FAREWELL President Goodluck Ebele Azikiwe Jonathan

To everything there is time.
Thank you for availing yourself.
Thank you for showing us the step. Thank you for changing the course. Thank you for carrying the cross.
You bore the pain.
You accepted the blame.
You were faulted in all.
You were mocked.
You were insulted.
You were hated.
You were dishonored.
You were disregarded.
You were ridiculous.
You were reduced to nothing.
Yet,
You absorbed all.
What kind of man?
Nigerians were horrified running, waiting for the fate of the nation in
2015 election.
Africa was on the watch perhaps to create a refugee camp.
The world was waiting perhaps to send peacekeepers.
Then you made that call,one call that changed the whole scene.
Those that supported you looked like dreamers.
Those that were against you pondered a long time in their heart. What kind of man? I never thought it could happen, I never thought.
You dignified Nigerians before Africa and the world.
You changed the story of the nation. You sacrificed all,all,your dignity, your immunity,your honor,your
respect,your title,your power,just to save this nation from drowning,and you saved her.

TODAY,as you bow out,we pray the peace you left behind will follow
Nigeria,I can see your footprint on African political soil,Wherever
Nelson Mandela is mention,GEJ will be mentioned,we will tell our children and anyone who cares to know,about you,In this last minute I say to you sir
'farewell' farewell, farewell.
Nigerians salute you...

By Hon.afolabi abolarin adeoye.

AfDB WEIGHS OPTIONS FOR AFRICA'S ECONOMIC TRANSFORMATION

As Africa’s premier development financeinstitution, the African Development Bank has kept faith with its mission by positioning itself at the centre of Africa’s transformation in line with its 2013-2022 Ten Year Strategy.
Anchored on two pillars – inclusive growth and gradual transition to green growth – the strategy has infrastructure development, regional
integration, private sector development, governance and skills and technology as focus areas of the Bank’s intervention.

Catering to the needs of fragile states, boosting agriculture and food security and striving to enhance gender equity in development are the
Bank’s priority funding areas.

Thus, infrastructure development has benefitted from huge investments to the tune of US $28 billion in the past decade compared to US $18 billion invested in the sector in four decades
(1964-2004), according to a financial presentation made at the ongoing 50th Annual Meetings of the Bank in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire.

The presentation jointly made by the Vice-President for Finance, Charles Boamah, and the Officer-in-charge of Treasury, Hassatou N’Sele, also looked at the potentials, challenges and plausible scenarios for the continent’s transformation.

Africa is home to nearly 30 percent of the world’s mineral reserves, 95 percent of its untapped hydropower; 10 percent of oil and eight percent of
gas.

The continent will be home to the youngest population in the world for the next 40 years. It is watered by some of the highest annual rainfall
(Congo Basin) in the world.
Under normal circumstances, these strategic natural endowments should be able to propel Africa, which is currently the second-fastest growing continent outside Asia.

However, the continent is also beset by acute impediments to growth, including high poverty rates with over 400 million of its people living on less than US $1.25 a day, according to the analysis.

Worse, high poverty rates are further
compounded by an acute lack of energy with current estimates indicating that some 620 million
people in Africa are not connected to any electricity grid.

Furthermore, Africa, with 54 countries and micro markets, is so fragmented that the idea of
developing economies of scale in most these countries seem far-fetched.

Thus, trade among and between African countries is currently
estimated at 12 percent.
Governance is also considered to be a major development issue in Africa as it impacts negatively on the cost of doing business in a critical ways.

However, the good news is that, in spite of these challenges, many African countries have been on the growth path in the past decade with West and East Africa registering the highest growth rates at 6 and 7.1 percent, respectively, in 2014.

“The factors driving such growth included increased investment in infrastructure, a growing private sector, and greater agricultural and
mining production,” the presentation noted.

It also pointed to the growing importance of Africa’s diaspora remittances, which reached US $67 billion in 2014, surpassing Official
Development Assistance and Foreign Direct Investment, both of which have been the dominant sources of investment finance to Africa in the past.

AfDB believes that with better infrastructure and greater trade facilitation, GDP growth would be
higher than seven percent, a rate that is higher than population increase. At that point, it becomes feasible to pave the way to the continent’s
transformation.

WHERE ARE JOBS FOR AFRICAN YOUTH? IN AGRI-BUSINESS!

Agri-business has the potential to create jobs for the millions of African youth who are jobless even after graduating with good degrees, experts said Wednesday during a panel discussion held at the
ongoing African Development Bank (AfDB) 50th Annual Meetings in Abidjan.

