 Welcome to the Advocates on Plus TV Africa. Your weekly reminder that important conversations are necessary for a center society. On Friday in Nigeria turned 61 and in view of this we examine a quote by the 32nd President of the United States, Franklin Roosevelt, which says, true individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence. People who are hungry and out of a job are the stuff of which the cattle ships are made off. So my advocacy today is on the need and importance of Nigerians rising to serve and save the country. Felix talks about human capital development in the context of the wealth of a nation. Raymond is talking about the hopes of Nigeria with the arrival of its new age. And finally, Amoni wraps the conversation with his thoughts on another independence. As always, your panelists are here to share ideas aimed at provoking thoughts with no holds but stay with us. Arising to serve and save Nigeria. While growing up, my friends and I looked forward to participating excitedly during the Nigerian National Pledge. The National Pledge is just a six sentence that carries in it the whole resources, wisdom and the exact things we must do to change the fate of our nation, Nigeria. I must say I didn't really appreciate the deep meaning of the words and lines that made up the whole anthem. But somehow I remember very well how reciting the anthem bonded everyone together irrespective of background, tribe, ethnicity or even social class. The first line talks about faithfulness, loyalty and honesty. But today, how many of us Nigerians can truly boost about their commitment to the application of the words, not just at individual levels but as a tool for national development. For over six decades, we have had a generation of leaders who have complete disrespect for the foundation upon which we should build one of the most enviable and prosperous nations in the world. And sometimes I wonder how exactly do they sleep well at night. With our overwhelming population, Nigerians have one of the most sophisticated minds on earth. We are globally recognized for the innovations and changes we lead around the world and across industries including health, technology, finance, engineering, entrepreneurship, agriculture, etc. Today, how many of these Nigerians living in Nigeria or elsewhere are serving Nigeria with all their strengths? With our abundance of resources, the least Nigeria should have is an environment that inspires its people to serve using their strengths and capacities. Unfortunately, with the corruption-infested leadership system, citizens are forced to live to other nations or serve them themselves at all costs because people who should have made the environment conducive for service are ignorant, heartless and incompetent fellows who had no business being in the positions of authority in the first place. The system seems to me it was designed to drain the citizens' dreams and frustrate the people. The mind of an average Nigerian, especially the youth, is filled with junk and it is difficult for the mind to return to its original state once it has been stretched in a given direction. In this case, in what direction is the majority stretching their minds? Your guess is as good as mine. How sincere are we defending our unity, which is one of the first sets of our entem. As the very first factor that is supposed to bind us together before we can think of deploying and achieving big results at an individual and national level, we have failed to understand that nothing great has ever been achieved by a people so divided. What do we do? First, we need to go back and pick up our towels at the very spot we had our baths. Nigeria is 61 years and I can boldly tell you that the majority of our youth don't even know the history of Nigeria as a nation. Quite unfortunate, we had to feed and grow with the crumbs that were provided by fellow Nigerians, our leaders, who thrive on the calamity of the nation. But young people must arise and obey the call to make Nigeria take her place among the committee of nations. Nigeria must arise to serve and save Nigeria. We must respect our diversity and embrace our uniqueness. And in the end, we just have a little thing that divide us and much more that connect us as a people. God bless Nigeria at 61. So, that's really my thoughts. I don't know what you think about this. We're quite interested in Ramond. You know, it's one thing I admire about you is your outpokenness, communicating your thoughts especially with the environment, with respect to the environment. But on the second thoughts, I agree with quite everything you said, the second one thing, defining an average Nigerian. There is no specific generic term to define an average Nigerian. In clear terms, who is a Nigerian? Can you define Nigeria? A Nigerian is an individual that believes in the coexistence of other Nigerians in this particular geographic region. But the Nigerian question is not just a geographical equation, it's a group of neighbors around you. So, everybody has to be responsible for themselves, how they need to build themselves intellectually in terms of building up their capacity to give something back to the society. In this case, the other neighbors around you. So, the key was the Nigerian and Nigerias. Nigerian is the individual. Nigeria is a group of people around you. Not necessarily a geographical equation within the West African region. And the average Nigerian mindset is not filled with junk in the sense that it depends on you. It's garbage in, garbage out. Some persons actually may do something very bad because that's what unfortunately every system has good and bad people. So, people should not see