 Thank you very much for a very warm welcome and thank you again for me for the very generous introduction with generous words. It's such a pleasure to be here at King's College and at the Africa Leadership Center and being here is somewhat nostalgic for me. I was a student at the LSE many years ago and looking around at the so many young faces here, I'm a bit embarrassed to say how many years ago that was but I'm also a professor and so I'm happy to be in this academic environment especially after the utter madness of politics. I think that is a very nice, very nice place. I must thank the management of the Africa Leadership Center for the kind invitation to be here. I think this is a good place to be after the rough and tumble of our politics. King's College London I think is also to be commended for its contribution to training so many outstanding leaders in Nigeria over the years and of course so many who are here now, Professor Lonysha King is of course one and so many others who are here. Professor Kenneth O'Kan Dike, a distinguished historian who was also the first indigenous vice chancellor of Nigeria's first university, the University of Ibazu, is an alumnus of King's College. We also have Mrs. Kofora La Prat, the founder of the First School of Nursing in Nigeria. She also was here at King's College and a recipient of the Florence Nightingale Award from the International Red Cross, the International Red Cross. The doctor in our team, in this my team coming from Lagos, Dr. Nicolas O'Difren, is here also. He's also an alumnus of King's College and he never lets us forget about it and some of us have had to caution him that to no avail of course that being here at King's at some point doesn't make you Desmond Tutu. I think we should agree that the African Leadership Center deserves commendation for how it has in a few short years of its establishment gained a stellar reputation for teaching and research and for leadership studies that have focused on the African continent and training a whole new generation of scholars and practitioners on issues of peace, security and international development. I know that the theme of the King's Africa Week 2023 was, as has been said, changing Africa in a shifting global landscape. So I will tell all my remarks this evening to this broad theme while also seeking to answer the question of how Africa can prosper in this shifting global landscape. I think that a point on which there will be no reasonable dispute is that we live in a complex and somewhat confusing period. The lines have never been more blurred in the various conceptual prisms through which we view the world. The existence of several centers of political and economic power since the unipolar world of the 1990s has meant that there are various ways in which global developments are viewed. Of course in addition to the United States we now have we have China, Russia, the European Union, the UK, India and Brazil as dominant regional powers. The perspectives, decisions and actions of these actors impact not only on their regions but across the world including in multilateral forums all across the world. The Russian-Ukrainian war is, if we start with that you just consider how that has impacted the world and in fact has impacted Africa. Apart from its consequences for international peace and security that war has signaled a breakdown of the global order which emerged at the end of the Second World War and is a source of concern to many African countries who now have to stare their way delicately between the major powers. But the more immediate and consequential fallout of the war as we all know are the sharp hikes in food prices especially wheat sunflower and sunflower oil and even rice and maize and then fuel and fertilizer prices. Many African countries of course are heavily dependent on one or both of the warring parties for food and oil. So when the conflict began in February last year the price of wheat increased by 67% from the price in December 2021. Oil prices similarly went through the roof. International prices for oil averaged $100 per barrel in 2022 as compared to about $70 per barrel in 2021. And then also given that key manufacturing countries are all importers, higher oil prices invariably translated to higher prices for manufactured products as well. So these price shocks and disruption of supply chains of various commodities across Africa led to high inflation at the time when most countries were struggling to overcome the economic and social fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic especially debt and foreign currency crisis. The situation was relieved somewhat by the deal that was broken to enable the export of Ukrainian wheat. For Nigeria let me say that despite a strong objection to the invasion of Ukraine as evidenced by our support for the UN resolution condemning the invasion. We've managed to maintain good relationships with both parties. We are now in the process of working out a grain supply from Russia coordinated by the World Food Programme and recently accepted to provide some space, port space in Potakot, Nigeria for the distribution of grain from Ukraine to other West African countries. But I think the economic fallout of the war for us in Africa should be an introspective moment especially on the issue of self-sufficiency in food production. And there's some good news here and there about that. Zimbabwe for instance had its highest ever wheat harvest of over 375,000 tons in 2022 and by that increase in production it achieved self-sufficiency at least in wheat production which is a major component of its food. It achieved this feat by increasing land under cultivation by improving fertilizer distribution and ensuring irrigation in the winter months and an active collaboration between government and the private sector. This means that Zimbabwe is insulated from the sharp increases in global