Geraldine Fraser-Moleketi, the AfDB Special Envoy on Gender, opened the panel discussion on Wednesday by providing statistics that painted
agriculture as the continent’s untapped goldmine.

For starters, the continent, it was heard, has about 60 percent arable land with between 60 and 70 percent of its population employed in the
agricultural sector, which contributes up to 70 percent of most African countries’ Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

It was also heard that at least 17 million young people enter the job market every year and that
agri-business has the potential to single-handedly provide them with jobs if only the right policies are put in place by those with the means.

Another key statistic highlighted was that of 70 percent of African women that find themselves employed in agriculture at a survival level. These
women, Moleketi said, need to be supported to earn more sustainable livelihoods from their activities.

Joseph Sam Sesay and Isidore Kabwe Longo, Agriculture Ministers of Sierra Leon and Democratic Republic of Congo, respectively; Jean
Claude Brou, Ivorian Minister of Industry and Mines; and Nteranya Sanginga, Director General
of International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) were on the panel to discuss agri-business potential.

It was agreed that there’s a place for the youth in agriculture and Sanginga shared stories from
Nigeria where his organisation has experimented and recorded positive results.

According to Sanginga, IITA has created jobs for hundreds of young people in Nigeria using a model where successful young people in
agriculture talk to and mentor their counterparts.

The organisation also trains and equips youth with skills in production and processing of various crops including cassava, beans, maize
and cowpeas. They also train youth in fish farming.

“And through our efforts, we have transformed young jobless Nigerians who studied different courses at university into accomplished farmers
who are now making a decent living off agribusiness,” he said.

Because of IITA’s success in Nigeria, its youth in agriculture model is now being replicated in other African countries such as Tanzania, Uganda and Democratic Republic of Congo.

Democratic Republic of Congo’s Minister Isidore Kabwe Longo shared his country’s story, calling DRC’s vast and lucrative mineral deposits,
“Africa’s mining scandal.”

He said his government has started a deliberate shift from mining that the country is most famous for after coming to a realization that, despite
having vast natural mineral deposits, these haven’t been able to create jobs for everyone and transform the lives of most Congolese.

The Minister said unemployment in his country stands at over 45 percent and the country imports more than 40 percent of its food supplies
costing over US $1.5bn every year.
Yet in all this, DR Congo has an estimated 80 million hectares of available arable land, but due to conflict and insecurity, only around 10 percent of this land is currently being used.

So it was concluded that peace and stability is important for Africa to exploit its vast arable resources and that the youth can be attracted into agriculture through the use of technology-enhanced methods of farming to help change mindsets of many young people who regard the
sector as for the old and poor.

It was also agreed by the panelists that governments should create the necessary value chains that point the youth towards the opportunities in agriculture.

YE SHALL KNOW THAT I AM THE LORD

Ezekiel

11:1 Moreover the spirit lifted me up, and brought me unto the east gate of the LORD's house, which looketh eastward: and behold at the door of the gate five and twenty men; among whom I saw Jaazaniah the son of Azur, and Pelatiah the son of Benaiah, princes of the people. 

11:2 Then said he unto me, Son of man, these are the men that devise mischief, and give wicked counsel in this city: 

11:3 Which say, It is not near; let us build houses: this city is the caldron, and we be the flesh. 

11:4 Therefore prophesy against them, prophesy, O son of man. 

11:5 And the Spirit of the LORD fell upon me, and said unto me, Speak; Thus saith the LORD; Thus have ye said, O house of Israel: for I know the things that come into your mind, every one of them. 

11:6 Ye have multiplied your slain in this city, and ye have filled the streets thereof with the slain. 

11:7 Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD; Your slain whom ye have laid in the midst of it, they are the flesh, and this city is the caldron: but I will bring you forth out of the midst of it. 

11:8 Ye have feared the sword; and I will bring a sword upon you, saith the Lord GOD. 

11:9 And I will bring you out of the midst thereof, and deliver you into the hands of strangers, and will execute judgments among you. 

11:10 Ye shall fall by the sword; I will judge you in the border of Israel; and ye shall know that I am the LORD. 

11:11 This city shall not be your caldron, neither shall ye be the flesh in the midst thereof; but I will judge you in the border of Israel: 

11:12 And ye shall know that I am the LORD: for ye have not walked in my statutes, neither executed my judgments, but have done after the manners of the heathen that are round about you. 

11:13 And it came to pass, when I prophesied, that Pelatiah the son of Benaiah died. Then fell I down upon my face, and cried with a loud voice, and said, Ah Lord GOD! wilt thou make a full end of the remnant of Israel? 

