 Okay. I think we'll get started if we could, so we have plenty of time for question and discussion. Welcome everybody. My name is Jennifer Cook. I'm Director of the Africa Program here at CSIS. And we're delighted today to welcome Minister of Foreign Affairs, Chief Ojo Madweke, and his delegation from Abuja. They were here for our marvelous inauguration, and I'm very glad you could be here for that. I'm quite an inspiration here in Washington, and I hope around the world. I want to say welcome Ambassador Obi-Ozor as well. And I want to say thanks to Dave Hennick for helping organize this event on quite short notice and to all of you for coming. Just to begin, I think this is a very important opportunity and moment going forward, an opportunity to reenergize U.S.-Nigeria relations. We're in the midst in the Africa program of completing a review of Africa policy during the Bush administration with recommendations for the Obama administration. And one of the themes through that is the idea that U.S.-Nigeria engagement has been neglected, I think, particularly at a senior diplomatic level. Obviously, our view is that this should not be the case. Such an important partner, important to the U.S. directly, but also important for its regional impacts and leadership, African leadership and global leadership as well. Part of this is on the U.S. side. I think global crises and crises within Africa have sapped diplomatic attention. There's been something of a perception, I think very short-sighted, that the market will take care of oil supplies and that the crisis in the Delta, while on occasion it's marginally bumped up global prices, it hasn't really reached a level that requires a much more vigorous and robust response and a much more consistent dialogue with the leadership in Abuja. Our view is that, in fact, the crisis is worsening over time and it's something that's become much more international in its impact. And these are things, I think, that we hope the new administration will take up and that comes out in the review a number of times. But also, I think there's a perception here in Washington that there's a great deal of uncertainty hanging over Nigeria. The court cases, many of which have been resolved, internal dynamics and politics within Nigeria are kind of drawing the country inward in some ways. And while there are a lot of stated priorities and goals in Nigeria, it's very hard, at least from Washington, to sitting here in Washington to discern the strategy and the vision that Nigeria has for its role in Africa and its role globally. So what we're hoping, I think, that you can do today is help us understand what is the narrative and what is the vision for Nigeria's role in the region, for its engagement with the U.S., for tackling the crisis in the Delta, and for addressing the many challenges within Nigeria. I think there are many in this room who are very eager for much greater engagement with Nigeria and ready to push the new administration to a much more robust, consistent dialogue. Many people here who are very ready to help identify and seize opportunities for greater collaboration. And I think that too is where you can be helpful today. Just to introduce our speaker, I think many of you know him, but Minister Madwekwe was trained as a lawyer and started out in private practice, but he has a long career of political and public service. He was an elected senator, he's been minister of tourism, minister of transportation, he's been a legal and constitutional advisor to President Obasanjo, he was national secretary of the People's Democratic Party, PDP, and sworn in in July 2007 as minister of foreign affairs. Your Excellency, welcome today. I think, as I said, I think this is a great moment to be here, and we're looking forward to your talk and to discussion afterwards. Jennifer, thank you very much. Friends, distinguished guests, I must say I feel very humble to have this podium this morning. One doesn't need to be a scholar, a policymaker, or indeed a politician to appreciate the important role of this famous and available institute in shaping policies, in identifying new directions, and getting the context and content of so much that happens. One of the lines in President Obama's very powerful inaugural speech that caught my special attention, everything that caught my attention, but it was something that caught my special attention was when, echoing St. Paul, New Testament, he said, let us put aside childish things. Let us put aside childish things. It's like the President was saying it's time to get into a more adult conversation. That reference by President Obama resonated with me not only because of my universe that was shaped by being the son of a Praveetiran pastor, where, of course, St. Paul was a favorite any day. But I have been concerned that the wonderful opportunities that exist, relationship between the United States and all of Africa, and I would say, particularly Nigeria, there is need to upgrade those prospects. There's need to, using the word, the description of this institute, there's need to make them more strategic. And I think more strategic is perhaps the secular version of President Obama's biblical metaphor of saying, let's put aside childish things. I was also thrilled when I had my television on at the time when the new Secretary of State, who definitely is neither a new face to Washington, a stranger to foreign policy, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, as she was being received by her staff yesterday. She talked about the three pillars of U.S. national security doctrine and said that two out of those pillars belong to the job she will be doing the next couple of years. She was referring to development and diplomacy. Of course, the other thing like defense belongs to the Department of Defense. So putting together what the President said about let's put aside childish things. And what the Secretary of State said about development and diplomacy, that to me had summarized the emphasis, the particular emphasis I want to bring to the issues I would like to share with you this morning. I am tired, and I'm sure many of you are also tired. We can all collectively feel both sick and tired of having Nigerian ministers come to gatherings like this and say we are the largest country in Africa. We are 140 million people. No country ever got a reward for demographic. I'm sure you are tired of being told about how much oil your nationals dig under our feet and then they count the money. Actually, what we think we are getting out of it is what they tell us after the counting. I'm not sure we are perfected ourselves in how to do the counting. So they count the money and give us, and then they ship the oil to you. At the end of the month, we gather in Abuja, local government, state government, and the federal government, we share the money. 