IS POLITICS REALLY A DIRTY GAME TO BE AVOIDED?
In this extensive YouTube interview, host Femi Lazarus engages former World Bank Vice‑President and anti‑corruption advocate Obiageli Ezekwesili in a deep discussion about the systemic failures of African politics and governance. The conversation begins with a critique of the monopolistic nature of political power in Africa, where high entry costs and entrenched elites keep democracy out of the hands of ordinary citizens. Ezekwesili explains how the political class, rather than parties, controls the continent, likening it to a monopoly that offers no incentive for quality or accountability. The dialogue moves to Africa’s demographic dividend – a youthful population that could drive growth if equipped with solid foundational skills – and the paradox of widespread anger that is often misdirected or suppressed by a culture of cowardice and lack of collective action. They explore the legacy of colonialism, the inadequacy of current multilateral institutions (UN, WTO) for Africa’s needs, and the necessity of a new multilateral order. Education reforms are examined in detail: the gap between schooling and learning, the importance of literacy, numeracy, and socio‑emotional skills, and specific reforms Ezekwesili led in the mineral and education sectors (teacher upgrade programmes, mining cadastral system, extensive legislative reforms). The interview also touches on the AI revolution, the need for “value skills” and an abundance mindset, and the urgency of building a new political class grounded in character, competence, and capacity. Ezekwesili describes her School of Politics, Policy and Governance (SPPG) as a vehicle to train future African leaders across multiple countries. Throughout, the tone is conversational yet urgent, with a mix of critical analysis and hopeful optimism about Africa’s potential if governance reforms and youth empowerment are achieved.
Chapters
It's difficult for people who worked hard for their money to get into certain political positions. First, the amount you must have, the forms and everything. What do we say about these structures that are deliberately built locally to restrict those who don't have corruption money to get into power?
It's a case of asking, why is a monopolist not being nice and reducing the price of his product. Hmm. Dr. Obi Ezekwesili, Madam Due Process. They have monopolized power. What you have is an Africa where democracy no longer belongs to the people. A two-time minister, a former World Bank vice president, special assistant to the president of Nigeria on budget Monitoring and Price Intelligence. That was when she was named Madam Due Process. What has happened is that the politicians have now held on to democracy in their own definition of it. Yes. As that which belongs to them. Yes. And so politicians now own Africa's democracy. True. To the utter disengagement. Yes. Or poor representation of the people, of the people. Founder, Fix Politics, and School of Politics, Policy, and Governance. An advocate for transparency, good governance, a humanitarian, and an activist. The monopolist in an economic model, yes, is a price giver. The monopolist does not care about quality. They don't care about the value. They don't worry about competition because their position is well entrenched. So this is what Africa is dealing with. A lot of people haven't understood that the continent is in a very bad place. Africa's problem is not political party problem, it's political class problem.
Yeah.
So why should a person who gains from bad behavior has no consequence of punishment for it, why should they stop?
Hey guys, if you're watching this now, that means you have ears for intelligent conversations and this is exactly where you want to be. We have conversations that will get you at the edge of your seat, and this particular one is one you don't want to miss. I have a very honest request from you as we start this conversation. I'd like for you to like this broadcast. That helps us to get this to as many people as possible. You know, we can work together getting intelligent conversations to people all over the world. And I'd like you to drop your comment. Let us know how you feel. Let us know how this has impacted you. And one thing you want to do also is to subscribe to this YouTube channel, as this will notify you whenever we're bringing up videos, podcasts, or any other kind of video that can be a blessing to your heart. I look forward to having you again and again on this show. Thank you so much. This is the first time I'm going to say this on this podcast, and, um, the privilege to bring you here today is that of a lifetime. Um, not just about the positions you've held all over the world, but the fact that the quality of the life you're living speaks more than any other thing. You define to us more than ever the what it means to have Christians, those who carry these values of the kingdom, at the helm of affairs. And it's so inspiring, all the things that you've done over the years. And I just want to say thank you for a start.
Thank you very much.
And, um, so honored to have you here. Do you think that Africans generally, the young— we Africans now have the youngest population all over the world. And it's projected that in the next couple of years, 1 out of every 5 person you see is going to be an African or a Black person. Now there is anger in the continent that's touching the quality of leadership. But also, if you come down to the area of faith, we look at the fact that the religion as it is, whether Christianity or Islam, has not been such that has really helped us in terms of national transformation. It seems to have been used to condition people in a certain way. And do you think Africans are expressing anger in the right way towards bad leadership that we have seen on the continent?
So what you were saying about the continent's demographics is, is quite true. In fact, what you should know is that it is not just about Africa becoming 2.5 billion people by 2050. It is the fact that by 2050, 85% of increases in global workforce will be African. Yes. Now that is so staggeringly statistically significant that it just completely changes everything. About global, global productivity. 85% of increases in global workforce to come from one continent. That's, that's a demographic pivot of unknown, unknown, unknown precedents.
If I be permitted to interject that there are also structures set in place to make sure that the workforce in Africa is reduced to cheap labor?
Oh no, let's not.
Maybe internationally.
Let's not get there quite quickly because there are, you know, structures.
Like, will we as a continent have our labor force structures?
Okay, so let's come to that when I have finished my thoughts on the first question you raised. One out, when When you look at the demographics, because I want to go beyond the broad population to get to your question about whether we're angry enough. The population, average age population across the world is also very interesting. So in Europe, it's 44 years average age population. Yes. In China and also America, it's 39.8, 39.2. Yes. In Latin America, it's 33 to 34 years. Yes. In The Middle East is 35 years in some subset of the Middle East, and in some other subset you have like, you know, something close enough to Indian. And the Indian one is 29 years average age population. Yes. Now Africa's average age population is 18.9. So it's a vastly young continent. For every one young person in Europe, there are 50 old people. Yes. The reverse is the case in Africa. For every one old person, there are 50 young people.
Hmm.
So, so that kind of a population structure Already defines many things. So when it comes to the matter of anger, um, and how it is expressed, um, you would connect it to what people are angry about. So the older generation that would be represented by that one person compared to the 50 young people. The older generation have been raised in a certain kind of way. They have been through, some of the ones that are still in this, what we call the silent generation before That's the ones in the, in their 80s and above. And then the ones that are called the baby boomers. So people like me are early set of the baby boomers. In that generation went through, they saw the silent generation, they saw They saw slave trade, they saw colonialism, they saw militarization and all of that. My generation saw only a bit of— I'm not even sure we saw, I'm not even sure my generation, but the early ones in my generation, I, for example, didn't see colonialism. I was born '63. We already had independence. '63 was the republic. You know, it matters because what then happened with that generation is that it essentially was the generation handed independent society, right? Yes. Politically independent society. Which needed to then be transformed in the way that, say, Singapore, Lee Kuan Yew was handed Singapore and then it needed to be transformed. Yes. So the failure to achieve that transformation is now the inheritance of this 50 out of, you know, in a ratio to 1. Yes. Right. So the 50 that have now been handed a continent that could have been transformed economically, but has not been transformed, is trying to figure out how, what they make of their inheritance. So they, however, are also products of a generation that has not quite operated with the tenets of accountability. And so that lack of acceptance of the culture of accountability in a modern state structure in the African system, there was accountability. But in a modern state structure, we lost those systems of accountability. And so that has meant that they've raised children in ways that don't support accountability. And because they have raised children that way, yeah, it— the, the younger generation are still they are vexed, they are angry, but they don't fully quite have the environment in which to express the anger. Yes, properly. Yes. And constructively. Yes. And then the ones who want to express the anger are not supported by the rest because the rest have been raised to be cowardly. About demanding accountability. And so their parents say to them, don't worry, everything will be fine. But everything won't be fine until something is done about everything. So for the ones who even try to break out of that mode and express anger, Understanding how to actually clarify what you're angry about. Yes. Understand it. So a young person today would not quickly be analytical about why the situation they find themselves in is in the way it is. They need to be. They can't You can't say, "I'm angry." "What are you angry about?" "I'm just angry." No, you can't just be angry. You can connect your anger to many things. Should be any African child who's not had the opportunity to go to a school that gave them a firm foundational skills in literacy, numeracy, and critical thinking, socio-emotional skills, should be angry. Why? Because the absence of those strong foundational skills will follow them through life. It will follow them. It doesn't matter what you can promote them into, middle school, they go to university or whatever, it's still there following them. The foundation, the foundational gap is still there. And so they will not— the research says it, their earning gap will still be wide compared to those who got foundational, strong foundational skills. So just Getting the younger ones to be interested in those kinds of analytical data.