wheat prices or indeed further fallouts from the war in Ukraine. What this clearly shows is that by proactive measures African countries can turn this crisis and others into opportunity. It may also be a moment for even bigger ideas. We may reconsider our approach to food production using climate smart methods that protect and enhance soil health and resilience. There's a lot of work being done by the Climate Action Platform which the Climate Action Platform for Africa which is an NGO concerned with introducing a different concept. Now I might talk about that a little later but CAPA as it's called you know has some very interesting ideas on how we could actually turn some of the some of the problems and crises that we've experienced into opportunity especially in the climate in climate action area. But the final word on the Russian in Creme War a few days ago President Lula da Silva of Brazil proposed a peace club probably led by China. He said he was going to talk to China about this peace club to seek ways of ending the crisis. I think that that sort of thinking is certainly the way to go. The world must find parties that can be trusted by both sides to intervene. Ultimately this war the Russia-Ukraine war would have to end by negotiations. I think the earlier that started the better. Let me then talk a little bit about the climate crisis. I hope it's not my microphone that's making that that's humming away like that. It's not. Oh okay it's a phone. So let me talk a little bit about the climate crisis. The climate crisis is central to current global complexities. Just a few days ago the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change the IPCC released a report where it cautioned that if speedy action were not taken global warming might attain the 1.50 degrees centigrade much earlier than expected even possibly in the 2030s. Now this is a warring prospect if we consider that African countries despite being the lowest emitters of carbon are the worst hit by its effects and the least capable of quickly responding to or mitigating the damage that may be caused by extreme weather events. At the same time a competition for increasingly scarce resources such as water and arable land is fueling conflict and complicating tensions between communities in many parts of Africa especially the northern parts of Africa in our case in Nigeria and the northern part in the central and northern part of Nigeria. We have a lot of what we call the farmer-herder crisis you know and these are of course these of course very deadly conflicts over arable land and water. But African countries have a little more to worry about even in the inevitable transition to net zero by 2050 and in our case in Nigeria by 2016. For us in Africa energy poverty and its implications for extreme poverty are as existential as a crime as a climate crisis itself. In 2020 52% of the population of sub-Saharan Africa about 568 million people had no access to electricity. 19 of the 20 countries with the lowest clean cooking actress mix are in Africa. In practical terms these energy deficits produce staggering defects. For instance the clean cooking deficits lead to about two really huge numbers of premature deaths from household air pollution in sub-Saharan Africa in particular annually. Of course gender inequities are exacerbated and millions of women and children suffer from critical health conditions on account of clean cooking deficits and of course the use of heavy pollutants like firewood. Due to the electricity deficits half of secondary schools and a quarter of health facilities in sub-Saharan Africa have no power and for many gas-rich but energy poor countries in Africa such as Nigeria we are extremely gas-rich who have huge reserves of gas but energy poor. We recognize that the role of natural gas being a much cleaner fossil fuel must play a transition role. It must play as a transition field in the short term to facilitate the establishment of base load energy capacity and address clean cooking deficits in the form of LPG. But there has been strong resistance to this. I mean we believe that not just because we are gas rich but because also because gas is much much cleaner fossil fuel. We believe that gas must be a transition fuel for us. And the reason why we take this position is because there is no country yet that has been able to develop industrially using just renewable energy. And just for base load just to get sufficient base load for industry you absolutely must have some and in our case gas. But several Global North nations have placed restrictions on the use of development funds for gas infrastructure in Africa with ripple effects in the private financial sector. While I think it's just important to explain this a bit. So the Global North countries argue that gas projects in Africa should not be funded anymore. And the reason of course is that this is seen, I think I know how to do this now. The reason of course is that this is seen as in some ways a hindrance to net zero by 2050. While some others the US and others have created exceptions in their policies you know the intended flexibility is not yet clear. So clearly the limit limiting the development of domestic gas projects which is a critical energy transition pathway for Africa in our opinion of course violates the principles of equity and justice. And of course this challenges for African nations while in truth making an insignificant dent in global emissions. Even if we triple electricity consumption in African countries aside from South Africa solely using natural gas this will just add 0.6 percent to global emissions. But and really when you look at this you know especially in relation to what what what can happen to poverty using gas as transition fuel and the dramatic changes that that could have on livelihoods and lives in in in South Suriname Africa in particular we think that is only fair