 United States Consul General Lagos has held a conference for 57 young Nigerians who participated in the 2023 Mandela Washington Fellowship Program at some of America's top educational institutions, plus TV news correspondent Emmanuel O'Lubba Boku reports that the fellows compared notes on their fellowship experiences, broadened their networks and received training on accessing U.S. funding opportunities. His report. In 2013, the Mandela Washington Fellowship for Young African Leaders is the flagship program of the Young African Leaders Initiative, YALI, and embodies the U.S. commitment to invest in the future of Africa. 57 young Nigerians who participated in the program this year have converged in leaders for our union. It is aimed at building the capacity for community in service and, by extension, positively impacting the country as a whole. The United States Consul General Will Stevens opens the conference by lighting its aim. He also discusses economic ties between Nigeria and this country across various economic sectors. Today we're here to welcome 57 Mandela Washington Fellows back from the United States. These are people who were selected from the nearly 100,000 Nigerian applicants to the annual Mandela Washington Fellows Program. This program brings young Nigerian leaders from across the country to the United States for actually African leaders from all over the continent to spend six weeks in U.S. institutions studying in a variety of fields, from media to civil society to health to governance and entrepreneurship. They go and they spend time together with other young leaders between the ages of 25 and 35 in the United States learning about these things, connecting with each other across the continent, as well as with Americans young leaders. The program was designed actually back in 2014 as a way to address America's relationship with the youth of Africa, right, with the massive youth bulge that Africa was experiencing and continues to experience. Nigeria, for example, has an average age of 19. So if you're talking about how we engage with youth, this is about connecting them and helping them to relate to their peers in the United States and identify areas where they can work together. We're really looking forward to seeing what we can do to support them. They've come away from this program with incredible ideas, incredible inspirations of things they can do together, both here in Nigeria but across the continent. So we're looking to hear about those ideas and then figure out what we can do to support it. Maybe it's bringing in researchers from the United States, maybe it's bringing in partners, facilitating those connections further once they're back here in Nigeria. Sound participants, as far as the satisfaction with the program, we're showing the commitment to societal development. It's very valuable to me. Actually, I'm a medical doctor. I work in a teaching hospital in Kainu. So going to the United States, I was posted to an institute in Michigan, that's Winstead University in Detroit. So I learned several skills. I learned leadership skills. I learned academic skills, which include advocacy, so many other things. So I've learned how to include these things in my workplace and I do a lot of community awareness and community awareness programs in rural areas in order to improve the material and child health in my community. So I've learned how to deal with the leaders in the communities, how to increase the impact of the work I do, and several other things in my area, that material and child health. I had my institute training at Purdue University, Indiana, under the business track leadership. Well, my experience has been very exciting. I learned a lot from leadership to networking and everything from the U.S. perspective and then with the Nigerian perspective, entirely the program was interesting. I've learned a lot and looking forward to, let's say, 100 decades of connection with the U.S. Thank you.