Yes.
Being able to connect data to their situation. Yeah. I am struggling because there was a lack of that foundation that to enable me to be the kind of person who by the time I have done university, I have the kinds of skills that a university education should have given me. And so I can compare with my contemporaries in the world because of those skills. Or the person says, I have those skills, but the structure of the economy has not expanded sufficiently for me to get a job. And even when people say create something, there are many barriers that stand against me inhibiting anything that I have I'm trying to create. So you have to be very good in articulating it. And the reason that you have to be good at articulating why you're angry is because you then know who you're going to face. Yeah, right. To demand accountability.
Do you feel people are facing the wrong persons?
I think that sometimes they, they actually are looking for the soft targets. To take on. So for example, you know, you can— people can be angry, and what they should be doing is going to the local government chairman and saying, where's the budget? Yes, where's the budget for the local government? Why are the things that a local government should do not being done? Yes, but they could leave the local government chairperson and his colleagues and just look for the man who is running a little business in the community and they go after him and say, you've been doing this thing, you've been selling here for many years. What have you done for us? Excuse me, poor man is trying to do business in the community. Yes. You live in the local government chairman who is spending money that belongs to the public. Yes. You don't think that you can face them. So you look for the soft touch. So it's always that there's this underlining cowardice that is inhibiting the effectiveness of the anger. And so more and more, I say to the younger generation of Africans, we've We have to be more analytical. If you come to the School of Politics, Policy and Governance, SPPG, that I am using to train a new generation of Africans that will lead our public spheres, the first thing you learn is that in God we trust, every other person Everyone else must bring data. Everyone has to tell me you are angry. Give me data that backs your anger, because that data is going to ultimately be your pathway to knowing how to solve.
I mean, on that subject of anger, I mean, it's a difficult mix. How we have been able to mix anger and cowardice. Now, you, for instance, you can be angry and be a coward. Yes, it's a very funny mix.
How would you say people who are angry and it's the world they go and hit? True. What did the world do to them?
It's an incredible mix because, like, we know in Nigeria we don't have history of our parents who fought for independence compared to Kenya where we had the Mau Mau who stood against the British and won. So we don't have a culture of seeing what it means to stand up to power. And then so it is forming in the young people now. That because of that gap, there is now the culture of trying to kick at the low-hanging fruit.
It's the same thing. We're literally saying the same thing. As I was saying to you, you know, before the program started, it's, you ultimately would trace patterns of social norms and the inheritance of those norms to the beginning of time of any society. Yes. Yeah. So, were we born to be cowards? No, I don't think we were born to be cowards. I think that, you know, what has happened over time is a delineation between the, what I call the, actually it's not even my intellectual property. It belongs to somebody called Peter, Peter, Peter, trying to remember Peter's last name now. He's a professor, a Nigerian. Talked about the public and private, you know, society in the sense of the public being when it concerns the common good. Yes, sir. And then the private being, you know, when it concerns the immediate. Community. So for example, you would find that people are quicker to ensuring that the money that they contribute to the town union is not stolen. But if somebody steals the money at the local government, it doesn't mean anything to them. Okay. So that bifurcation can be part of why you find people when it has to do with all of us are being affected by this situation. We all need to come together and fight against it. Everyone is thinking, what if 5 people have to die in the process of fighting for all of us? I don't want to be one of those 5 people. That's the thinking. Because so that, that mindset will make it not possible to easily mobilize, to defend the public good. It's a mindset that just does not enable collective action. And you need that kind of collective action in order to create a new norm in society. So when you compare what's going on with the Kenyans, for a long time also, the young, you know, the generation of the Kenyans didn't immediately start fighting. It got to the point where they realized that this is beginning to look exactly like what the colonials did to us, except that in this case, you have domestic colonialists. Yes. You know, because all of the people ruining governance in Africa, as Africans, and they are worse than what you know, you could even imagine because they're doing it to their own. They're doing it to their own. You know, the idea of the colonialists conquering Africa, taking over Africa, these are, this is an external incursion. But when people who are flesh and blood of you are saying that they somehow deserve a better life, than the rest of you. That is, that is reprehensible. And that is something that should make everybody say, no, you can't do this. But because of this feeling of the artificial state, in other words, they look at, people look at a state and they say, I can see myself in it. They can't see themselves in it. So when you tell them, let's fight for the state, they say, why? If anybody would die fighting, it shouldn't be me. They look at the way that they have always destroyed the possibility of collective action. You see all those mothers and even fathers in the market square, in the market space of Nigeria, of— Yes. Benin Republic, of Ghana. When they are in that market space, do you ever hear them fighting over religion, over ethnic group or whatever else, you don't hear them. They are, they are there for a mission. They're in the market space. They learn how to cooperate. They learn how to collaborate. They learn how to compete. Yes. But they are guided by the idea that we just need to live peacefully. Yes. In order to get our business going right now. Once the political people get into the relationship. Yes. It changes. Yes. Hasn't that always?
Yes.
So, so because of that, the state is not enabling collaboration, cooperation, and healthy competition. What it is doing is it is dividing that up. And even saying the state is perhaps not completely right. I should simply say the political class, the politicians, they are preying on those primordial tendencies. For their own gain.
Yes.
And because they are doing that, when you say to people, let us come and fight, that's— they already have been told, why are you going to fight your own brother? Why are you going to fight your own sister from your tribe? It's— come on, this fellow is making it impossible for your children. Yes. To have the prospects of a good life. Yes. If even if you don't like yourself, how about your generation coming, coming after you? I mean, you want a society that works. That works. That's what you're looking for. Yeah. So, so, so, so that this idea of an Africa where the younger generation are so much more beginning to see that they can be as good as the rest of the world. So when you see what technology has been able to do, it's leveling the playing field for those who at least have some minimum, yes, set of skills to engage technology. And what that is doing is that it is helping more of the young people to either completely disconnect from the local, so they've already migrated to the global, and the standards of the global are enabling them. Yes. Giving them economic opportunities. So they say, I'm doing well. Yes. Forget these people. So they can be located here, but they are connected with the rest of the world. And so they say, forget, just forget the rest. But the thing though is, it would be a big mistake for this generation to think in the way that our generation and the ones before us taught, which is just do well. Once you do well, then the country is doing well. Yeah. No, look, you met— you judge whether a country, a people are doing well by the number of them that are doing well.
By the number of them.
By the number of them that are doing well. The fact that we have some 20% of Africans who are living the quality of life of contemporaries in any other of the countries of the world does not mean Africa is doing well. Because we have shiny lights in, you know, that's when we have the lights, you know. But because we have, you know, nice looking estates like the one where we're speaking from today, Does not mean that that's the story. So a continent that's estimated to be the one that would have more than 80% of the remaining poor people in the world by 2030. 80%. 80%.
Cannot simply be celebrating that a few of our children Children are stars, and that leads me—
we need, yes, our children to be stars.
And that leads me to the next question. Do you think that the suffering of Africa is deliberately architected to be so by the Western world?
You know, I, I like, I like when people ask this question because it gives me the opportunity to say, you don't know what is doing you. You know, you see, because There is that.
There is that.