to argue that gas and gas projects in Africa ought to continue to be funded by you know by the multilaterals and by Europe and US and the US. But Africa can also lead in my view a revolutionary approach to climate change. One that recognizes climate action as the job engine for Africa. James Wangi and his colleagues at Climate Action Platform for Africa have presented this compelling point of view. They argue that instead of pushing the narrative of Africa as a victim and or insisting on business as usual growth it would make Africa eventually a big future emitter especially as doubling population and possibly even quintupling of income per capita could propel Africa to the top of the emitter league tables in the coming decades. Africa should instead lead the way in tackling climate change by leveraging on its renewable energy potential young workforce green energy green manufacturing. In other words Africa can provide jobs for millions of its young people it can prosper can lead in the fight against climate change by becoming the green or carbon-free civilization and we have the comparative advantage to do so. I think that this is an I think that is an interesting proposition and I think that just looking at all of the components of it of course won't have the time to do so today really does present an alternative pathway for Africa especially to look at how to tackle climate change and at the same time address concerns of poverty address concerns of job creation but won't have time to elaborate too much on that today. Let me say a word now about China Africa and the West and of course you know there's I was talking about China Africa the US in mid December last year the US hosted the Africa US summit only the second of such the last was in sometime in 2014 and there was no question at all that the summit was meant to at least register the to register America's interest in being a more active player in Africa in response to you know the evident dominance of the Chinese. China is Africa's largest bilateral trading partner and China does about 254 billion dollars in trade in Africa in 2021 we did about 254 billion US dollars in trade China is also the largest provider of foreign direct investment in Africa supporting hundreds of thousands of African jobs now this is roughly double the level of US foreign direct investment and China remains by far the largest lender to African countries Chinese companies have also taken the lead in exploring minerals in Africa many now in lithium mining in Mali and Guinea in Nigeria in DRC the Democratic Republic of the Congo in Zimbabwe and in Namibia most African countries as you can imagine are in my view rightly apologetic about their close ties with China China also shows up when the rest when the west will not or is reluctant to show up and many African countries of course are of the view that the warnings about the Chinese Trojan loans maybe wise but are probably self-serving Africa needs the loans and the infrastructure and the Chinese offer them in any case the history of loans from western institutions is not great the memory of the destructive conditionalities of the Bretton Woods loans are still fresh and the debris is everywhere and the preoccupation of western governments and the media with the so-called China debt trap might well be an overreaction and I will recommend to you a very eye-opening lecture by Professor Deborah Brottingham about two weeks ago she gave the lecture about two weeks ago at the Jesus College Cambridge the truth that she points out is that all of China's lending to Africa is only five percent I think she's you know roughly accurate there of all the outstanding public and publicly guaranteed debt in low and middle income countries compared to 23 percent held by the World Bank and other multilaterals Chinese lenders account for just 12 percent of Africa's private and public external debt and the Chinese as I've said have always been there when the debts even cannot be paid in early 2020 as COVID battered African economies and of course economies worldwide China came together with other G20 members to launch the the debt service suspension initiative the DSSI as it was called 73 low income countries benefited from the suspension of principal and interest payments through the DSSI Chinese banks provided 63 percent of the total debt relief while it only owed 30 percent of the debt service payments that were due so by and large you know in the arguments about Chinese how you know the Chinese debt trappers sometimes called and the large amounts of loans to African countries etc I think that what is clear is that the Chinese have proved to be by and large quite responsible in their approach to the giving of these notes of course there are always arguments about whether or not you get the very best deal all the time or the real question for Africa and African governments is who else is offering these loans who else is offering the support so really isn't the question of here or there really is the question about this is what is available and you know seems to me that it makes sense to take what at least is available then to the question of insecurity there's some restiveness as many of us would appreciate in the continent and this is driven in part by poverty alienation environmental degradation and in many cases poor governance the more pressing problem today is the encroachment by franchises of the global terrorist groups in Africa I think that's what we're seeing today the Islamic iswap for example Boko Haram and several of the several of the of the terrorist groups that we find of course in many cases franchises of terror groups you know in other parts of the world although many African countries to be fair have acted very vigorously to tackle these terrorist groups there's still much more that can be done especially in partnership with the rest of the international