 It's a very special occasion for me to be here, and it's also an honor to be here on this occasion of the 33rd inaugural lecture of the Babcock University. And this occasion is special to me because the inaugural lecturer, as you've heard, is my friend and brother, Professor Omishemi Oduyori. Professor Omishemi Oduyori and I met in 1969, where we're classmates from one, from one, I did go to college, Yama. And of course we've been friends since then, this is 52 years ago. Some of our classmates are here, Mr. Tude Fowler, I believe Mr. Taiwudutola, and I'm told Mr. Kune, who used to be our head boy, is also here somewhere, and I'm sure maybe one or two others who I can't immediately see are set, that's the 6975 as we call ourselves. It's a very close-knit one, and we meet every second of every month and we'll be meeting for decades. Professor Omishemi Oduyori and others, you have to go further, I haven't spare you today. I'm also especially pleased today because two of us are probably the only two in our set that eventually became professors. Will you talk that? Of course. Okay, of Mexico. All right. So there are three of us, three of us, but I'm very pleased that at least we went through the mill and eventually became professors. The others went the way of money, and they've all, of course, made tremendous success in all their endeavors. So like some of us who are here, as I've said to one or two of the academics here, we are proud academics. I'm also excited to be here at Bartholm University, a university that proves the point that with clarity of vision, excellence, color, and resources, a private university in Africa can compete with the rest of the world. And I must say that I'm especially impressed with the quality of graduates of this university. Their confidence, their sound learning, and especially their solid entrepreneurial skills have come across them in several different businesses, especially in film tech and technology, and they have proved to be solid, disciplined, and innovative individuals. This is a very young university, and the best is yet to come. And as congratulates my dear friend and brother, Professor Oduya Young, this is very relevant, very contemporary, and very scholarly nature. I had the opportunity to browse through it, and there's a lot of material in there, which I believe is going to be very useful for us, especially those of us who are policy makers on the economy, and especially for small businesses. There's no question at all going from the submissions they have made that the economic future of our country will depend on small businesses, maybe of our small businesses. And the obvious reason is because small businesses, indisputably, are the engine of growth of every economy, and I think that your statistics from different other countries of the world there that are very eloquent. MSMEs also of course employ the largest number of people, which explains why our government decided to do what is described as the MSME clinics, the MSME clinics. Now this is a commission which I have the privilege of chairing. And what the clinics do is that every state will go to every state of the federation, almost on a bi-monthly basis, and one of the state governments to support small businesses, all across Nigeria. The MSME clinics were designed to bring regulatory agencies whose work affects the business enterprises of MSME. So all we do is that we'll go to the states, and we'll go with the regulatory agencies. Mr. Fowler, of course, has been on several of those trips while he was chairman of the Air Force. We'll go with NAFDAF, with SOM, all the regulatory agencies. The idea is to bring those regulatory agencies to the various states so that the MSMEs can meet with them and discuss their various problems. What has happened in some states, and at the moment I think we have got 12 states, that have one stop centers in their states. Now these one stop centers are places where you can meet with all the regulatory agencies, they are offices, so that it's easy for them to access NAFDAF, access SOM, and any of these other places. But only 12. Our country is a very big country, a very large country. And one of the major problems that they have is in trying to use one, for instance SMEDA, one enterprise, one government agency to satisfy several different MSMEs. And they run into millions. What we try to encourage in the states, the situation where the states themselves develop their own versions of the SMEDA. So that states themselves are able to sponsor businesses, able to support businesses. In some of the states, we've set up what are called resource centers, where you build a cluster. For example, we have clusters of farming, where we build a cluster for those who do farming and processing. And so farmers who cannot afford equipment, come together and use the equipment there. We have one that is about to be launched in the neighborhood for shoe makers. So they put a cluster there with equipment that can be used by the shoe makers there. Incidentally, in the neighborhood there is an exporter, close to a million pairs of shoes, everyone coming out of that neighborhood. So it's a very important cluster for, and of course there are all small businesses in cluster there. We also have one in your state, and a few of these clusters. So the whole idea is to set up some of these services in different states. But the states must accompany the federal government in doing it, because as I've said, it's a big country. This is a federation. In many of the countries that you've cited, especially the US, state support is very important for small businesses. And when you look at some of the sums of money, you'll see that a million, two million here and there is the sort of thing that some states at least should be able to afford. But I wanted to also make the point that one of the things that we did with MSMEs during the COVID, is what is called the MSME Survival Fund. The MSME Survival Fund gave almost a million businesses support after COVID. It paid three months' salaries for several of its MSMEs, especially at private schools, private separate schools. It paid for teachers and also for several small transport units. So the MSME Survival Fund, and I think that some of the statistics will be useful, especially as you further research the work. There's so much that was done. But as I keep saying, it's a large country. It's a very big country. In order to deal with all of those issues, and to be able to support small businesses in a way that they ought to be supported, a lot more money is needed. And also one final point on that. The AFDP, the African Government Bank, has agreed to support the government with $500 million for small businesses in technology. And so we think that this is something that will be very helpful in addition to the $75 billion fund, which the Federal Government has set up also for young people that are small businesses. We must keep working on small businesses, because that certainly is the future of our country. No question at all. And those businesses bring hope, they bring jobs, they bring opportunities. And I very strongly believe that this is where the direction of the world will be headed. As I close, let me also commend the 70th Advances Church for the investments that have been made with education. I think that this is very commendable indeed. And this is the direction that several religious organizations must follow. The real work of ministry is the work of ministering to the people, especially those who cannot afford to do many of those things themselves. The work that ministries did is why the likes of Professor UiAi are able to be here, because our college was one that was founded by two Christian ministries, the Christian mission, the Methodist and Anglican mission. And they gave education, quality education, very, very cheap, so that we were able to afford it. And several of us were able to go to school and be the people that would be able to do it. So I believe that it's very important that religious organizations see this as primary in all of the tasks and all of the things that they choose to do. So I'd like to commend the church for this. I would like to begin to congratulate my dear brother and friend, Professor UiAi, on this very auspicious occasion, and also to wish him a very happy life. But I have to say before I say that he has arrived at the point very clearly, because he has, of course, actually reached the point very clearly that he should not expect. God bless you. Happy birthday.