 Excellency, U.S. Ambassador, and all of our friends and colleagues who are on the school, and of course the Mandela Washington Fellows, congratulations to you all, as being selected as fellows, and also for the very great work that you do. We must commend the U.S. government also for keeping the dream of Yali alive. Listening to the leaders of the three tracks and the great work that they lead is evidence that we're listening today to Africa's most exciting story. It's certainly Nigeria's most exciting story. The story of a present and a future that could be stared by our nation's incredibly talented and optimistic young men and women. The innovation, the creativity, and thoughtfulness that I've seen in the different projects that we have developed is evidence of your belief and confidence in the future of this country, and indeed in the future of the continent. And I took time to look at all of the projects that have been done in a very large number of them, the different profiles, I read through all the profiles, and I'm really quite taken, I'm really quite overwhelmed by just the sheer range of the depth of what has been done. And this, in my view, is the best news possible, the news of great hope and enthusiasm about the future. Hope is the fuel of progress and prosperity. And I think that every generation has a responsibility to itself and the future to believe enough in its own abilities and God-given resources to build societies where people can live their lives in peace, joy, and prosperity. But within any generation, only a few wholeheartedly take on that challenge, the challenge of building society. Most believe that the task is for someone else, and that such endeavors cannot even pay the bills anyway. So let me say to you that you may not know this, but those of you who are so active in these various not-for-profit causes belong to a small club of those ready to pay the price to see their countries and communities grow. So you are individually and collectively in-nation builders, and that is what public service is about, your young public service, even if you are not in government employees. But I want to say something which may, of course, turn out to be controversial, and that is that you need to go the extra level. If you're not already involved, get involved in politics, while a lot can be achieved in government, while a lot can be achieved in civil society, and I'll talk about that in a moment, government still holds the ace in terms of capacity and resources to bring the social groups to the largest numbers. Besides, you know, being deciders instead of pressure groups at the table in policy formulation are hugely different positions. The consummation of great ideas to transform our societies ultimately will depend on, quote, those politicians, as we sometimes derisively describe them. I was once where you were. I was part of several civil society groups growing up. I joined the first, I joined the first civil society group that was a part of when I was 24. I was teaching at the time, I started teaching at the time of the University of Lagos. I also co-founded the anti-corruption group Integrity, and then Convention on Business Integrity, which is still alive and well today, and they functioned out of Mapuja and Lagos. At the time, we published a weekly bulletin called Scootling to expose official corruption, and that was during the Abacha era and there was quite a bit of trouble there and even just trying to get this kind of information across. And we got into all sorts of trouble and all sorts of skirmishes with no enforcement. I was chair of the Legal Research and Development Center, where we worked on civil rights issues and legal defense for the poor. We did a couple of legal defense initiatives. We got funding from donors and all of that and tried to do the best we could. But if I count the number of those that were able to reach, maybe in the years, maybe about a hundred or so. So we achieved some good. But compared to the scale of the problem, it was really a deal. But in 1999 came politics and I was appointed Attorney General of Lagos. With that platform, we took on the corruption in the legal judiciary and we set a model. We reviewed the issues of corruption in the legal judiciary and how to address it, from remuneration to discipline and all of that. And we were able to put in place, you know, an anti-corruption framework that has lasted several years. And I'll just give you a quick example of what happened in Lagos at the time. Now, we did a survey of legal practitioners who were in, who practiced in the courts in Lagos. And we asked a question about integrity of Lagos judicial officers at the time. 89% of them said that the judiciary was notoriously corrupt. And those are notoriously corrupt. 89%. That was 1999. So we knew that we had our work cut out for us. We then decided what were the relations. Lagos judges at the time were paid 46,000 a month. Not enough, of course, we won't, you know, pay school fees or anything. So we had to look at remuneration. And we took decisive steps on remuneration. The one fear that many judges have is that they would not have a home to live when they, when they leave office because you're not allowed to practice law once you leave office as a judge. So Lagos state government, as a matter of policy, decided that we would provide a home for judges. And that would be their home. And they can take, they can take it away with them when they, when they leave office. A big, you know, house, four bedroom house, the boys' quarters and all of that, in the place of their choice, Ikoi, Leki or Ikeja, depending on which they chose. And then we took to the question of discipline, if a report is made with processes immediately to the NJC. As a consequence of the steps that we took, 22 judges, 22 magistrates lost their jobs. It was sad for corruption. That was the first time in the history of the state that anyone had ever been sad for corruption, anyone at all, or had ever even been reprimanded. Three judges lost their jobs also. But then, when we did that survey again with the World Bank in 2007, asking the same questions about Lagos judges in the high courts of Lagos, 0%, 0% said that judges were corrupt, 0%. Now, it's not that the judges suddenly had a change of heart, but we put in place a system that guaranteed not just remuneration, but also discipline. But the point, the reason why I make this point is that states, after what we did in Lagos, copied that very example, the same example. So many states improved remuneration and improved the wide variety of things. But the point that I'm making is that it took public office to be able to get the scale of change that was required to make a difference. It took public office. With our public office, I would have remained a pressure group activist. I would have done some nice things. I would have been involved. As a matter of fact, I was also a fellow of the Roadstrap fellow. I'd have done all of that kind of stuff. But I wouldn't have been able to make the change of the changes that my country required. The second thing we did in Lagos at the time was that we established the Citizens' Rights Department. For the first time in the history of our country, a department was established in the Ministry of Justice for the rights of citizens. And that's important because the Ministry of Justice is not just a ministry of law and order. It's a ministry for justice for the people. And that ministry, that department had what was called the Office of the Public Defender. The concept would be borrowed from U.S. states and were able to do the legal defense. Government provided funding for thousands of Lagosians, thousands, literally thousands. But the more interesting part of that story is that almost every state in Nigeria adopted the Citizens' Rights Department, adopted the Office of the Public Defender. Now, go back to when I was an activist working in the legal research and the legal research and involvement organizations, where we were trying to do some work on legal defense. Yes, we did so. We did a few. But we certainly couldn't achieve the scale that we were able to achieve in public service. So simply the point I'm making is that African nations, especially our nation, cannot afford to have its best minds and our most committed social activists remain only in the civil space. You know, we simply can't afford it. You guys have to get involved. You've got to get involved in politics. You've got to be in a position to make the difference on the scale that is required. You've got to be able to do that. And of course, there are many who will not be involved in politics, but those that are inclined should. And I think it's absolutely important. Of course, there will be many, many challenges, even in the way of getting hurt in politics. But I want to say to you that that for me is, you know, should be an objective that you should set for yourselves to get involved at whatever level of politics so that we can make the kind of difference on the scale that are required to make the difference.