community the Sahel appears to be the worst hit according to the 2022 global terrorism index the Sahel has become home to the world's fastest growing and most deadly terrorist groups and Sub-Saharan Africa accounts for 48 percent of deaths coming from global terrorism the Sahel is also said to account for half a million internally displaced persons and 1.8 million people facing food insecurity 5.1 million people needing humanitarian assistance so given the scale and the scale of the problem and the threat of terrorism you know and my view is that the threat of terrorism anywhere is is is is really the threat of terrorism practically everywhere because as we've seen many terrorist groups shall simply develop franchises that can operate in other places so I think it's time for the global community to treat the menace of terrorism especially in the Sahel as a common challenge this is one area where the great powers and emerging powers can put aside their libraries and work with the Echoers and the Africa Union on an initiative to stamp out terrorism in Africa especially in the Sahel Africa has been and and I think that you know we we need to look at this as quickly as possible and of course governments such as ours have made over choice to several you know of the global powers and we've spoken you know privately publicly about how to you know how to work together to deal with terrorism in the Sahel because we strongly believe that if it's not dealt with it could really spiral out of control and give rise to severe problems in many states that many states which already have have problems of institutional weaknesses law enforcement weaknesses etc. Africa has and remains a force for global good and when I say that Africa has been a force for global good I often like to refer to the agreement way back in 1963 when African countries barely out of colonial rule agreed to respect colonially inherited boundaries and this has been likely observed and I must say that this is a big deal especially where we recall that most wars in the world in previous centuries were often linked to disagreements about boundaries and following from the from respect for colonial inherited boundaries Africa has also shown in my view outstandingly good example in using its regional integration agreements to promote peace and security on the one hand and trade and industry on the other African regional organizations have taken responsibility for the maintenance of peace and security on the continent and the sub regions I think notable in this regard is the strong resistance that has been that has been made to unconstitutional changes of government especially at the Africa Union and also the regional economic groupics echo us for instance has sanctioned countries like Burkina Faso Guinea and Mali where soldiers seized political power by coups d'etat such sanctions include suspension of memberships travel bans freezing on financial credits amongst other things and the Africa Union has backed echo us and is also suspended membership of countries that echo a sanctioned it would seem that the sanctions have had some bite I mean it I would not go as far saying that they have been very effective they have had some bite especially to the extent that the affected countries approached echo us even recently they approved the echo as leadership at the last AU summit requesting that the sanctions be lifted there is a good measure of you know of a bite that they that the sanctions have had but I would argue that the measures taken against these countries could have had even greater impact if the rest of the international community had rallied around and reinforced the measures taken by echo us and must of course acknowledge that of course the US government issued a statement of specific support for echo as sanctions in Guinea in particular and and and this has helped a great deal what it is is that sanctions by African regional groups or by the Africa Union are only as effective as they are supported by the international community especially international finance I think it's important of course we all know the interconnected connectedness of global finance it is well nigh impossible for for the West African for West African states thank you for West African states to effectively sanction other West African states I mean there are West African states that would simply look to France or look elsewhere for support so the the involvement of the international community thank you is important in ensuring effectiveness of sanctions I think Africa has also has also shown a standingly good example through the establishment of the African continent of free trade area excuse me so while some parts of the world were quitting regional integration and agreements etc African countries were building on the pan-African legacy of leaders like Kwame Nkrumah to establish continent a continental market and I think that the AFCTA will overcome the constraints of Africa's small fragmented markets and it will have significant impact on commerce within the continent both in goods and services and this will be particularly so if adequate attention is paid to building regional value chains within the continent and so I think you know just looking at the possibilities for the for the AFCTA they're huge and I'm glad to say that a lot of work is being done today to ensure that the market is as robust as it was planned and one expects that the participation of of of African countries it has almost 100 percent subscription will make this truly you know a model regional market for many of us there's a strong conviction also that digitalization offers the best opportunity for leapfrogging for Africa and of course as we know digital technologies have been deployed across Africa to provide solutions in agriculture in education in fintech in healthcare it's also been deployed in logistics and transport and I think it