70% of it goes into salary. We mean that we share it among ourselves, the elite. We pay ourselves salary and about 30% goes into capital expenditure. You are tired, you are sick and tired of hearing that. We do are getting sick and tired of talking about that. I started developing this sense of fatigue about the kind of statistics we normally come out from Nigeria. Large population, oil reserves. When I, for those of you from Nigeria who may feel a little bit embarrassed when I'm talking this way, I'm always trying to remind myself I'm the number one diplomat in Nigeria, but it's often a hard thing for me to fully internalize. So don't mind my speaking the way I speak, because you cannot be honored ourselves here. Then it's a waste of time. I was visiting the Singaporean stand in Hanover. In World Expo in Hanover in 1999, and the Singaporeans saw us coming to the stand about seven ministers. You couldn't mistake who we were, but we were wearing the Nigerian national dress, the big thing, you know. It's because of the Washington cold, that's why I'm not wearing my own this morning, because I love that dress. And the Singaporeans didn't try to be diplomatic at all. As soon as they saw us, they said, you are from Nigeria, we said yes. And they were posting the fact that they didn't have oil in Singapore, and they told us that what they had was knowledge which had enabled them to create the thing that made Singapore so important. What am I alluding to in some of these fairly rebellious remarks? Nigeria has turned the corner. Nigeria is tired of just being a country of natural resources, and not rising up to its true potential. Our most important asset is the enterprise of our people, the entrepreneurship of our workforce, the dynamism and creativity of the Nigerian population. And I'm sure that many of you who have made Nigerians, not only here in the United States but anywhere in the world, you can testify to what I'm saying. Governments can be accused of virtually anything but not they can be accused of being lazy. They can be accused of lacking ingenuity, sometimes that ingenuity can be a source of embarrassment. We therefore believe that the Obama election provides an extraordinarily powerful new window of political engagement. And for the foreign minister of a country like Nigeria to have said several times since November 4, and I wish to say it again here, that the Obama election has denied us the political elite in Africa of every excuse for continuing failure, we have run out of excuse. There was a time when the excuse was colonialism, when that didn't quite work, we got another word, neocolonialism, imperialism. When we were on the line, we talked about the unequal nature of trade relations. There is no limit to what excuses can be offered when people are not ready to take responsibility. And the way Obama emerged as president of the United States by simply doing better than every other candidate has a powerful symbolism for us in Africa, particularly in Nigeria, that yes we can. That yes we can means putting our house in order on the issues that create an enabling environment for competitiveness, the rule of law issue, democratic consolidation, fighting corruption. And so the kind of relationship we want to see with the United States is one that has become a more adult relationship in which you don't assume that we don't understand democracy and so you want to start taking us back to kindergarten lessons on democracy. We're sick and tired of that. I think we don't know what rule of law is, so you want to take us through all that again. Or you made up your mind that we are very comfortable with corruption. So you want to give us lectures as to who should even be appointed to the offices in fighting corruption. That kind of approach will not work with us. And the reason why it will not work is not as a result of some artistic return to an unmoded form of nationalism. It will not work because there is already a clear consensus in Nigeria on these issues. So we have to now move from generalities to specifics. What is the natural relationship we want now with the United States of America? If in the area of the economy, for instance, what is it that if it's done by both countries will create the environment that can ensure that the fairly impressive rate of economic growth that has been registered in the past nine years does not lack because of the current global economic crisis, but it's sustained. We can talk about that. And here, what is required is a leap of imagination by a major development partner like the United States of America, unless there's a big infrastructure push in Nigeria, especially in the area of power. And the best resolutions or best agendas for getting the economy of Nigeria moving will be difficult to sustain. So here, we're not asking you to leave your problems in America and bring a command and bring your resources to us. There is a linkage here as you stimulate the U.S. economy to greater productivity. Might there not be a linkage between being able to also stimulate the Nigerian economy? One, to have implications in terms of job creation in both countries. Africa is the last frontier, really, when we're looking at development. So our rail lines need to be put in place, electricity is almost new. So GEC here, General Electric here in the United States, and other powerful companies we have here that have a capacity in this area looks at Nigeria. They will make money. So this is the kind of commercial we want to have. With the issue of oil, which quite frankly, and I wasn't joking when I said the whole thing had reduced to the level of, you dig the oil, but we don't even know how to dig it, you dig the oil and you count the money and give us. That's not good enough in 2009. We will challenge U.S. companies that see Nigerian oil purely in terms of get the resource, put it in the ship and bring it to America. To look at that, maybe one of the ways of dealing with the Niger Delta challenge, to the extent that that problem is fed by unemployment, is to improve the downstream sector. To see to it that about 30 products or so, which I understand can be refined out of crude oil. Those 30 products begin to be the legitimate focus of manufacturing activities in Nigeria. The companies will remain American companies. There is value added to the crude oil as a primary product. And then you export the refined products everywhere to America and to other places in the world, whereas lots of jobs are created in Nigeria. These are small. And then what will it take for these U.S. oil companies to get into that? What kind of tax incentives do they require from the government? Of course, the issue of security is something that this government is already very much seized with. So we want this kind of specific discussion in the area of economy. If it's about security, the reason why the African thing didn't quite take off was because of the lack of conceptual clarity as to what Africa was supposed to be all about. Whereas we can't quarrel with anything that can enhance our international security in Nigeria to make sure that the oil, which is still the mainstay of our economy, flows uninterrupted. But what is the meaning of Africa? Of all the ideological reservations about it, there has always been military assistance to African military, from U.S. military. Can that be upgraded now into specific as to the training of our boys in the Navy, equipments that are definitely superior to that, that is being used by the militants? There is need. And let me be honest with you, to say that you don't always have to wait for us to come with a comprehensive list of what we want. Because even