Anybody who says that it doesn't exist, I mean, I'm frequently fighting that. You know, I'm one of the loudest Africans globally speaking about the collapse of the existing multilateral order. Yes. And how it is necessary that we should design a new multilateral order that is inclusive and that is that is very mindful of the structural imbalances that happened just by virtue of the history of how the nation states have been formed around the world, especially on our continent. Right. So I am the, the, the, the, the, the, what do you call it, waving the card that all the existing multilateral institutions are not fit for purpose because there have been radical changes in the world. For example, I was just sharing demographic data with you. You have to be mindful of that.
Yes.
You know, the UN is basically rendered redundant these days simply because you have the great power competition between China and the US. And yet we have so many global issues that need to be solved, whether it's issues of terrorism, of climate change, cybersecurity issues, the AI, what are we going to do in terms of its governance? Dealing with inequality, very, very wide inequality, deep in acute inequalities. So these are real issues that need to be solved. And in the normal framework that we currently have, they're no longer being solved. So you need a new multilateral. So the architecture that you refer to is indeed problematic and it's created certain levels of barriers. For Africa. For example, when you look at the WTO, the World Trade Organization, yeah, there was a time that it served a purpose for the ones that created, that were the architects of it. Yeah. So they, they come— the, the conversation then was so much about free trade. Yeah. Today, the same free trade is undermined by some of the policies that the same countries that that trumpeted free trade to Africa and gave us lectures on free trade are pursuing for their own interests. So it's a very, it's a world that has really empowered the strong much more than it has cared about what happens with the weaker systems, with the weaker countries. However, that's not the full story. Yes. You see, Africa would be in a stronger position to face up to the rest of the world where we're running ourselves well.
Yeah.
Our greatest vulnerability is the poor governance of our own continent. Yeah. Our continent has not run itself well. So we're in a situation now where you look at illicit flows that leave the continent to go to illicit flows, as in, you know, corruption money, you know, corruption proceeds and all kinds of things that flow out from the continent in their trillions. Now, it is unbelievable that that would happen to a continent that needs exactly such flows to invest in its development, in its, in building its human capital, in building its critical infrastructure, from power to technology backbones to water systems, to, you know, to roads and to rails and ports, you know, the infrastructure that leads to growth. And all of the investments that we need in order to build the systems, you know, just, you can't get to development until you have those systems in place. We need all the money, but that money gets pillaged and lands in the countries that don't need it. Okay, so who did that? We, our people, our people did that. Okay, our people did that. You can, you, and which is something that we do frequently because of my background as a co-founder of Transparency International. We're talking about the fact that those countries have a duty to not allow money that's been ferreted out of Africa to land in their countries and they sit on them, you know. So they have a duty, a global duty, as we have been saying. Then you think of the fact that all of this is coming from, you know, leadership that is not strategic, that is not thinking of tomorrow. Yes. So where are those flows mostly coming from? Two-thirds of African countries have one form of minerals the other. Yes, two-thirds. Now you, you look at minerals and you behave as if it's going to be there forever. Of course not. Gabon is grandfathering oil because the reserves over time, they dry up. They dry up. So, so when you have those kinds of leaders who are not thinking of the intergenerational, you know, implications of decisions that are being made today. You can hold somebody else accountable for that. So we must know what factor is driving, you know, what at any point in time. So you're right to point out this global dimension. Of the problem of Africa's underdevelopment. I mean, someone who wrote a book, I think it was Walter Rodney, who talked about how Europe underdeveloped Africa, you know, and there are many other scholars that have paid attention to that. So Claude Ake, you know, one of our own, Professor Ake, your generation will probably never know him again, you know, but he was such a brilliant political economy, you know, political scientist, you know, from the University of Port Harcourt. He had a lot of thesis around that. So there are structural impediments. Yes. But guess what? We got independence the same time as Singapore, as Malaysia, as South Korea. And a lot of them have gone through similar kinds of, or even have, even a country like Indonesia, Indonesia, if you didn't put its name as Indonesia and you just laid out all its characteristics, you would think you're talking of Nigeria.
Wow.
And yet they have those kinds of issues too. But leadership, yes, just completely decided we will do our own, meaning we will take responsibility for that which we must do. Because while we're taking responsibility responsibility for that which we must do, it empowers us with the moral authority and the strength to confront the external issues that are holding us back.
Now, while we talk about— I mean, that's a very profound one. So now we've seen what they do as global state. Now we look inward. The current structure we have in Nigeria does not allow people Really, it's difficult for people who worked hard for their money to get into certain political positions. First, the amount you must have, the forms and everything. What do we say about these structures that are deliberately built locally to restrict those who don't have corruption money to get into power?
Well, it's, it's the, it's a case of asking, why would— why is a monopolist not being nice and reducing the price of his product? Hmm. Hmm.
Hmm. Yeah, true, true.
What incentive does a monopolist have to reduce the price of his product? They have monopolized power. So what you have is an Africa where democracy no longer belongs to the people because the people frankly have not shown themselves to appreciate and understand their duties and responsibilities in democracy. Okay. So what has happened is that the politicians have now held them to democracy in their own definition of it. Yes. As that which belongs to them. Yes. And so politicians now own Africa's democracy.
True.
To the utter disengagement. Yes. Or poor representation of the people. Of the people. Now they are taking all the, all the spoils of governance. Yes. They have hegemony over all the apparati of the state. Yeah. When I say state here, I mean country, right?
The country.
So they have this and the people— that's how we started— the lack of the collective engagement of the people in saying this is not right. We collectively say that what you've done is not right. We collectively use what the instruments of democracy give to us to call you to order for doing the wrong thing. That doesn't happen. So what do you think the monopolist politicians assume? Not that they assume. Do you think they play out? They play out the conduct of the monopolist. Exactly. Which is that there's no incentive to do anything because there's no consequence for not doing anything. The monopolist in an economic model, yes, is a price giver. He gives you the price, you pay. Yeah, he's not a price taker. Yes, the monopolist does not care about quality because whatever quality they give to you as a consumer, that's what you have. You take it. Yeah. They don't care about the, the value. Whatever value they give, they don't worry about competition. Yes, because their position is well entrenched. So this is what Africa is dealing with. A lot of people haven't understood that the continent is in a very bad place because if you don't correct the monopoly of the politics of the continent by a few politicians that have control through their political parties, and they might, you might think that these are different political parties. It doesn't, it doesn't. Forget it. Africa's problem is not political party problem, it's political class problem. Yeah, because they can wake up this morning and be one party, and by the next morning they're in another party, and they carry the same mindset. So they— when you look at the, um, the, um, the fact of the homogeneity of their political mindset, it means that there is a political —culture. Yes. That rewards the behavior of the monopolist politicians. True. And never punishes the behavior. So why should a person who gains from bad behavior has no consequence of punishment for it, why should they stop? Something must stop them. And the thing that must stop them is very clear. You first, you have to say this kind of a mindset cannot be on forever. Otherwise, we're all, the continent is gone, right? True. So why do, how do we get a new mindset in terms of the political The political culture has to change, and it can only change when you build a different kind of political mindset. You're building leaders who would put character at the center of what they will be as politicians, who will think of competence as something that they must have because they want to produce results, unlike the ones who are just interested in just accessing power in order to access the finance, right? The money. They have to have the capacity to solve complex problems, simple problems. They just can't solve the public problems, right? So you build a new political class by training people that you consider to be ready for that kind of training. Yes, you are right. You train them en masse, they enter, they stop being— your generation, frankly, wants to repeat the same pattern by sort of saying, we don't care about politics. Oh, you bad mistake. Well, my gen— I learned it because when I was in government, I hated politics. I hated politics so much. I couldn't stand the idea of me being associated with politics and the politicians. I entered government as a technocrat. I didn't enter government as someone who was in the political party or anything. And even as by the time I was in government, I wasn't in the politics. The party didn't know me as a politician. Yeah, okay. So, and then we leave government after the years of reforms that we did. What do you think undermined the reforms? Politics. True. Politics just took all the reforms and tainted them as much as today. When people see me, they say, Madam due process. Ah. I remember when you were doing due process in this country. Due process is no longer due process. What happened to due process? It's politics. Politics killed a reform that the world celebrated. Another reform that I, that I, that I was responsible for with my team is the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative. It's called NEITI, Nigeria Extractive— that's the— I mean, we got such global, global accolades for being the first country that signed on to not just design and implement, adopt, design and implement the principles of transparency in the oil and gas sector and in the mineral sector. We got accolades. It was part of the reason for debt reduction for Nigeria. NATI, we in our own case, we went further and underpinned it with law. So you have the NATI Act that brought into existence the agency that is known as NATI. I don't even know whether anybody knows that it exists. I don't think. But once upon a time. Yeah. It's one of the indicators, you know, to get debt reduction, you don't just go and negotiate. Yeah. There is set of reforms. That you must do. So those reforms were things that were important for us. And so they were known, they were known reforms. Yeah. Where are they today? The politics has just hollowed them out so that I then look back and I say it was stupid of us to have ignored the politics. You can be as technocratic as you want, but the politics will come for that work that you have done.