has a potential to be used also in practically you know all all aspects of commerce and business smart housing solutions smart power grids you know it's there's just potential everywhere the story of mobile telephony for instance has provided a platform for the use of digital technologies in daily lives in Africa due to mobile telephony Africa is ahead of other parts of the world in terms of fintech and payment solutions the continent accounts for about half of the world's mobile money accounts and African countries are using AI enabled surveillance technologies for facial recognition to monitor and to respond to crime perhaps even better known I'm I'm sure that many of us are familiar with the use of drones to deliver medicines in Rwanda and it's I think there's some effort to do that also in Ghana such as the impact that this is hard that the the that digitalization has had that just since 2016 and despite two recessions in Nigeria and even a global pandemic six technology startups have achieved the status of unicorns in other words companies that are valued at over a billion US dollars so there's great potential and of course a lot of hard work going on there another great resource which I believe will enable Africa to cope with a rapidly changing world is our diaspora and I think that instead of lamenting the brain drain which admittedly is costly Africa should organize itself to take advantage of its diaspora some of whom of course here in this audience and I'm not about to suggest that you should show sheep home or anything like that you know because I see a few apprehensive looking cases out around here I think that African diaspora and of course Africa diaspora is substantial I mean we already see your remittances in the order of 96 billion and so so on and so forth and even just in sub-Saharan Africa but the African diaspora is a major source of strength and they have also in several instances offered themselves for public service which is in my view is also very important however I see the diaspora as a vanguard for keeping up with the rest of the world diaspora is a secret weapon as we've seen time and time again members of diaspora keep a close tap on developments at home and they often invest their resources in business or setting up facilities with cutting-edge services in medicine and education in finance for instance the contributions of the Ethiopian diaspora that help to fund the building of the great Ethiopian Renaissance dam is one such major example of diaspora involvement in development Kenya has also licensed the diaspora investment fund that will enable Kenyans living abroad to invest safely at home the hospital where I had an operation last year where I had a procedure is based in Lagos and the specialists that treated me practice both in Nigeria and the UK as a matter of fact just this just today I was at one I was seeing two of the six surgeons who carried out the procedure here in in in London and what I what what is evident is that we can derive benefits from all of our resources both at home and the diaspora and it's becoming easier and easier by the day in my few years of service as vice president of Nigeria I've been quite fascinated by the place of academic regal in both policy formulation and perhaps more importantly in execution in Nigeria our social investment program which is possibly the largest in in in sub-Saharan Africa was a product of excellent policy research that's also addressed the problems that also address the problems of how because that is always a big problem how how how do you get it done how do you get it done effectively and the results in in in our case you know homegrown school feeding program was an award has won several awards where we feed about 9.5 million children daily and created huge opportunities for farmers who sold their produce to the program our micro credit program for 2.4 million informal traders was also rigorously evidence-based the delivery mechanism was also well researched and the electronic platform which was developed by a very young team to deliver it is now called the growth platform it also has won you know at least two three international awards so I think that there is a lot to be said for serious policy and serious policy papers serious especially those that address the house similarly the insights from the study title conflicts in the Sahel region and developmental consequences which was undertaken by Fumi here professor Aloni Shaki and her colleagues helped to inform the thinking and design of our national livestock transmission plan which is an innovative sustainable approach to resolving the deadly conflicts around pasture and water between farmers and herders in Nigeria and one which became a template for addressing similar problems in the Sahel so our national livestock transformation plan again was based with the product of serious research and you know especially research that speaks to how to get things done so I think that there is a lot that can be said for working together with research institutions with universities and all of that I think that that is becoming better appreciated by governments and and government officials determined to make a difference in their in their countries let me conclude by saying that Africa can take a full advantage of the global complexities we see today and indeed thrive in the face of uncertainties and disruption the decisive factor will be knowledgeable leadership committed to good governance knowledgeable leadership committed to good governance indeed if you asked me three things that will determine our ability to turn the problems and complexities of our continent around for good I will say one knowledgeable leadership committed to good governance two knowledgeable leadership committed to good governance and you can guess three knowledgeable leadership committed to good governance thank you all very much