the capacity to locate what we want is something that has to be acquired over time. The whole nature of partnership is that people can talk to each other in a very frank manner. So you can come forward and say, based on your own priorities, this is what you think might be of interest to us. And we'll look at it. At least there will be a conversation there. So what tends to happen, and I've been long and long in government to know that this is quite often the case. Maybe this is exchanged by presidents or heads of state, ministers with all the glamour or all the diplomaties that attend to these things, memorandum of understanding are and after that nothing happens again. Because now the ugly side of bureaucracy moves in. So you find a Nigerian government coming back 10 years to Washington, a Nigerian government delegation, and it's about the same subject matter, the same conversation. Nobody's asking whether what happened to the last discussion. So I think here we ought to hold each other accountable and say this is what has been agreed upon, this is who does what, when and how. So in the issue of security we can look at that challenge and see what needs to be done. Because however you look at the challenge of development in Nigeria, it's about state capacity. It's about creating the infrastructures, not only of security, but also human capital that can make Nigeria a strong modern state. And so by being a strong modern state we will be able to provide leadership for global stability. In a world in which the linkages are so intertwined and also so fragile, you can afford to have a continent like Africa that continues to be made in one diplomatial crisis or the other. Some bad news coming out of Africa. We will have thought that this is the time for the mood of what's happening in Washington. The story out of Africa should increasingly be one of good news. But what happened in Guinea-Conakry? It's not just tragic, but it's also frightening. Because within six months you have had similar situations in West Africa. Mauritania was already a problem. There was an attempted coup d'etat in Guinea-Bissau. There are some rumblings in one or two other African countries. Nigeria has been very, very firm in saying that there are no good coup d'etats as against bad coup d'etats. There have been some newfangled theory imagined from fairly surprising quarters about the need to engage purveyors of this kind of ideology. I call it a neopraterian hybris. You have heard all that before. Right from 1966 in Nigeria, when the same Bessianic involvement brought in the first coup-makers, they always think that they were the ones who can fix it and that we politicians are no good. But Nigeria is now in a very autodox mood on these issues. And our position is that if there is a problem of democracy in any African country, the only solution is more democracy. And that non-democratic intervention is something that has to be confronted head on. And we are ready to work alone on that issue, if need be. We were able to look at Mugabe, the African Union, and we led the charge. We told him to his face that the Zimbabwe, for which he was properly acknowledged in the days of fighting colonialism, apparently is not the same Zimbabwe he is equipping to his people now. And we condemned the presidential run-off and said it was unacceptable because of the way it was handled and the attempt to muscle opposition. We didn't win a popularity contest on that issue. But thanks to Nigeria leadership on that matter, about 17 other African countries followed our lead. And at least in our presence, no African country spoke in favour of what Mugabe was doing. We've taken the same position on Mauritania. The foreign minister of Mauritania, quote-unquote, foreign minister of an illegal government wanted to have a meeting with me at an international conference. I said, no, we will not reward a coup d'etat with a meeting. But I received the opposition. The kind of thing people are good at doing here in Washington. We're also doing that in Nigeria, you know. I received the opposition, the leader of opposition to the Mauritania government, led by the speaker of the parliament, who is opposed to the junta. In the case of Guinea-Conakry, we also were very strong in condemning the coup and at meetings chaired by me as chairman of the council of ministers of Ekoas, preparatory to the meeting, the following day chaired by my president as the chairman of Ekoas Health Summit. We got Guinea-Conakry suspended. We felt that there was need to be very united on that issue. And we are giving them not beyond the end of this year to return to constitutionality, failing which there will be consequences. But if the political will in African democracies is to remain muscular enough to the point that we just don't end up with resolutions, but that those who try to overthrow democratic governments should not only be ostracized, but it's not the kind of thing the world is ready for these days, but that there are consequences. There's need for capacity to be able to carry out those consequences. I don't want to sound too militaristic here, but I look forward to a day when regional standby forces of the continent, which have already been approved by the African Union, but they don't have capacity. A lot of the challenges, whether in DRC or in other parts of the continent that will require a stronger African engagement is because these standby forces have not received the kind of support that we have clearly indicated they should have from developing partners like the United States. So apart from dealing with local conflicts as they arise, original standby forces, let's say ECOWAS. If ECOWAS takes a decision about a country that has returned to military rule, if we say we want that government, the newly elected government to be restored to power within 48 hours, looking at the profile of the regional standby force, it ought to be clear to the pushes that failure to return to constitutionality means that an African army can literally, physically move into such a country. What I'm talking about is not fairytale. Former president of Nigeria, President Lucie Gunn of Basantjop, literally did just that. When the prime minister of South Tame and principally was his guest at a summit meeting in Abuja, the soldiers announced that the prime minister had been overthrown. President of Basantjop, well, it was a little bit easier because South Tame just crossed our fence there. President of Basantjop took the prime minister, flew with him in the semi-club and just literally told the soldiers to drop their weapons and have their man back. And that's what happened. Now, we think that even though that kind of model may not be easy to follow every day, and we've got Guinea-Kunakirana is too far from Nigeria for this kind of intervention. If there is a regional standby force and the soldiers try their nonsense, they will know that they can be flushed out. So there are many aspects of these things that we believe can be the basis of any U.S.