So true. So true.
Okay? It will come for it. And so it was after I had observed what politics is doing to the countries, to my own country and all the other countries in my vantage position, as a VP at the World Bank, that I came to the realization that, wait a minute, it was people like me that Plato was speaking to. He said that those who think that politics is beneath them will be ruled by their inferiors. Wow. By their inferiors. It was a moment of revelation. I'd seen those quotes before, but I didn't even pay attention to it. Until he came home, I saw what politics— Look, at the time we were leaving government in 2007, nobody could have told me that some of the things that have gone wrong would happen. Wow. We thought we had put— not that I don't want it to sound as if we had created an Eldorado. No, no, there was still so much we didn't— you know, we did modest work, but all you needed is modest work to build on, modest to build on, and, and that would happen. I was succeeded by some Minister of Education that when they asked, what is your, um, your mission in education, he said it's to reform Ezequiel Oh, politics, politics. So, so when your generation looks at the continent and you say, I'm angry, but you're not asking the right questions that lead to how to address the anger, you would all abdicate responsibility in the way that we did, thinking we're doing the technical things. Leave the politics, let them be doing their politics. Who were you leaving the politics to? You see, the difference between us and what Lee Kwa Yu did was that Lee Kwa Yu took his technical people and turned them to techno-politicians. Yeah, true. That's what it is.
Do you think democracy can help Africa?
We haven't practiced democracy. Is it designed to work? It can work because it has worked in other places. We haven't practiced democracy properly, so-called. What we have done is what I explained to you. Look, post-independence, after the countries got their democracies at their independence, what do you think happened? Quarrels and fights. Yes. Across a number of the countries of the continent. Before you knew it, ethnic rivalry. Before you knew it, this, you know, some group captured the power, held on to it, and basically did where we started from, which is take it to themselves. They basically amassed it and held on to the power. And, you know, we've still got some people who were, you know, presidents when their country got independence, or people who, you know, fought Some despots took over and became despots themselves. Would you call those kinds of situations practicing democracy? No, no. Africa, you know, tends to pretend that, yeah, you know, democracy is not— democracy is a simple thing. Democracy is the worst form of government until you've tried the others. Did you get that quote? This is Churchill. Oh, Winston Churchill. Yes. It's the worst form of government. Wait until you try all the others, you know, because I mean, we grew up, we grew up under military rule. Yes. And I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Yeah. So, so, so, so, so, so part of what's going on is you've got societies that haven't actually understood and practiced the ethos of democracy, the principles, the values of democracy. Because the idea of democracy is that it enables accountability. It's the cornerstone of it. It's, it's, it is, it is anchored on the rule of law. Yes, the rule of law, not the rule, not the whims, not the caprices of man. Rule of law. Yes. So there are rules of the game. So there's a clarity as to what should happen. It is anchored on constitutionalism. Yes. And, and, and, and that, and that no man, no woman is above the law. Democracy properly practiced would mean that you have that political freedom that leads to economic freedom. Okay, economic freedom. When you, when you have democracy that is well practiced based on the rule of law, it enables you have institutional mechanisms that, that would guide not just the government but the people, those in business. So there is something about it, it then leads to this sense of the freedom to to think of ideas and to know that the rule of law protects your ideas and would reward your ideas. So on the basis of that, you would see that people would flourish. Yes. Right? People will flourish. So in a society where bad behavior is rewarded and good behavior is punished. Punished. What do you think is the issue? The issue is that there are no rules of law, okay? There are no rules that ensure that it is the right thing that is rewarded. It's— there's a distortion. The Bible will say there's an error. So we have been erroneous. In practicing democracy, and then we cry that democracy is not working. In, um, in— if you want to know whether democracy works, look for families that are healthy. You will see that democracy works. Ah, healthy families. Healthy families, families that are working well. I'm not just talking about physical mental health. I'm saying, yeah, when you look at the families, because father is there, accountable, yes, allowing the children to, you know, to know that good behavior gets rewarded, bad behavior gets punished. Everybody is striving because there are rules that guide a— there's a mission statement for the family. People are, you know, and then you look at the other one where it's a house of confusion. Yes. You would know that. Yeah. And then when you look at that and you say they are practicing democracy, but it's not working. It's not working.
Well, I used to feel that it was designed so. For instance, I personally feel that we got independence at a time that we were not ready structurally.
No, I think we should not even have been colonized, not to talk of being So, you know, I shouldn't be thinking that we got independence.
But some are also of the opinion that we put our colonial masters and our current leaders side by side. Some younger people seem to believe that they prefer the colonial masters.
They shouldn't think that way. They should correct what's wrong at home because it's a defeatist mindset. My goodness, how can you possibly say you're better off with some external who came to exploit you, came to exploit you, to extract out of you. Yes, that's like, you know, that's— it annoys me when I, when I see this learned helplessness. You see it? Are you crying? You're doing victimhood. What kind of victimhood is that? Oh, you know, the, the other people that made me a victim are better than these new people. What's that? Ah, gosh, that is, that's despicable. It is, you know. So what you should know is that you should say to yourself, there is absolutely no reason. That was the, that was the basis of, um, Lin Kway Te's leadership. Yes, he said Lin Kway Te was a man of dignity and, you know, such honorable fellow. He, he just said, how dare the British think that they are superior to have to have colonized us. So we're going to prove to them. Well, he did. Because can I tell you something? Yes. Britain's income per capita is half that of Singapore today. Wow. Singapore is at 85,000 something. Wow. Britain is at 42,000. Wow. He proved it. So would you tell the person from Singapore that they, they would have been better off with Britain. They worked themselves out of it. They worked themselves out of it. They, they had reason to prove, yes, that this was an anomaly. Have we done the same? Have we done the same? Look, let's really accept that the values distortion that entered into the way that public leadership is perceived was the undoing of our continent. True. People basically said if it has to do with the public interest, their interest would override it. And it became a norm. It got normalized.
True.
And because where That nexus between colonial rule and the post-independence Africa, where I can agree that there is some causation and correlation, is that in the modern Modern, I normally do this. Yeah. In the modern post-independence state that Africa now had, the institutions of accountability that we had before Africa was carved up and then colonized for the Berlin Conference were left behind. They didn't get integrated into the alien one that either the French or the American or the British or the, um, which other country, the Portugal, you know, the Portuguese, you know, uh, had, had left behind. Okay, so not bringing, bridging that left a gap. That's why you have this bifurcation. That's why you can go to Abuja, steal, and you'd still be a hero to your community. But you can't come to the community and steal the goat of the other family members. They would come, all of them would join together to finish it. True. So that there, there's an issue. Wow. Okay. So that gap created the almost what I call the orphaning of the public space. This is very serious. It would take a generation of, and I love me the Intelligences. I love them. I just really want them to have the understanding that they can design. Solving Africa's problem is a design issue. Yes. They can, they can go back to the table and with all the kind of data that I'm asking them to be interested in. Yes. Can design a pathway. There's even much more opportunity to transform the continent today than there was during my time. Knowledge is at its cheapest today than any other time.