11:14 Again the word of the LORD came unto me, saying, 

11:15 Son of man, thy brethren, even thy brethren, the men of thy kindred, and all the house of Israel wholly, are they unto whom the inhabitants of Jerusalem have said, Get you far from the LORD: unto us is this land given in possession. 

11:16 Therefore say, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Although I have cast them far off among the heathen, and although I have scattered them among the countries, yet will I be to them as a little sanctuary in the countries where they shall come. 

11:17 Therefore say, Thus saith the Lord GOD; I will even gather you from the people, and assemble you out of the countries where ye have been scattered, and I will give you the land of Israel. 

11:18 And they shall come thither, and they shall take away all the detestable things thereof and all the abominations thereof from thence. 

11:19 And I will give them one heart, and I will put a new spirit within you; and I will take the stony heart out of their flesh, and will give them an heart of flesh: 

11:20 That they may walk in my statutes, and keep mine ordinances, and do them: and they shall be my people, and I will be their God. 

11:21 But as for them whose heart walketh after the heart of their detestable things and their abominations, I will recompense their way upon their own heads, saith the Lord GOD. 

11:22 Then did the cherubims lift up their wings, and the wheels beside them; and the glory of the God of Israel was over them above. 

11:23 And the glory of the LORD went up from the midst of the city, and stood upon the mountain which is on the east side of the city. 

11:24 Afterwards the spirit took me up, and brought me in a vision by the Spirit of God into Chaldea, to them of the captivity. So the vision that I had seen went up from me. 

11:25 Then I spake unto them of the captivity all the things that the LORD had shewed me.

IT CAME TO PASS

Ezekiel 

8:1 And it came to pass in the sixth year, in the sixth month, in the fifth day of the month, as I sat in mine house, and the elders of Judah sat before me, that the hand of the Lord GOD fell there upon me. 

8:2 Then I beheld, and lo a likeness as the appearance of fire: from the appearance of his loins even downward, fire; and from his loins even upward, as the appearance of brightness, as the colour of amber. 

8:3 And he put forth the form of an hand, and took me by a lock of mine head; and the spirit lifted me up between the earth and the heaven, and brought me in the visions of God to Jerusalem, to the door of the inner gate that looketh toward the north; where was the seat of the image of jealousy, which provoketh to jealousy. 

8:4 And, behold, the glory of the God of Israel was there, according to the vision that I saw in the plain. 

8:5 Then said he unto me, Son of man, lift up thine eyes now the way toward the north. So I lifted up mine eyes the way toward the north, and behold northward at the gate of the altar this image of jealousy in the entry. 

8:6 He said furthermore unto me, Son of man, seest thou what they do? even the great abominations that the house of Israel committeth here, that I should go far off from my sanctuary? but turn thee yet again, and thou shalt see greater abominations. 

8:7 And he brought me to the door of the court; and when I looked, behold a hole in the wall. 

8:8 Then said he unto me, Son of man, dig now in the wall: and when I had digged in the wall, behold a door. 
8:9 And he said unto me, Go in, and behold the wicked abominations that they do here. 

8:10 So I went in and saw; and behold every form of creeping things, and abominable beasts, and all the idols of the house of Israel, pourtrayed upon the wall round about. 

8:11 And there stood before them seventy men of the ancients of the house of Israel, and in the midst of them stood Jaazaniah the son of Shaphan, with every man his censer in his hand; and a thick cloud of incense went up.

8:12 Then said he unto me, Son of man, hast thou seen what the ancients of the house of Israel do in the dark, every man in the chambers of his imagery? for they say, The LORD seeth us not; the LORD hath forsaken the earth. 

8:13 He said also unto me, Turn thee yet again, and thou shalt see greater abominations that they do. 

8:14 Then he brought me to the door of the gate of the LORD's house which was toward the north; and, behold, there sat women weeping for Tammuz. 

8:15 Then said he unto me, Hast thou seen this, O son of man? turn thee yet again, and thou shalt see greater abominations than these. 

8:16 And he brought me into the inner court of the LORD's house, and, behold, at the door of the temple of the LORD, between the porch and the altar, were about five and twenty men, with their backs toward the temple of the LORD, and their faces toward the east; and they worshipped the sun toward the east. 

8:17 Then he said unto me, Hast thou seen this, O son of man? Is it a light thing to the house of Judah that they commit the abominations which they commit here? for they have filled the land with violence, and have returned to provoke me to anger: and, lo, they put the branch to their nose. 

8:18 Therefore will I also deal in fury: mine eye shall not spare, neither will I have pity: and though they cry in mine ears with a loud voice, yet will I not hear them.

SUCCESS

Success is having a flair for the thing that you are doing, knowing that is not enough, that you have got to have hard work and a sense of
purpose.