Nigerians as bad people. Oh, we got some persons that were involved in fraud there for Nigerians who are fraudulent no, we got some bad people there for their bad no. Everybody should be responsible for their own way with respect to other people, giving back to society. So, what do you want to say something? Okay, so, let me also call to a point of a little disagreement. I think we've blamed leadership for too long, right? And I've come to a phase in life, a phase of taking responsibility. And part of what I want to ask us to begin to do is to take responsibility. So, I was having a conversation with someone some time ago and he asked, where did the leaders come from? The leaders are from you and me. And a lot of times, people like us, when we get into leadership positions, we actually change. Now, I think part of the issue is that for so long everybody has had an individualistic agenda. So, who cares about the common good? Well, you will say the leaders should be caring about the common good. But it is unfortunate that the people following are fear to care about the common good. So, if our leaders are not taking us forward, let us, the followers, begin to take us forward. And how do we do that? Look at the office set of our nation, public sector, private sector, where you have a lot of headaches. Is it the leaders that are there? No, people like you and I. So, if everybody begins to do something right, decides to do something right, at a stage, the leaders that we have would not have any choice but to conform. You know, basically, why that actually came up if you look at when I was actually speaking my mind, what I mean by average Nigerian youth is filled with junk. Find a place where there are two things you need to pick out. First is that we have people, like you said, who are actually getting involved in anything just because they are serving themselves, not because they are serving the nation. It's a different thing to get involved in an activity because it's for the good of everyone, even if you're not benefiting anything directly. And so we have a system where I talked about Nigerians living both here and those living elsewhere. How is it, I've been to a couple of countries where there are people irrespective of wherever they are, they still channel the end product of their activity, their sweat, everything back home. So how many of us as Nigerians, those of all that are allies that are opportune to be here, we are talking to the world, are we really here because we are on the average because we are here because we want to contribute to nation building or maybe because we are here for the grams. Because we need to come to a time where we want to tell ourselves the truth. We need to be very overtake responsibility because these days people are not so intelligent that we have to find other ways to navigate through the truth. So we have to find ways to cut corners. We have to start taking responsibility to serve the nation and save the nation irrespective of what we think about it. Go out there, when we talk about the average, all take average, Nigeria is over 200 million people. How many of these people that you are talking about are coming out to produce their result? When we have more bad people that are more profound, how many of the people who are doing good are bringing out the good work that they are doing without really any ulterior motive? Do you understand what I'm saying? It's not like there are no good people, there is no good work that you are doing in the social space. We know quite a lot of other young people that are doing a lot of work in the social space but we must have a time where we are doing this because we really, really want to contribute to nation building. I think Mr. Raymond is online. Mr. Raymond, do you have any thoughts to say on this about Nigeria's coming up to serve and save Nigeria? I quite agree with the sense that has been expressed there in the studio. For me, the title of your advocacy is quite... It's actually... It hits the point in terms of the two key issues that are before us. The first, the title says arising to serve and save Nigeria. So arising suggests to me that yes, so far we have not been doing what we ought to be doing and even as taking 61 days for us to do that, well, good and fine, people say when a man wakes up that will be his own money. So if we are choosing to that 60 first years and from now onwards will be our money, then we should do it because doing that will now lead to the other extreme of your title which is saving Nigeria. Nobody is going to save the country for us. We can all travel to Canada, travel to the UK, post all kinds of funding things on Twitter about Nigeria. It doesn't end the narrative because you are living as an individual. You have not left in the real sense a part of you is still here. You are only living physically but when you get there the whole essence of home or fatherland, of motherland dance on you the more. So the responsibility to save Nigeria is also ours. We have blamed leadership for why we are here. We have blamed leadership and it has become even boring in a way if you ask me. We are young Nigerians. The future of this country rests on our shoulders. We are the turning point generation. We are going to take from where our forefathers whom we claim have failed us are going to retire into. So responsibility is actually ours and like the father we are having this conversation imagine that many Nigerians out there also share this collective sentiment and we can only hope that some ways, somehow we can begin to turn around for the betterment of this great mission. Alright, thank you Mr. Raymond. Felix is next after this break.