Have you ever at any point given up on your own generation?
I, I, so you, you know me to be a fighter. I don't like to think of helplessness. Yes. I don't like to think of, you know, I just don't like to think of helplessness. So even if I'm just the one person walking that, I'm just going to keep walking it, you know. So I don't like what takes away energy from me. Yes. Yeah. If I thought of my own generation all time I would be too sad. Yes, I'll be too sad because I feel like sometimes we— even the refusal to acknowledge our failures, yes, is very dangerous. True. It is too dangerous. Um, you, you know, you see, you see, I've, I've sometimes been in, in a place and somebody of my generation starts telling the story with such with such relish of how we used to be just one person in one room in the university or two people in one room. And you're telling it to children who went to hostels that were now like abattoirs. What are you doing telling that kind of a story? Why are you doing that? And you're not telling it with remorse. Because yes, Yeah, you're not even telling it. It's almost like a total lack of awareness. Wow. That you— how can you be— how can you be praising the past, ah, and the present is so bad? And this present is something that we all are accountable for as a generation. So even though I, I've done my bit in this society, I still feel accountable. For the fact that we don't have the best of a country, of a continent to hand over to the generations after us. But even at that, I then say, I then, so because it's on the one hand, this is how I feel about my generation. But on the other hand, I say to the younger generation, for you to be crippled by this poor performance of the older generation, Just blaming and blaming is not going to be helpful. So it gets to the point where you say, okay, this is what it is. What should we do? What shall we do now? And that's why I'm saying that there is actually real opportunity for this generation to learn all of the reasons that we failed. Okay. For example, you know, Our generation always operated a scarcity mindset, and I'm seeing it show up in your own generation. It's this person or that person. Why can't you have 100 people? More options. You know, you guys, you quarrel over your stars that you like. I am fan something something. I am fan that other person. And you just really go for each other. Why shouldn't we have 10,000 of you being stars? I don't know. This is a scarcity mentality. This was always the problem. People just fighting to be the, that one person. Why should it be one person? Why? You know, so that has to be abandoned. It has to be abandoned. You have to have an abundance mindset. Yes, knowing that you can succeed, he can succeed, she can succeed, she can succeed, all of us can succeed. What does it take for all of us to succeed? That mindset has to be one of the— your design path. Yes. Okay, the— your design path has to be the one that says, what is the thing that has most harmed our society. It is selfishness of those who should govern the public, the common good. That selfishness, it should not be seen amongst us. Wow. We cannot, you know, love ourselves to the detriment of society. That's a design part when you're sitting to say, how do we walk away from this that we've been given? Those are the kinds of things that should matter to you. Yes. Because you then shouldn't say, oh, do you know, see what they have done, eh, you know. And then you say, if we can just insult all of them, you know, that's the— that's what is happening. That it doesn't go anywhere. True. Doesn't go anywhere. You know, two people are handed same situation, And one walks the path of Eli Kwaju, the other walks the path of our old generation. Wow, wow. It's your turn again now. Which one are you going to walk? And I'm saying to you that today's world has leveled some things. In my generation, For you to be global, you send pen pal letters from magazines. You see, you know, people put their pictures, say, I'm looking for friends in Africa and in Asia and all of that. Then you would, you would write a pen pal letter to the address that they have sent. And then of course, we had the night post that may keep your letter that you wrote for months. Before the person that you write into in Europe or Asia gets it, God knows. And then you probably would send 100 of those kinds of letters, and maybe just 2, in some cases maybe just 1, in some cases nobody would respond. Today, every one of you has got a global footprint. Am I lying? You have friends that you have never met. It's online, real time. It's instantaneous, right? You're global. You have a global footprint. It's an opportunity that we didn't have. It converts to something. It converts to something. Think of the kind of knowledge. I mean, like, today's skills are not defined in the way that we define it. I recently was a keynote speaker to the vice chancellors from Commonwealth universities. Yes. New Zealand, Australia, Canada, the UK, African countries and Asian countries. Of course, you know, Commonwealth. And I said to them, I said, I hope you realize that those young people in your classrooms would rather not be there. Hmm. Everywhere, everywhere, Femi Lazarus, quiet, you know. But trust me to say it as it is, right? I said they would rather not be there. A lot of what they are learning is not what you're teaching them. Wow. I said today's university as designed is not fit for purpose for the Gen Z generation. I said they've already designed their own university. They are merely doing this to fulfill some righteousness. And what I can tell you is that in a few years from now, they are going to abandon the whole thing. Femi Lazarus, pardon? Yes, university as currently constituted going out. It will happen. I think Nigerians are still sleeping on what AI is doing to the world. I think they are sleeping. So your generation is going to be a generation that is about the skills, and these skills are not about sitting for a 4-year program to get a certificate. Uh-uh. Woo! Now, that's an incredible thing. An incredible opportunity, but you have to understand it. You have to understand it, you have to link into it, you have to master it. But above all, what your generation doesn't seem to realize is that with AI being able to do the most complex of things for humanity, that what the world will be needing is human beingness. Well, the fact that you know calculus will not give you your edge anymore because AI can do— who needs you doing that? What the world is going to need in the— we are at a civilizational inflection point. Yes, this particular civilization is going out, going out, it's going out. It's similar to hunter-gatherer gave way to agricultural revolution. Yeah, it changed the world. And then agricultural revolution gave way to industrial revolution. Steam engine changed the world radically. So we are at an a civilizational inflection point. And what that essentially means is that you have to play with a different set of rules. You have to completely just wean yourselves of the past paradigm of thought, your thought process, your way that you see the world. And Now be prepared for what is this new context requiring of me. And I am here to just tell you all that, that it is not going to— it is going to require your technical skills, but more important, to give you a competitive edge, it's going to be your value skill set. Values? Yes. That's what an AI— that's all we're worried about now. True. When we gather, I mean, that's what we're worried about now. True. When we gather in board meetings that I am part of and we're having those discussions, when we're talking about the value skill sets, because that's the only way we can protect ourselves against the dangers that AI will unleash on the world. You feel there are dangers? Huge dangers. But the opportunities are enormous. Incredible. And it could be what changes our continent if we had good governance. It's the absence of— I am nervous because this absence of good governance could mean that the level of gap between Africa and the rest of the world It will be so much. I mean, like literally it could be, it could resemble what Elon Musk is already imagining. It carries the ones that he would like to carry to Mars and then leave the rest to be discussion of the end.
We've seen countries like Rwanda, we've seen Kenya. They have structures in their country where they are preparing the youth, working with them in terms of AI revolution. I've not seen that in Nigeria at the moment.
I think the government, you know, Bosun Tijani is doing something around AI, you know. Engaging young people? Oh yeah, there's something, I don't know quite the name of it. The name of that 1,000 something. I think I have sometimes seen conversations around it. Okay. But, you know, What Nigeria could be doing right now is just unbelievable. Yeah, it could be unbelievable because you've got to mobilize the entire society. Africa needs to be mobilizing Africans for a post, you know, post-ex— this whole particular structure is Passing away. And the interesting thing is that education is key for it. But you know the level of education that's most important for this revolution? Yes. Is what I started with, foundational learning. Ah, foundational learning. Yes. Literacy, numeracy, social-emotional skills, yes, the power of critical thinking. Once you have this, that foundation, leave the child. University education is not going to be in the normal, you know, I'm going to study sociology for 4 years, ah, I'm gonna, you know, I hope you know that medicine is going to be completely We've said it.
They argue. We said it.
