to feel pain for the continent of Africa and in your own way, when you go out there, go and do something about it because it has also been demonstrated that it can be done. I've traveled across this continent and I've seen that development is possible. I was in Rwanda before 1994. I was in Rwanda in 1996; genocide, 1 million dead, its obituary written, will never rise, they said. You go to Rwanda now; they are demonstrating that it can be done. Go to Kigali now; see what they are doing in the health sector in their own small way. See how they are collaborating in the area of mobile telefan in their own small way. It can be done. I've been to Botswana and I've seen what they are doing in their own small way. I've been to Mauritius; see what they are doing in their own small way, and they do not have the resources that other countries have. They do not have the resources that the Democratic Republic of of Congo has. And I'm giving these examples to say that indeed it can be done and it can be done within the continent of Africa.
So what we must do is to begin to pull together. You know, as I've been sitting and listening, I was also struggling to have internet in this room. And every effort was being made to connect me to internet, and all those efforts failed. Why? Because we are in an era of the internet of things. We are in an era of nanotechnology. It cannot be right that in Africa's largest economy, in Nigeria, I do not have internet at an institution that deals with security. You get the point that I'm trying to make. It cannot be right. And I'm and I know why we don't have internet connectivity. It is because we are divided. We have 55 telephone access codes: Nigeria 234, Ghana 233, Kenya 254, Tanzania 255, Uganda 256, Zambia 260, Zimbabwe 263. How can we, in this day and age, you cross into Benin, you cross into Togo, you cross into Guinea, Bisau, you have a different internet connectivity? Why can't Africa have a single satellite and a single telephone call? So that when I travel from Mogadishu in Somalia to Dakar in Senegal, like the Chinese do, like the Americans do, like the Indians do, we can have the same, because communication is critical to development. And I'm saying this part of my agenda is to prick your conscience with live examples that you may go out there irritated, but irritated to do the right thing. And I'm suggesting that indeed, when we talk about development, this is what we must do.
But is Africa conscious of our state? Yes, Africa is conscious. This is what makes me happy, that after all these analyses, it appears to me that Africans have now recognized that going forward, we can only defeat the conspiracies, we can only have development as we are talking about it by working as a team. And that is why, beyond the millennium development goals, beyond the sustainable development goals, we as Africans, under the aegis of the African Union, do now have our grand vision of Africa Agenda 2063. And that Africa Agenda 2063, let me tell you, if we can fulfill it, many of you here will be upstairs by the year 2063. But our contribution, perhaps you do not know what I mean by upstairs—not up, you'll be with the Lord himself. So but but the most important thing is that Africans are now beginning to see beyond the next election, because part of our problem in Africa has been that we planned in five-year circles. We don't have a grand agenda, but now we have a grand agenda. And if you look at the seven pillars of Africa Agenda 2063, everything is covered: health is covered, research and science is covered, climate change is covered, women's participation is covered, democracy and governance is covered, the arts and the culture are covered, so that Africa can become a serious player in the international agenda. As we speak now, we are not a serious player.