-Nigeria relationship. Now, finally, because this is supposed to be an interactive session, is that the United States should consider Nigeria a natural partner. A natural partner because we have shared values, commitment to democracy, to rule of law, to transparency. Natural partners, not just knowledge, but natural partners because, again, they are cultural dynamics that resonate in both countries. We believe there is need to also appreciate the very positive side of my country, a situation in which the kind of stories that get out on American TV or media and, again, we are sick and tired of being told that, because the government don't control these things, there's not anybody can do it, but a lot can be done. But the image of the Nigerian that is fed all the time on U.S. media in terms of the negative perceptions of being on the wrong side of the law does great disservice to our relationship. It is not the complete picture. Most Nigerians are law-abiding. They are honest. You have many of them here in the United States doing great jobs as neurosurgeons, as community leaders, as nurses, as engineers, as managers, as credit card entrepreneurs, and so on and so forth. And we believe that one way of dealing with the negative of the few, very small, a country like Nigeria is entitled to have its first share of criminals. Once you are that big, you have a few people who create problems. We don't defend that, but we don't want the negative impression of just a few criminals to tarnish the excellent work the vast majority are doing. So there is need again to locate those descent Nigerians who are contributing to the American economy, who are adding value to your society. We know there are Nigerians, doctors, neurosurgeons, but even in NASA, we know there are Nigerians who work in NASA. When you see that spaceship looking for the latest planets to locate, it's possible there's some Nigerian contribution to that. We want those kind of stories to be told. And if they are told, it goes to strengthening the cultural links and the sense that these are partners that can really do business. And it is when that takes place that we will really begin to feel that we have a more adult relationship. What's more, let me congratulate you for the epoch-making event of Tuesday. We've been very grateful or not to have been witnesses to history. And we believe that that epoch-making event, because the transcendental and transforming nature of it, gives one a greater sense of hope, not only of a more inclusive world, but also a world in which people are going to be judged in the most words of Martin Luther King Jr. and the contents of their character and not by the color of their skin. Nigeria, I'm going back to the same kind of thing I said we are tired of talking about, but then there's no way of running away from the fact that we are the largest black population in the world. We don't want a reward for our demography, but at the time we have the first African-American president of the most powerful country in the history of mankind. A country like Nigeria is bound to feel a special sense of privilege and honor. And in the true African tradition, and even if it sounds presumptuous to say so, we can say as the continent of Obama's father, we guarantee his success because we are blessing. Thank you. Thank you so much, Mr. Minister, for that talk. I think that was very encouraging, I think, to hear your willingness and kind of the need to create a dialogue that's strategic now and an adult relationship and focus on the specifics of the U.S.-Nigerian relationship. I think that's a very important message for Washington to hear. I think your being here is a great opportunity and I also hope that you'll keep coming back because I think it's very important to sustain the dialogue, to hear that message again and again and to get into some of the specifics that you were referring to. I hope you'll be a much more regular presence here in Washington and, of course, your embassy as well. I hope we can see much more of them in the coming year. I'll open it up for questions. On the security aspect, especially, not that that should be the primary leg of our engagements, but that, too, is encouraging because I think there have been overtures from the United States in terms of wanting to help on the Delta and the Defense Department of State coming to Nigeria and saying, we want to help you in this. The response, this and I haven't been privy to these conversations, is often, here is the list of things that we want from you and not necessarily a dialogue going on there. I think there's growing recognition, as I said, that the Delta issue is becoming internationalized and there is a need for international engagement on that, but not a clear sense of how the U.S. can engage constructively and whether there's a real dialogue going on between Nigeria and the rest of the world on that. So perhaps you can comment on how you see that going, but I'll also, and I've brought my glasses today, open up the floor for a couple of questions. Perhaps we'll take maybe three at a time and then come back to you. So we have the gentleman here, the microphone will come and if you could identify yourself and your affiliation. Leonard Overlander, Consulting International Liaison. As Minister of Foreign Affairs, what you have said today is very positive. I would like to ask, in the context of development, diplomacy, and insecurity, this is part of the international system. I would like to ask you as Foreign Minister, what are the other factors that Nigeria and the United States in partnership must confront as opportunities for cooperation as well as competition with the other nations in the development field, particularly energy, such as directly Russian Federation in China, Algeria, and Iran, Venezuela, directly or indirectly. How does this positive outlook take into account the cooperation and the competition of this international system we're operating in? Thank you. Great, thank you. Tim, over on the side. Tim Docking. Thank you, Mr. Minister. Tim Docking, IBM. Picking up on your theme of creating a period of adult relationships here, I wonder if you would apply that to the business community and foreign direct investment, and would appreciate it at a time when IBM is considering it, increasing its presence in Nigeria, characterizing what you think might be a successful sort of win-win adult relationship between foreign direct investors and your government. Deirdre, over here. If you could wait for the mic. Come around the front. Thank you. Mr. Minister, I'd like to refer my question to the very end of your discussion where you talked about the tremendous capacity that exists in the Nigerian diaspora. I understand that on February 21, if I'm correct, you're going to be launching a database of Nigerians in the diaspora. I was wondering if you might want to explain the rationale for that to our group and how that group of tremendous, powerful individuals can be harnessed, perhaps in a partnership program with the United States, to address specific issues in Nigeria, which could include the Niger Delta issue with which President Clinton referred to a couple of weeks ago when he gave a talk in Nigeria saying that Nigeria will not meet its economic goals if it does not resolve the Niger Delta problem. Thank you. Very instructive, useful questions. I want to thank you all for that interest. Sure. On the first one, I like the way it was framed, cooperation and competition. Some countries