Medicine is going up. Medical doctors have to prepare themselves for what is coming. Clinical medicine. Yes. Just accountants, lawyers. I mean, it's unbelievable. A number of the, of the number of the, the financial companies, the banks and the investment companies in the US are already letting go of their retained, the retained containers that they used to have. They don't need them. It's a complete transformation of our economic structure, you know. And without good governance, that's why if there's anything that the young Africans should be fighting for with all their lives is to just retire all the bad ways of politics. That's the most important one. But it looks difficult. It cannot be difficult. It cannot be difficult if they understand how to work as a collective. You know, they— and the thing that, that is important is to say, what's, what's the vision? The vision is to have good governance. Yes. Right. If studies have shown you that without good governance, you cannot get economic growth. Without economic growth, you cannot reduce poverty. Without economic growth, you cannot get prosperity. Without economic growth, you cannot get to development. What are you going to do? You're going to face that particular thing they tell you is your biggest barrier. Once you face that thing and you, you tackle it, then It's easier to begin to do the things that are done. You know, one of the things that I say to people is nobody saw China coming 3 decades ago. True. Very true. Nobody saw China coming. They just mastered the, the whole template. Yes. Of how economies grow. Yes. Master, it's the easiest thing to do. But if the toughest thing to do is to create the environment for that mastery to happen, right? Yes. So creating the environment is— you see a lot of the bunch of politicians you have in Nigeria, you think they are— they are not thinking beyond. Some of them are celebrating the war going on in the Middle East. Hey, and because it's bringing more money oil. That's all they are saying. True, true, true. They are saying, hey, finally our budget will be— which budget? Budget that leads to what? What are the outcomes from 2024-2025 budget? Have they told you? Have they given you the indicators of what the budget of 2024-2025 achieved? Well, Now they are saying, ah, the budget, they might, they may have budgeted on whatever amount per barrel. Yes. Now it's probably like 80% more, more, yes, than the price at which they budgeted. Or maybe, maybe be conservative, let's just even say 40%. Okay, is that significant? Yeah, right. So For the— for a lot of them, they're not thinking, how do we translate this buffer into more human capital that is fit for purpose, that can be the basis of economic growth? How do we translate it to critical infrastructure? It's a conversion thing. You have money coming from capital that easily that easily dwindles. Because whether it's oil, like I was telling you, whether it's oil, whether it's gas, there's a sell-by date. True. Okay. Yeah. Now what countries do is to make sure that they plan for the sell-by date by all the money that comes, they spend it well, they put some of it away. So Norway is a typical story of that. Norway has the largest sovereign wealth fund in the world with trillion plus something something, you know, I've lost count of what it is now. But Norway's, you know, sovereign wealth fund, but also whatever they were budgeting, they were making sure that they efficiently and effectively invested in the right priorities to give them the society in which people could think of ideas and flourish in their ideas. Because ultimately, it is your human capital that drives your growth. They are the principle. These other infrastructure and institutions and regulatory systems and bureaucratic, uh, you know, context that, that supports them, uh, all of those ones will happen By the agency of the human being. Yes. So if you don't train those human beings, even though, even if you have power, but yet the people are not trained, they can't keep the power on. True. Can they? So, so human capital is so important. But my point back again to the AI world that we're already in. In fact, we've long been in it, you know, is to say every child that goes to school, grade 1, grade 2, grade 3, by the time they are the age of 10, they must have those critical skills literacy, numeracy, social-emotional. Yes. So that with those foundational skills, they can navigate the world. That's what research is showing us. And today it's not so. 9 out of every 10 don't have it. Wow. That's huge. That's a disaster. That's huge. In an AI world. That's huge. 9 out of every 10 African children that you see, they go to school but they are not learning. Schooling is not learning. Hmm, schooling is not learning. What? True. Schooling is not learning. And the way to solve it, where we know You know, structured pedagogy. The method of teaching matters. It's not just about the quality of the teacher, but the method of teaching. Teaching at the right level. Have— making sure that every child has access to the kind of textbook that they need. Some of the children doing multilingual teaching. We know evidence of what works. That's why, you know, when I saw the data in 2019, 2020, I saw that data of the study on foundational learning. I was like, what? Not that it didn't exist when, you know, when I was Minister of Education, I saw that children were not really, you know, the level of learning, you know, we're losing more children to being, you know, being promoted from one class to the other without having that strong foundation. So part of what we began to, we had a textbook policy that would address it so that access to textbooks. Instructional, and then instructional materials for the teachers. So the kind of training, one of the things that we launched when I was Minister of Education was focused on the teachers. So we had, I think we had STEP, we also had the program that was addressing in-service training for teachers so that you could just improve their method of teaching. Yeah, we had the Teacher Upgrade Program. Yes, STP. Where, what were we doing with this? I met a Ministry of Education where an education sector where, um, 20-something years before I got there, we had outlawed, um, teacher Grade 2 certificate being all that teachers had in order to teach in primary and secondary school. Because people were holding teacher Grade 2 certificate that they acquired like you know, and were in the classroom teaching. And there had not been any kind of upgrade of that. Wow. And so when I, when I saw that, you know, we still had a significant number of the teachers, so we designed that program. And it was basically an upgrade program. So all the colleges of education in the country, all the departments of educating, you know, faculties of education in the country. The National Teacher Institute in Kaduna designed an upgrade program to take people to NCE level. NCE? Yes, that is National Certificate for Education. That is, that is, that became the minimum qualification.
For you to be in the classroom. That was done when you were—
When I was, yes. Most of my reforms in education, I wasn't one of those that were trying to build all kinds of classrooms that were not going to be of any use except opportunity for corruption. A lot of those people telling you we built classrooms, they saw it was a corruption conduit. Ah, that was a big one. What's the corruption? The things that improve learning for children is not the classroom that you're building.
Are there things now you wish you had done then that you didn't do then?
No. And I mean it. The only thing that I wish had happened was that Nigerians would have been strong enough to say you don't unravel reforms. Ah, true. I am one for taking accountability, but if you, every time that people read through the reforms in education, for the, actually for the young, older generation that followed the reforms, every time they see me, they actually hold me, they cry on my shoulder and say, Tie what it is. Yes. So I don't, I don't, you know, because it was incisive. When I was Minister of Minerals, because I, I, I do, I'm a policy, I, I just, I, I live for policy. Yes. You know, so I, I enjoy policy. Yes. Uh, issues, because policies are really looking at the problem and analytically. Yes. Figuring out how to fix it. Yes. You know, so in minerals, in the mineral sector, the process of identifying what we needed to do to transform the sector to the level of the country we benchmarked our reform to, at that time it was Chile. Chile had taken its copper industry as a mining sector, as a mining country, and done some important reforms. And then I also then had to read every piece of relevant literature on mining jurisdictions. And what are the critical success factors for those ones that succeeded? And by doing that, and using all the indicators of success and measures that were taken and then putting it side by side, the ministry, the sector that I had inherited as a minister, I could see clearly what reforms we needed to do. And the number of reforms we needed to do for me at the Ministry of Minerals were 107 reforms, tasks. 107? Yes. And the president had said to me, you know, I need you to reform the sector in 6 months. Of course, I didn't let him get away with it. I said, all these your ministers before you asked me to go to Solid Minerals, how many months did you give them to reform theirs? I mean, I had to fight back, right? So, but I said, he said, I know you will, I know you will. That's Pastor Femi Lazarus. Yes. So I went to that sector and 107 tasks, including the new— this, the act that underpins the sector. Yes, that was my work with my team, the new Minerals Act, because we needed to have a Minerals Act that was not destroying this sector. Yes, the Minerals Act that I had, that I inherited, had ministerial, ministerial ministerial in a sector that is a private sector-led sector in the other parts of the world. So you give the minister all the powers. That's not a sector that is, that is, what do you call it, that is ready. It's a sector that is concentrated power, and that discretionary power is a turn-off for global capital. So we had to work on a new legislation that understood the context of global capital and how decision-making concerning that sector needed to be based on the rule of law. So we changed that legislation. That's why in that legislation, you would only find Minister's Authority in a, just a a few sections.
