 Let me begin by thanking the president of the King's College Old Boys Association, Alaji Kashim Ibrahim Imam, for the invitation to speak at this 111th Founders' Day celebration. For decades, King's College has produced many of Nigeria's and indeed the world's brightest and best in practically every field of human endeavor. And it's an honor to join you in celebrating 111 years of that excellence with you all here today. While saying this, I lay aside all rivalries and all old quarrels between my school and King's College. I certainly will not take the bit that Pastor Itwa laid out for me by raising these questions of rivalry to be impolite on a day of celebration such as this to even sound competitive. To this theme education the way forward is not about looking back. I think that it's about bracing for the future. Although these days speaking of the future is almost irrelevant because before you complete the word the so-called future has actually arrived. But let me set down a few thoughts that might help in thinking through the issues. First is that we must recognize that our main endowment as a country is neither crudel nor any other material resource. It is our people. Nigerians are our greatest asset. Second, our economic aspirations and our capacity to compete in the global economy will depend on how effectively we're able to educate our people, how effectively we're able to empower them to fulfill their potential. Our human capital reserves determine the quantum of useful foreign direct investment that will come into our country. The emergence of local innovators, the growth of productivity, and even the eruption of an entrepreneurial revolution all will depend on the quality of education that our young men and women have. Third, the national conversation on education will be futile unless it also addresses the concerns faced at the lower levels of our society. The problem of out-of-school children and the huge deficit in education of girls. Fourth is a point of utmost importance and it is that we need a laser focus on productivity, on character and civic education. Fifth is a related point and it is quite clear that we have to change both the substance of education and also the method of educating our children. This is because this generation of young people need to be prepared for a world that thinks, operates, and rewards differently from what we were accustomed to. I'll elaborate only on the fourth point. I think our educational design and content must take into account our current moral and social circumstances, our physical and mental constraints as a people. We are gifted as Nigerians with a confidence, resilience, and mental equity that is by any standards exceptional. This is probably best demonstrated in how we excel, even in other countries in sciences and medicine and even politics, but our attributes do not free us from what Edward Banfield was, what he described as the moral basis of a backward society and this is the self-interested family-centric society where often the public good is sacrificed for personal or parochial benefit. So education must lift the mind of the young beyond self. It must teach the primacy of community, of the good and the well-being of the collective over self. Every nation that has prospered has come to this point and has had to accept this as norm. One of the strong points of the education that many of you and I received was character, moral and ethical behavior, hard work, diligence, trustworthiness, self-denial, honesty, truth, fairness. Even in today's severely compromised moral environment I must say that I've come across and worked with many from King's College who have demonstrated the strength of character that a well-established moral compass brings. No developed nation has managed to skip this point and succeed. There must be, as a rule, a prevailing moral standard. Corruption or deviance is the exception, must be the exception, not the rule. Secondly, and here I will just for time conflate the thoughts of Papa, of Bahfemiah Olo, and Professor Oloomidea Kisoy, a professor of architecture, where they argue, and I as I've said am conflating their views, that our education must imbue both skills and the mental magnitude required for creativity or productivity. Creativity is the capacity for value added in the transformation of material. Material in this sense may be either abstract or as in for example the notes of music transformed into melody or physical as in cotton transformed into fabric. The wealth of a nation is after all not in the material resources available in the land but in the productive capacity of the people. The way in which or the way in which the people are equipped to add value to whatever it is that they find. And the matter of productivity or creativity as a path to recognition and success is not a light matter. It is fundamental to the development and wealth of a nation and its peoples. So our learning environment must emphasize ideation and introspection, thinking, minds trained to think from conception to actualization. We must release that capacity to build physical and mental structures, concepts and processes much bigger than ourselves. When people are nurtured in the notion that rent seeking or the preventable capture of wealth or benefit by access to power is the path to success then the society will not prosper. If you will capture all the resources everyone else will be poor on their way there. On the other hand when young people are taught that creativity and innovation with a business and personal culture of integrity, hard work and diligence will find huge rewards then the foundations for the good and prosperous society is laid. So where productivity is not the path to success but capture then corruption is inevitable. Corruption is symptomatic of societies that prefer a path different from creative and productive enterprise to wealth and success. Finally there is a matter that I believe we must address and it is with the challenges of government investment in education. The truth is that government resources alone cannot drive education especially of the quality we know our nation needs. Many of us who have had the benefit of high quality education secondary education have seen how in one generation our schools have become a depressing shadow of themselves. We can bemoan the problem for another generation but nothing will change if we are not prepared to invest our resources in changing the narrative. I believe that KCOB for example have between them the resources the connections locally and internationally to set King's College on the track to being one of the best secondary schools in the world a status that it had barely four years four decades ago. The best schools in the world are beneficiaries of the commercial or altruistic investments of private individuals and corporations. All that is required is the will the funds will follow. Let me again congratulate you all for these 111 history-making years and wish King's College a much greater 111 years ahead. Thank you very much. God bless.