were mentioned within the context of that relationship. What are additional avenues for cooperation? Let me tell you the issue of oil. Again, speaking maybe tongue-in-cheek, but I mean it, oil has not really been a blessing to Nigeria. I think I'm saying the obvious. None of our great universities were built with the oil revenue, the Badan, Soka, ABU, all those great decisions. They were built with money from non-oil exports, like cocoa, granite, palm oil and so on and so forth. It was a civil war without revenue from oil. But unfortunately for us, nearly the war was over. We ran into oil. But if we didn't run into oil when the war ended, creativity that went into persecuting that war and handling it without borrowing money from outside. I'm sure it will have been available for us to transform a country which by 1970 had a higher GDP than South Korea, even more than Malaysia and Taiwan. We could have transformed that country to truly be one of the 21st century modern civil economies. But we can keep looking back. The problem was not the oil. What God gave us, the problem was the human beings who were managing the oil. And so we are not really very frightened about our oil reserves, about running out of oil, or indeed about the emphasis now on clean energy and so on and so forth. Of course we need to pay our bills, which are still heavily dependent on revenue from oil. So it will be reckless for me to stay here and say that if our oil revenues did not come on stream, it's going to be very rosy for Nigeria because we are dangerously dependent on that oil revenue. But we are looking at the crisis that will definitely arise from the current global challenge which is reducing the demand for at least the oil prices falling almost every day. We are looking at it as a wake-up call, as a crisis but an opportunity to reinvent ourselves, increasing into the non-oil sectors of our economy. And as I said earlier on, before the results completely run out, how do we now bring out value and not just treat it as crude, which has to be exported. So we want to work with countries that are interested in engaging us in not just looking at this oil as commodity, not primary commodity as we have taken out, but in terms of value added. And that also includes cleaning Nigeria because Nigeria, because of where it is situated, has to meet its capacity in the area of solar and the area of wind. And we want to work with companies in that direction because we have to worry at the time when a large population like Nigeria will run out of oil. How do we power economy? How do we make sure that the other kind of capacity we have, particularly human capacity, especially as it goes into ICT, as we aggressively address the show of tourism, how do we make sure that when the oil reserves are over, we are still able to do well there. So we are being a lot more strategic than may appear to be on the surface. But a dimension to your question, which maybe you may not have had in mind, but as I listen to you, that at an interpretational level, that got into my consciousness, which I want to share with you, especially as it's a number of the countries you mentioned. Also share one thing with Nigeria, who is a large Muslim population. We believe that America will find Nigeria a very useful partner in the dialogue of civilizations. The fact that, apart from Indonesia, which is the other country, maybe two other countries, we have the largest Muslim population in the world. And with just a few hiccups here and there, we've managed to have a considerable amount of religious harmony in which adherents of these two great historical religions live peacefully with one another. We believe that as the world moves into the kind of world President Obama again talked about in his inaugural speech, a world of shared values. And I again listened to the sermon of the First Lady. Congratulations. You may not agree with me, but that's my view. Watching the National Prayer Service, we're told that the ladies, Reverend Dr. Cynthia, the first woman to preach the sermon at the National Prayer Service. But we're having women in Nigeria preaching so many sermons long before now, but congratulations for coming to this stage. She said something, she, in that sermon, she quoted a statement that was made by Muslim scholars about the kind of world which we should be looking at, a world in which compassion, love, justice are the defining issues. And she said there was common ground with Christendom on that. I found it interesting because here was a Christian preacher relying on the spiritual authority of some of the things she was going to say and what Muslim scholars were saying. You can be sure that kind of thing will resonate well in Indonesia, in Nigeria, in Saudi Arabia and so on and so forth. Because we are used to that in Nigeria having in one family the man is a Muslim, the wife is a Christian, half of the children are Muslim, the other half are Christians. There's already a lot of dialogue which has been going on in Nigeria on how these two faiths can be not a clash of civilizations but a dialogue of civilization. And those few isolated elements that believe that when they kill people, when they blow themselves up, they have 17 virgins waiting for them in heaven. It is quite clear that the angle they are pushing is not approved by the religion they are talking about. And I can assure you those kind of people who are not likely to come from Nigeria because the brother of Islam we have in Nigeria is an Islam that is life-affirmative that believes that God has created not only heaven, He has also created this world for us to enjoy in it. These white migrants are very happy people. And I think we can export some of that happiness to America through the kind of interfaith success we have in Nigeria. Now, my good friend from IBM talked about what about adult dialogue, adult relationship in the business area? The sanctity of contracts to us is key. And we put in place a framework that not only will encourage investors like you to come to Nigeria but to ensure three things. One is that the laws that allow you to take away all your profits if you wish to, that those laws are respected and you don't even have to ask a Nigerian to be a partner if you want to have it all to yourself. We are welcome to that. Secondly, that the judicial system is adequately restructured and reformed to bring about expeditious resolution of conflicts. And then thirdly is the issue of infrastructure which normally tends to increase the cost of doing business. Well, on that issue of infrastructure, we are making the point that the very infrastructural challenge that makes doing business in Nigeria costly can also be seen as an opportunity for profit. Because if you now come in as American businessman to deal with those infrastructural challenges, you make far more money than you like to make elsewhere. Then on the issue of Nigerian diaspora, I thank you, Madam, for the point you made. We consider our diaspora in America to be one of our most important assets. It is our view that the same way the success story in China, in India, just to mention two countries, started rising in profile because Chinese Americans began to look towards China or Indian Americans began to look towards