Does that not give room for exploitation?
No, because for example, yes, the, the idea that I would sit in the office and all of you would come and line up in my, in my office, uh, waiting for to, to have a meeting with me so I will give you license— what is that? That is such a— that is such a hopelessly annoying, true, theater. So I was like, no, no, no, sorry, that's not what my contemporary in other parts of the world are doing with their time.
Hmm, with their time. Yeah. Supposed to be thinking strategy.
I'm supposed to be envisioning the sector. True. Thinking strategy. Yeah. Articulating policy. And I'm going to sit and be haggling license with you people. No. So what do you do? We designed what is known as a mining cadastral system. Wow. You don't have to come anywhere near my office. There is a technology that enables you go, you ready, you go. First of all, we had to do, um, airborne geophysical survey. Yes. Before I became minister, before the administration of President Obasanjo, the last airborne, the airborne survey And it was very limited, was done by the British. Wow. So we didn't know where we had occurrences of minerals. So, so when I, when I was minister, we did an airborne geophysical, comprehensive airborne geophysical survey. And, you know, the Geological Survey Agency used to be a department of the ministry. Now it's not global practice, so we had to give it its autonomy. We did the legislation that enabled what you call today NGSA, Nigerian Geological Survey Agency. It was during my time. So the data from that airborne geophysical survey, you have to translate it. That data, when you go, you say, I'm interested in exploring the existence of, you know, kolani mineral. I will tell you the the number that, that we eventually found. And, and, and then you go to the Geological Survey, they said to you, oh well, this is the, uh, data disk that we have on it. You purchase your data disk, then you go to what replaced that power of the minister. Yeah, known as the Mining Cadastral Office. The Mining Cadastral Office is a system that you go to You say these are the coordinates of where this data is showing I would be able to find lithium. Wow. You enter the coordinates and it pops up information and says under exploration, meaning somebody has a hold on it to explore on it. And it tells you what date that hold will be over for them to reapply. Okay. Now, it could also say to you, it is available. So what do you do? You just register your interest and it records it to the level of the second in which you did. Now, when you've done that and your assistant comes and he's also interested and he enters the exactly the same coordinate, yes, the system tells him it's already under consideration. No, consideration now. All right, and then ultimately what you're required to do is to now put in place all the documentation that is required. You take it back into the system, the system tells you that you are recognized as one that has an exploration license, and it is called first come, first serve. Will it generate the license? It's a technology thing. So, so, so, so, so basically what the Mining Cadastral Office exists to do is to remove discretion. It cannot be, I like Femi Lazarus, let me give him license. No. Wow. Okay, so it brought that level of transparency to the fairness also.
And this, this is how Nigeria can go.
This is legis— I'm talking about legislation. All right. So, so, but I diverted because we're talking education and I wanted to show you the difference. So in minerals, 107 tasks that included these legislations and building those kinds of agencies that are necessary to underpin. But you know what happened? I did the same thing. I benchmarked Nigeria against, I used Singapore as our benchmark country for education. By the time I did the same kind of process that I did in Solid Minerals, we needed to do 436 reforms. 436 reforms? Yes. 107, 436. Why? What? 3 levels of education, that is 3 phases of education. You are at 3 levels. You have many multiple issues in education. You have multi-layered matters on governance of education. All of those things required changes. Wow. All right. So when you now take that kind of a sector, and you have analytically outlined what these issues are, what these problems are, and you've started solving for them as a country. And suddenly a bunch of people come along and they say, ah, it's a question of his ideas.
And that's where the politics enter.
And who pays? The children of the poor. That's the saddest part. For me, people can do whatever they like, but it doubly hurts me when the impact of that action is on those that are poor and vulnerable. Wow. Because the pathway for social and economic mobility is that education. So I was saying to you that At that time in education, we already saw what was going on in the disconnect between schooling and learning. The public school system was failing the children of the poor. True. Because they were the ones that were in those weak public schools where quality of teacher, as well as method of teaching, access to instructional materials, Access to textbooks, being able to evaluate and monitor performance in order to measure the data and then learn from it didn't exist. And my, one of my reforms was precisely on that. So I had seen that there was a problem. We were solving that problem. So all that needed to happen was to continue to solve it, not to stop it. And begin to look for opportunities to award contracts. I used to say to my team in education, are you now Ministry of Works? Why are you so interested in the things that concern contracts, you know, purchasing and buying, when there, there are policy directions that make a difference right now? Imagine Nigeria, Kenya, Senegal, Burkina in the same pot. Wow. Doing that. That's how come, whereas the rest of the world, the average is 6 out of every 10 children not achieving. Our own continent is 9 out of every 10 children. That's huge. That's been India. Came out as 8 out of every 10 children. Wow. The Prime Minister was offended by it. You know what he did? He saw that data, went to work. Wow. In the last 4, 5 years, they have improved learning outcomes of their children by 20%. By 20%. What does it say to you? And back to the young generation, you don't see something that offends you and then say I'm angry and then you walk away. It's like a man who looks at himself in the mirror, like the Bible says, right? Yes. No, he didn't walk away. He simply said, not under my watch, it will not happen. I was a guest of the Indian government together with colleagues within the global system for improving this situation, and it was simple. A leader said, not under my watch. Will children go to school and not learn?
So for them now it's about 5 out of everything?
No, you know, no, no, they've improved the learning outcome by, by 20%, meaning that children who were failing that, now 20% in terms of improvement in their learning outcomes. So over time, it would just be that the system enables a child that comes through it to be in grade 1, grade 2, grade 3. By the age of 10, they are ready with all the skills that are foundational for future learning. It's a predictor of lifelong— yes, skills. It is. Yeah. So we're joking. And in an AI world This is the— this is it. So imagine an AI world where 9 out of all these are children don't have this minimum. So it's not even a case of they didn't go to university, it's that the minimum that they need to engage this new world we didn't even give to them. Ah, no. So tell— being angry is not enough. It's not enough. He's being effectively angry. True. Strategically angry. You have to be effectively angry.
It's been a long week for you, particularly a long day today.
Yeah, but when you get me talking about development, when you get me talking about development, because I kind of— look, I'm a retired person. I don't have to lift a finger to do anything. Yes. But when I look at the continent, you know, so this issue of the foundational learning, I am carrying— I'm like, you know, the world knows me to be carrying it on my head like there's no tomorrow. And there are countries that are ready because we know what works. Yeah, do you understand? You need the political will. Yes, for people to say these are the things that work, we will do it. I will use that my leadership to ensure that it is when we do the budgeting for education, those things that work are the things we will be putting money to, not building some ramshackle classrooms that they are not building it for the children. I am telling you on good— I know, I know, I did the public procurement reform in this country. I've advised countries on the continent on their public procurement issues. Most of the things you see where the politicians are happiest to do Around construction, it's all about corruption. It has nothing to do with, you know, the provision of something that for the people. No, no, no, forget it. This is the creamy part of their lives. Wow. So, so, so frankly speaking, for me, your effective anger is to solve this problem of Governance. If we don't solve it, we can, you know, God has given us the faculty for the things that we must do. God is not going to be the one that will tell us to say, you know, we shouldn't be governed by rubbish.
Looking at your work ethics at this age, I was at your— I was on ground at your last year.
