Leveraging Youth Power Technology To Develop The African Continent

okay

everybody welcome um it’s

such an honor to be home and speaking in

front of

a crowd of amazing nigerians but

even more so people from where i helped

from from iberia land

you know listening to everything i heard

today i was a bit

struck by the idea that we’re talking

about

self and self development

and over my years coming from a family

of

boys should i say that turn to men there

was always this impression that we had

as nigerians the opportunity to do so

much more

than just living and in

developing my skill set i went through

various journeys from

motor racing to oil and gas sector

and now i’m in i guess the tech sector

and the tech sector happens to be an

area where

something like tedx or kenny can can

actually happen

but it’s happening because of young

people it’s not happening because of our

leaders

and when i prepared for this

conversation i wanted to talk more about

what i do

but i then realized that there’s an

audience here and i wanted to give

something

that’s heartfelt but i think will

benefit as many people as

are in this audience and those that are

online watching as well

you know the covet situation has brought

something very interesting to

africa there is a

sense in my own heart that there is a

pause button there’s a reset button

happening around the world

the developing world is closing itself

up

they’re trying to find vaccines they’re

trying to look after themselves with

unfortunately millions of people

affected and hundreds of thousands of

people dying

africa however is sitting at this very

interesting crossroads

while those around us are hunkering down

and trying to find a cure we’re still

living where we’re still the energy of

life of the planet

our cases though we’ve lost many loved

ones

is not as bad and certainly a lot better

than most of the developed countries

in this pause i’d like us as nigerians

as africans as

the next big thing that’s going to

happen around the world i’d like us to

to take an opportunity to to think a

little bit about what we want

to happen in the upcoming decade

africa has this reset button right now

we can step a little bit further than

maybe the world wants us to to to rise

to

and in that technology will allow us to

do that

one detriment that we have as africans

as

nigerians is the power situation and

our situation is that we are we’re

living on legacy power

in fact in kogi state we’re one of the

blessed we’ve got uh garagu one and two

we have

power for maja kuta that could be

brought on the grid

but as africans were blessed in in the

land of sun

the first connotation of anything

african is that

you’re going to get burnt it’s it’s hard

out there and

um we need to harness this power

i created brick energy when i was at the

united nations as a under secretary for

an organization that focused on

renewables

and i realized that the northern

hemisphere wanted to save power

and save the planet southern hemisphere

needed power to develop

we must do something slightly different

we must

not focus on what everybody wants us to

have we need to focus on what we have

and take that and channel that towards

what could be a better nigeria

and a better africa and that comes from

taking our raw materials

and not what’s in the ground but what’s

above our heads the sun

empowers africans nigerian take needs to

take the

take that power and create value

sunpower is cheap it’s god given

it’s an energy that’s there just in the

ground and we’re taking that oil and

utilizing it for

um you know oil and petroleum resources

what’s important for us is that we need

to understand that the sun

can give us that same power the richest

man in the world

is building electric vehicles elon musk

who happens also to be south african

has moved to the us and he’s building it

well his company is now more valuable

than volkswagen

rolls-royce any brand you want to

imagine he’s a bigger brand

today on the stock exchange but what

is going to power that renewable energy

has the resource

to power those electric vehicles we need

to think differently

and those electric vehicles are going to

go offline

in europe neptune and in america also

very soon

and what’s going to happen is these

vehicles that they’re driving right now

are going to come to africa

and we’re going to be using them as

tokumbo

we need to get ahead of the curve

we as africans are blessed with the sun

and the challenge i’m giving to

my brothers and sisters out here is

let’s not wait for them to give us what

they

have discarded let’s get on top of it

let’s create let’s develop energy

and and i’m saying this to our leaders

as well you need to give us

our young people a young secondary

school students that are here

beautiful young ladies that this lady

that just came and spoke and

and spoke from her heart you need to

give us an opportunity

and that opportunity is to give us the

enabling environments to be great

africa cradle of mankind

our turn is about to come on that circle

of life

but we need leadership to take us there

we need

visionaries you know we love to go to

places like

dubai and the united states and see all

these wonderful things

but somebody gave the vision for dubai

to happen

out of the sun out of the desert and

we’re going there

oohing and ouring at burj khalifa

1960 we got independence what have we

built

what have people come here to see

that must change but it changes with our

people

with the hearts and minds of everybody

here and everybody watching

what do we want to be the legacy of

every nigerian that’s coming after us

i caution young leadership into not

thinking that young means 30

a 70 year old plus gentleman is running

our country

and for that myself in my 50s i’m a

small boy i’m a young man

we bow to our leaders and our elders

from african culture but the truth is

we want leadership that we can talk to

leaders that can hear us and see us

our dreams must not be overtaken by our

culture

that our culture whether you’re from the

north south east or west of this country

let that culture determine who we are

let us not divide ourselves because of

politics

but let’s look at what’s happening

around the world let’s add

as citizens of this world to what’s

going to be the greatness of africa

nigeria leads the rest of africa follows

if we sneeze the rest of africa gets a

cult

let us take that mantle of leadership

use our minds our vision our education

our greatness our youth which is our

greatest

asset and let’s propel that into a

different world a different world

that in a minute that i have i can tell

you a little bit about what i think is

going to happen

or i pray is going to happen in the

upcoming

elections we should look for leadership

that has

vision let us hear what they want to

what they dream what burj khalifa

they’re going to build

what greatness people come to nigeria to

see

those are the people we want to lead us

you know we talk about faith sharing

talked about

believing in our maker but our maker

also wants us to believe in ourselves

so that he can help us every one of us

whether we’re this eight-year-old or a

57 year old

or a 77 year old but without vision

we’re stuck so i pray that when you

leave this

amazing occasion in

the center of nigeria the heartbeat of

nigeria a place the british came knowing

that

everything must come through here to get

out

let us renew that spirit of greatness

for africa for nigeria

that everybody has come here people

around the world are listening to this

event

and let’s reset nigeria let’s reset the

pace in which we want to be

let’s not let uh let let us not let

others dictate to us

let’s dream bigger let’s dream wiser

let’s

let’s not be captivated by what we see

but

let us be inspired of what we see

outside and let’s bring that home

i don’t have much um that i can do to

inspire anybody but to talk about myself

but even then it’s a choice that i make

because i’ve been lucky to come from a

family where

my father did great things he was never

a politician

he built what he built in his own he

knew he came from greatness

and i hope that by talking i’ve inspired

you all to try to look inside yourselves

may god bless you all and and thank you

very much tedx for this incredible

patience