India. We see a template. We see a script already tested and successful that is available for Nigerians. So in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, there is a diaspora project. That diaspora project is handling the issues you mentioned about database. We are not forcing people who live in America to start heading back to Nigeria the following morning. We want to achieve at least three things. By knowing that we know they are here, we expect them to be even better ambassadors of Nigeria than they have been. We expect them to respect the laws of America to know that if they run into trouble, it has serious consequences for the image of Nigeria, including business opportunities for Nigerians. So we want to celebrate their success and honour them. By honouring them, we are also likely to honour them to take more notice of them. Secondly, it's true they remit a lot of money at home. I think at the last count, something like 7 billion U.S. dollars annually went home from the diaspora. I said a lot of money. But often that money ends up with cousins in the villages who refuse to work because the relations in America are sending money to them and they use it in drinking quite often, or marrying a third of a fourth wife. I wouldn't want to mention which part of the country, but I've heard about what is called Western Union Alliance in some places in Nigeria. The Western Union Alliance is a group of people in Nigeria who have relations in America and they look forward to the remittances from the relations in America every month. So towards the end of the month, it becomes a status thing. You'll find somebody asking you, are you a member of Western Union Alliance? Because it's time to go to the nearest post office to collect the money which is remitted from America. And after they collect that money, some of them go back into drinking with it. Some other activity that has no economic value to the country. What we want to do is that those Nigerians love families and it's a good thing. But we want to encourage those Nigerians who are sending that kind of money to send it in a more structured manner. Perhaps the money should be used in buying stocks. The money could be used in investing in hospital projects in Abuja. The money could be used to enable them to do other things which will enable them to still meet with the needs of their relations who are genuinely handicapped, not because of laziness, but because of lack of opportunities, and also create jobs through microfinance and through opportunities. So it's a fairly advanced thing we are doing and any help we can get from you on that will be welcome. Finally, on that issue of diaspora, we think that having regard to the architecture is a foreign of Odea to call it like Nigeria. Once sophisticated, we are dealing with that. Could well be to monetize the kind of potential in the relations between diaspora and Nigeria. Monetize it in ways like... Someone is saying... I don't know why I keep coming back to this issue of neurosurgeon. Maybe because in the National Hospital in Abuja, we don't even have one single neurosurgeon. And that is serious because it means that if somebody has a bad accident that needs just one hour window of intervention, he's gone. And that can happen to anyone or for it. It doesn't matter how powerful we are. We have got a number of them out here in the United States. There's no reason why those kind of people cannot be encouraged to go home, not to settle, because you guys also would do everything to keep them here because you don't have too many American neurosurgeons anyway. There's no reason why they cannot be encouraged to go home and do their vacation in Nigeria. And the US government can pay them some allowance for the period they are in Nigeria. The incentive there is that they are in Nigeria and they are being paid by the US government to offer services for a month. You pay their health fare, you don't have to pay them what maybe Presbyterian Hospital in New York will pay them, Massachusetts General Hospital. But just some kind of incentive to say, rather than going to Honolulu to spend your vacation or Bali, go home and provide services to folks at home. And we, the US government, will pay you for doing what you would like to do anyway. Now, the effect of that is that you are now creating value in our society by supporting the diaspora for an amount that is much less than what you would have spent anyway, as aid. We don't like to use aid these days. Whatever kind of assistance you want to send to Nigeria. And who knows, after two or three of those kind of visits, this neurosurgeon may now begin to say, well, well, well, America has been good to me. Even an American citizen, I could stay here for the rest of my life and die and be buried here. But the pull of home is quite strong. The challenges are more in Nigeria than in America. And therefore, I think I can go back home, spend the remaining five years of my active life in Nigeria. Because the three or four occasions I went home on vacation, paid for by the US government, I could see tremendous opportunities for America. This is the kind of creative management of the diaspora asset that can help in the direction of what we are talking about. Thank you. Hi, Peter. Yeah, Peter Lewis from SICE. Mr. Minister, let's not be too quick to dismiss the economic impact of drinking, or Gogoro and palm wine, or Nigerian products. This could be a stimulus for the non-oil economy. But on a more serious note, I think it's fair to say that over the last several years the US-Nigerian relationship has been downgraded, certainly from Washington's side, if we look at the types and the levels of engagement and interaction and the commitment of resources. So there's a new administration in Washington. There was recently a Supreme Court decision which essentially delivered a second mandate to the Nigerian administration. And so both sides know who they're going to be working with over the next several years. The question simply is how to upgrade the Nigerian-American relationship. What would you hope to see from Washington? What would you be prepared to offer or respond with? And what would be the probably most productive points of contact to get that going? Samuel Adeni Jones. I wanted to comment on Nigeria's position on the formation of the United States of Africa. This issue has been hovering over the African Union for a long time. It would seem as if there are three groups of countries. The first group of the countries who think it's a reality and it should happen now, a group that thinks it's a myth and it shouldn't even bother, and then there's a middle group which thinks it's achievable but it should move quite slowly. I'd like to hear your comments about it and what the Nigeria's position is. Edwin Udenko. I'm an engineer. My question is on the issue of culture, the linguistic aspect of it. Now we have a large first generation of Nigerians who have a heritage language speakers like the Igbo's and there are many of them growing in limbs and bones in this region. What is the Nigerian government doing to encourage the development of these heritage languages so that most of the states or local government or businesses that inquire about the Nigerian consulates