You came for my 60th? I'm not— well, next, um, on the 28th, I'll be 63 now. My God. So, but I, you know, like Caleb, I can very much tell you that I feel like I'm at 23. Still feel young. Yes, you know, because it's, uh, it's in the mind. Yes. And for me, there's so much— the continent has no business failing. Oh no, we have no business. Well, we're not in another round where the minerals on our continent will power the next, the technologies of today. So whether it's lithium battery is going to be so important for everything, rare earth minerals, these critical mineral assets. Now there's a race going on for it. And yet we're not ready. Good governance. If you don't— if— that's why I'm telling you guys that if you don't understand the power of good governance to take us out of the, the depth, the true— what do you guys normally call the trenches, or what do you call that thing that you know? You're living trenches. Yes, you know, that's what— if we don't understand the power of good governance, this is the greatest obstacle When somebody tells you that this is your greatest obstacle, what do you do? You face that. You face yourself. You don't go and be looking for little, little, you know, there's too much measuring in the minors. Oh, you know, too much of measuring in the minors. So you face that big obstacle, remove it. And it's saying, because it is your biggest obstacle, it means that all the other obstacles can easily be worked on when you have taken that one out. So, so here we are. Africa is once again in this thing where China, America, Europe, they're all competing for who can get a hold of that, the pot of these critical minerals on the continent, right? Now, what governance system do you have different from the one that massively misused what Africa got from, from oil, copper, diamonds, just name them. But what is different? The only thing that can be different is you being effectively angry and saying we can't be governed by rubbish across the entire continent. You need to say to yourselves You see, character, competence, capacity. Just character without competence and capacity won't help us because you would just have a very good nice man or woman who cannot get— cannot— is not competent. So it won't help us. So they must have the three because if they— but if they— if they also— because character is fundamental, it is the It is the, you know, it is the, what do you call it? The, there's a word I'm looking for. Huh? The bedrock. The bedrock and the non-negotiable. Yeah. It's the non-negotiable. You must have it. And then that person must come with competence and capacity because with competence, they have the cognition to be able to follow, to know things, to read a thing and to comprehend it. Then that capacity to be able to mobilize solutions to problems and to not faint in the day of adversity. You see our leaders in Africa, when oil prices or copper prices stumble, they start crying. You're crying? So you came for a world of flourish? You don't know if we're in the world of flourish, why do we need you as a leader? True. It's time for me to go.
Yes, last question, then I let you go. The way you work, the years of your track record, the things you've done with World Bank, education, Solid Minerals— something definitely is still keeping you awake at night concerning Africa.
Yeah. What is it? Our children and our grandchildren. You know, it's— I think it's unfair to them that they should continue to be looked on as the laggards of the earth. It's not a good heritage. It shouldn't be what we leave for them. It's an error. The Bible says, what does it say about leaving an inheritance? A good man leaves inheritance. A good, good, you know, it's unfair. And for me, it's, it's, it's my father raised us with one of many things that we could And the one that has actually really made me be this person that some people look at and they think, "But why is it her business?" He raised us to say that the only usefulness of privilege is to use it to bring those without privilege into privilege. Otherwise, so good, you know. So every time that I think of life, I say my privilege is useless except I, I am doing— when I went to government All that time, I mean, in government, I did the public procurement reform, did the NEIT, did Minister of Minerals, did Minister of Education. In fact, one of my colleagues in the book that they wrote said that of the economic team members, I was the one moved by the president to do so many more things than the others. Maybe some too But due process, extractive industries, Haiti, um, solid minerals, education. I was a member of the economic team. I was a member of the power sector reform team. Wow. So my using my privilege was important for me to buy in the work that I did and in the way that I did the work. Like Samuel, I will— I have constantly said it. If I took your goat or your cow, reach out, please. Let us hear it. Wow. Because I didn't go to government to eat chocolate. I went because I'd been fighting for a good society. And so once I then stayed in government, it was— I all my actions were going to go in the direction of that fight for a good society. I had the leverage to be able to do it in my sphere of responsibility. So I did it. Now, outside of government, I must continue to use my privilege to fight for a society that works because that's the only way those people outside of privilege or those that are weakened by one overpowering Nigeria state and politicians that don't care about the weak and the vulnerable, they would get at least my voice. That's why I'm never going to keep quiet when anything is wrong in this society. I won't keep quiet. You're not afraid? Afraid of who? They should be afraid of me, and I think they are. They are afraid of my voice. It annoys them, and I like it because someday perhaps it would achieve what it is meant to achieve, which is unlock the minds of everyone to knowing that we don't have to accept these things the way they are. No, it's unfair. The children of the poor need government to work. Yes. If government does not work, the children of the poor cannot escape poverty. Oh, true. The basic services that they need— a functional education system, a functional health system— is dependent on the effective governance of Nigeria or Botswana. Or Tanzania or Ghana. They need, the poor need functioning governments. And when you think of, of the way that the politicians who are ruining the chances of the majority, when you think of their pedigree, where they've come from, their trajectory, Yes, I don't like to use the word pedigree, you know, the trajectory. These people mostly came from the bottom. True. So they mostly— now you take off the ladder to enable the children of the poor escape poverty, you're ruining society. And sadly, they are doing it in a way that is not even intelligent because the theory of enlightened self-interest says that the middle class have more to lose when society collapses. They have more to lose. They have more to lose. So they are more— because why? They have more at stake. Yes. Okay. So what enlightened self-interest says is that it is They now take responsibility for ensuring that there is social mobility. Yeah. And economic mobility. But in our own variant of middle class is some of these people you see. Yes. Who think that, you know, pillaging the public treasury, packing it in some account is the way that you show that you're, you're smart. That is the most dull Dollar, I don't even know how to describe that. So that's what, you know, that's why I continue on this matter of we must get good governance, right? Yeah. So you see me do the things that I do, it's because of that. Look at, and then when I came to the conclusion that persuading this political class, that Africa has right now to do the right things. You know, you can have all the conferences and invite them and talk to them and preach to them, then they're not listening. I mean, there's no incentive. I described monopoly, you know, politics to you, right? Yeah. They have no incentive to change. So moral suasion doesn't do anything for them. So what must we what do we do? We must build a new political class. That's why I designed the School of Politics, Policy and Governance, the SPPG. So we have to raise a new population of people who think of public leadership on the basis of the three criteria that I talked about: character, competence, capacity. That's what we train them for. So why should I, you know, I need to do this. So we have Nigeria, it's in the 6th cohort. We have Kenya, they started their first cohort last year. They will graduate the first class, their first cohort in August. They're already preparing for their second admission. We have Senegal, they are starting admission process for their second cohort. Then Ghana is coming on, starting in the next quarter of this year. My vision is that at least 20 countries in Africa will have systems for raising this new kind of leaders. This is it. That leadership is what will tackle the governance and, you know, the aberration, the anomaly, the bad governance. That has held Africa down for too long. So that's why I will not stop.
Wow. I believe everyone watching this right now feel— I think there's mixed feelings going on. First is your life. Like I said, it's like a light. It burns corruption, it eradicates it. And for me, I'm inspired by that. And your thoughts process, um, I don't even know how to describe it. I just want to thank you profoundly for coming today despite your very busy schedule. And there are things you've said today that will go down in history and as things that will serve as compass for us as we navigate. We do need your voice more than ever at this time, and this platform is to bridge that gap to get it more those are to my generation. And it's so impressive hearing this from you.
Thank you so much. I want to thank you. I want to thank you for, you know, the things that you do. I want to thank you for raising the generation to understand that a life of purpose is the most meaningful life. Yes. You know, what shall it profit a man or a woman to gain the whole world and lose their their soul. For every one of us born into this world, there's a purpose behind us. And the worst thing you can do is to take the lowest common denominator of purpose. And I see people who are, who are becoming so tired, so discouraged by what they see around them, and so they are opting for the least common denominator. They shouldn't, especially the millennials and the Gen Zs. They shouldn't. They should fight for a future that can be anything they desire for it to be. I believe that Africa can claim the 21st century. If China and now India increasing can begin to escape poverty in the way that they have done. Yes. How much more Africa? And it's— every generation is born for its own time. Yes, ma. Thank you. Thank you so much for coming. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Femi Lazarus. Thank you so much.
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