will be able to give them adequate information on how to promote this. And also this is going to be very, very important for the U.S. since we talk about the Gulf of Guinea and most of the major languages spoken in that area is this Igbo language I'm telling you about. I'm Herman Cohen, a consultant and teacher at SICE. Mr. Minister, you recall in Sierra Leone in Liberia when they had their conflict, the international community came together to prohibit the trade in illegal diamonds which were used for arms purchases and what have you. Would Nigeria be interested in having a similar arrangement to prevent the illegal trade in crude oil, which as everyone knows a significant amount is being stolen from the Delta and possibly other countries in the region. I want to embarrass Peter by letting his audience know that Peter has been my old teacher even though he's much younger than I. He's been my old teacher for over 20 years. He's been to my village many times. He's very popular in my village and he eats all the local food in my place. Thanks all the local minds. Yeah, exactly. And I want to thank Peter for doing so much for Nigeria over the years to sustain their engagement at very important levels. Peter, we appreciate you a lot. The point he has made is very important. The question he has asked. And again, I must acknowledge that for this very important institute to give me opportunity to be here within a very short time as part of your very busy schedule is all part of what Peter is talking about because Nigerian Foreign Minister appeared before CSIS in a very apical week, in a very, very historic moment in American history as this week has been. He sent the right kind of message to all over the place and I again want to thank you so much for that. Again, within this week, thanks to the efforts of friends who are here and maybe too shy to want to be called by name, I was able to meet with the House Committee Chairman on Foreign Relations Brennan. That was yesterday. I also met with the Chairman of the African Subcommittee of the House Committee on Foreign Relations, PEN. There's so much... The power symbolism in relations between states is one that is too well known by everyone here that I need to not go into. I think that if we continue to be talking to each other, in fact, not even with until a foreign trip is made, we just pick up our phone and say hi. We want to know what we discussed last week, what progress is being made. That will go a long way. I would like to see that kind of relationship between the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Nigeria and the State Department. Luckily for us, we don't want to be very personal about this. Senator, now Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is well known in Nigeria thanks to the important role she and her husband played when President Clinton was President for eight years and she did to Nigeria a couple of times. So I believe I'm very optimistic that, indeed, all of Africa, most physically in Nigeria, will register very strongly in her radar. And I'm positive that in the next few weeks, there will be certain strong movements in that direction that will vindicate my position. We are really very ecstatic about her appointment, just as we're ecstatic, of course, about President Obama's election and integration. But we want to see that this upgrading of relationship, as Peter puts it, is more than symbolic. For instance, if we are on the same page on Zimbabwe, and I believe we are on the same page on Zimbabwe, not only for the position we took at AU, but those of you who may have watched, I don't know whether BBC Hard Talk is shown here, who will have watched me on Hard Talk BBC barely three weeks ago on the issue of Zimbabwe. You know that Nigeria remains very muscular in engaging the crisis in Zimbabwe because if there's a meltdown there, which I hope will not get worse than it is, Nigeria will not fold its arms to the humanitarian tragedy that that potents, that worse than what it is already now. We have about 1,300 people already died of cholera. And I know that when the Guinea-Conakry thing happened, there was a ringing of hands on the part of many African politicians. Definitely there was a ringing of hands amongst my colleagues in the Council of Ministers when I chaired the meeting. So what coarses have done when you had the Government of President County that was not only very corrupt, but also refused to leave or conduct elections? So Africa is in a mood now for what I call preventive diplomacy whereby we hold each other accountable. NEPAD has been one powerful instrument, the peer review mechanism thing, one powerful instrument for holding each other accountable. Now, not all African countries have signed on to NEPAD. We want to bring pressure on the rest of African countries that haven't signed on to that. There's also the charter for good governance and democratic elections. Just a handful of African countries have signed on to that. We think that, and I once mentioned this to former Assistant Secretary of State, Jindai Fraser. I said, America gets more mileage out of Africa if it doesn't come out too frontally and sunlight is detecting, you know. We are very poor people. Even though we are very poor people. And sometimes some kind of pride can even be a little more insistent if you are very poor. But that's all you have, the pride. So we would prefer that on issues like Zimbabwe, you don't fall into the trap of Mugabe by coming out too strong all the time to, especially if you have not said anything about the land question. We believe that if there's a collapse of the state in Zimbabwe, it's Nigerian life that will be at stake because we will have no choice but to do what we did in Liberia and Sierra Leone. Therefore, if you talk with us, and we agree with you on a number of issues, as to how to deal with the Mugabe matter, that raises the profile of the relationship. We will not be doing it on your behalf. We are doing it because it's in Africa's interest to engage Zimbabwe and get resource. So there's need for that regular discussion. When there's that regular, it doesn't take place. And the State Department maybe takes a position openly, frontally, that gives the impression that Africa cannot organize itself. And so creates the problem of ownership of the very policy which the U.S. wants to pursue, which we ourselves believe is a good policy because we have not been consulted. We are not hearing it from Washington. The normal attitude will be to either keep quiet or to resist. When I made my statement on behalf of my president at the AU Summit where I condemned Mugabe for what he was doing in Zimbabwe. Of course, his remark, which was intended to annoy, was that he knows that some of us are being talked to by the Americans and the Britons. We don't like suggesting that we were not acting purely out of our own volition. We were acting out a script written for us in Washington or in London. Colab was a laughable thing for him to say because I made it clear that Nigeria does not need any lecture from any country to be able to avoid collapse of societies in Africa. We were there in Congo 45 years ago when Congo was collapsing. Later on, we were in Liberia. We were in Sierra Leone. We were there before anybody else. We are there in Darfur now. We have the largest consignment in Darfur. Somalia is a challenge that we will have a look at. If there is a failure, and it doesn't make out the policeman of Africa, but again by history, geography, demography, we feel we have to be our brothers' keeper and that we cannot fold our arms if Africa is collapse. We have more direct. I like to have Secretary of State of the United States put me on the phone and say, Minister of Foreign Affairs, I think we agree on this. It does help. I know the issue of DRC, for instance, Congo, when Foreign Secretary David Milliban called me and discussed one or two things about that, I know how much easier it was for us to come to some common approach. So if Africa is to play a very important role in the foreign policy architecture of the Obama administration, and here we are not trying to seek for prestige, the same way the US Secretary of State will call is European counterpart. African foreign ministers deserve no less. If only because we enjoyed the dubious, our continent enjoys the dubious distinction of providing the United Nations with 60% of the issues that the UN Secretary of State is dealing with, 60% come out of Africa. So those of us who are foreign ministers in Africa deserve no less attention in direct discussion at the political level than most able parts of the world. Dr. Denny Jones, thanks for your question. I'll be very brief there. What is happening about the concept of the United States of Africa is not new. It's just history repeating itself, and we hope we have learned the lessons of history so that we won't make the same mistakes. At the beginning of our Organization of African Union, you had people who wanted a union government immediately, the radicals like permanent crewmen, secouture, and so on and so forth. And you had the realists like Prime Minister Tafua Balewa, Jomo Kenyatta, and so on. You can't rush these things. Africa is just coming out of the truce of colonialism. There's need to even build national consciousness first before you begin to look at integration. Eventually, the realists won the argument because their position was far more rational. And so the so-called Kasamblaka Group, which were the radicals, and then the Monrovia Group, the realists, they all came together and had an Organization of African Union. What is happening is that groups led by the Libyan leader, Gaddafi, again our Twitter again, believing that just by declaring union government of Africa, you have won. And we have told the Libyan leader that he doesn't have parliaments, he has to consult. There are no elections conducted every four years on the part of the Libyan people to decide who their leader is. So Nigeria does not have that luxury of being able to take decisions without parliaments. And we also have constitutions that make it clear that a bad waste sovereignty resides. Therefore, to just announce a union government as here is being threatened at the forthcoming AU meeting in Addis Ababa the next two weeks, is disruptive, might be very fascinating for a country like Libya that has the same amount of oil revenues with Nigeria, that has four million people to bother about, whereas we have 140 million people to feed. But we think that what to be more constructive for Africa is for us to, first of all, see how is the regional integration thing working in ECOWAS for instance, which is the West African Subregion. How well has the mobility of goods and persons succeeded? What about common currencies? Do you own one building block after the other? Europe with states that had already been established for centuries and had a lot of experience on modern infrastructures. Still have difficulties in moving from the Treaty of Lisbon to be the kind of European Union idea. You need to convince people. So what is my prediction? My prediction is that as it happened before in the days of the realists versus the radicals, it's going to happen again, but we don't want this to end up in terms of camps. Those who are on the side of Nigeria and those who are on the side of Libya. We believe that when we go to a union in the next few days, wise council will prevail. What Africa needs is development, not the grand illusion of a continental government that simply raises new flags, new buildings, new protocol lists and the rituals of one ceremony after the other without impacting on local needs. Finally, Edwin's question on language, culture, and so on and so forth. I think it's important. We are worried that the diaspora project may suffer difficulties. If the diaspora we are talking about are just those who left Nigeria, came to America and had a good education and are working in America. If it does not include their children who cannot speak a word of Igbo or Yoruba or Hausa, they were in trouble. If it does not include their offspring whose names used to be Chukuma but they are now called Chocks whose names used to be Ike Chukuma but they are now called Ike. If that's what the diaspora is all about then it will not move because if you tell those offspring to think Nigeria, they say, what is Nigeria? You mean Algeria? Language is key here and anywhere government can identify with those who are trying to make sure that Nigerian children in America at least have some smattering knowledge of the mother tongue. We would be quite happy to... Our great friend Mr Cohen asked about oil bunkering and blood oil. Thank you. It's a very important question and I'm happy to roll back to my attention. Yes, we welcome any support in that direction. Actually, we made that request at the United Nations when I presented my president on the general debate. We also made that request when I met with the UN Secretary General twice and he played support of the UN. I think where we are now is the technical issue of developing the template of how the blood oil thing can be electronically monitored and I understand the technology exists so something is being done on that. May I ask, where within the government does that kind of strategy reside? Well, when I feel as I've been talking with the Minister of Petroleum on that and the committee has been set up to deal with it once we are clear as to what... the mode of what we are looking at and of course the international community will be formally requested to give. But the political will is there. Prime Minister Brown has spoken very strongly in favor of it. The president of Germany when he came on state visit also spoke in that direction and the U.S. Secretary General is very interested in it. We believe that the new U.S. administration will be able to give every support in the direction. Thank you so much. We are out of time. I want to first of all thank the Minister, members of his delegation and I neglected to mention former Ambassador D'Affo Fofuora and Ambassador Onubu. Thank you very much for being here with us. Mr. Minister, we hope this is the first of many more visits here when we can talk in depth more about some of these issues that you brought up. And again, thank you and we hope to see you in the future. Thank you, Jennifer. Long before this job, Peter Lewis he is my witness that Washington is my most favorite city. Just call me and I'll run over. I'll come over. Thank you.