The Inaugural Address - 1998 Edo National Convention, New Orleans, Louisiana, USA

The Distinguished Guests,
Honorable Members of the Council Of Presidents, and
My fellow Edos:

I welcome everyone to 1998 Edo National Convention at News Orleans, Louisiana! It is so great to see all of you from around the country. Some of you came from Nigeria and other far places around the world to converge here for this special weekend. Thank you for your time; this is one big Edo family, indeed! 'Egua tu'wa hia; Oba gha to 'kpere!'

This is our seventh annual national convention and the most attended so far! There could be several reasons for this: 1) The unfolding events in Nigeria for the past few months are driving you nuts. 2) You want to offer some advice to President Boris Yeltsin about his drowning rubles. Or, 3) Perhaps you are just like me -- damn fed up with the buzzing and hassling about Bill and Monica in Okada Wonderland! However, I will tell you this much, if only you knew our host-president, Mr. Osagie Odeh in person, you wouldn't have to wonder anymore. In Shakespearean's language, the heavens would have stood up and said, "this man was a man!" Of course, not all these will be possible without
the collective efforts of our past national presidents. Please give them a big round of applause! You have all done a great service for our people. As Muhammad Ali once said, "Service to others is the rent you pay for your room here on earth".

In speeches today, you will hear that Nigeria is at a crossroad. It is only a coincidence that about two hundred years ago, Thomas Jefferson, in a letter to Rev. James Madison, expressed, "It is always better to have no ideas than false ones--to believe nothing, than to believe what is wrong".

The Edo National Association is about the Edos, not politics. This annual convention is a litmus test to prove that, yes, the Edos are united people. We are about giving voice to our people and bread to the needy. An Edo is always a wise person. Edo is the beginning and the end of human essence and civilization. From the time of Ogisos to Oba Erediauwa II, the Edos were there. For too long, we have allowed others to speak for us. Now we have to speak for ourselves, else we will be invalid in history. Do not let any one fooled you, we were a great people in the past, and we are still a great people today! The solidarity displayed here today will go along way to reassure the people of Edo that we are united and willing to help find solutions to Nigeria problems.

I do not think for a moment that the road we are about to take will be easy. However, in the words of the late Robert Marley, "We've got to push on through"...because "our hands were made strong by the Father Almighty". Let us put our differences aside and show a united front. As Jorge Luis Borges once said, "Nothing is built on stone; all is built on sand, but we must build as if the sand were stone". We have several tasks ahead of us. Alan Paton once noted, "Who knows for what we live, struggle and die? ... Wise men write many books, in words too hard to understand. But this, the purpose of our lives, the end of all our struggle, is beyond all human wisdom".

Honorable members of the Council Of Presidents, you elected me to do this job of secretary-general. I am counting on you to lead me through; let us make this thing work for the people of Edo! As they say, 'It is amazing how much we can accomplish, if we don't care who gets the credit". The theme from now on is UNITY! Words divide us, actions unite us. According to Blaise Pascal, "If all men knew what others say about them, there would not be four friends in the world".

I would be lying to you, if I said this place would be free of politics. We are all political animals! How much of this you choose to explore is personal. As one Ashleigh Brilliant once said, "I either want less corruption, or more chance to participate in it. Please don't ask me what the score is, I'm not even sure what the game is. To be sure of hitting the target, shoot first, and call whatever you hit the target". Nigeria is a place, Athol Fugard would say, where, "We compound our suffering by victimizing each other". Edo National Association does not espouse any political philosophy order than true democracy in Nigeria.

Nigeria being a multi-ethnic society should note that democracy breads freethinking. As Leo Tolstoy once said, "Freethinkers are those who are willing to use their minds without prejudice and without fearing to understand things that clash with their own customs, privileges, or beliefs. This state of mind is not common, but it is essential for right thinking; where it is absent, discussion is apt to become worse than useless"

This convention is about coming together to celebrate our heritage and keep hope alive. However, Nigerians have been hopeful for 38 years and it seems to me now that for every one step forward, we take two steps backward. As Francis Bacon once said, "Hope is a good breakfast, but it is a bad supper". In Edo language, "Ta ne 'rhun na'gbon ota ma omwan se owie". Our politicians and military rulers have been successful at promising us everything but delivering nothing. This convention is not a revolution or nationalist movement. It is simply a celebration of people and culture.

Right now, Nigeria is in a political quagmire! As Edward Murrow once said, "Anyone who isn't confused really doesn't understand the situation". Beware of politicians! "Politicians are the same all over;" said Nikita Khruschev, " they promise to build bridges even where there are no rivers". Politics or military, we want Nigeria to put the people first. In the words of Abraham Lincoln, "You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time".

Sometimes I ask, 'Is it the people of Nigeria or the government that is the problem?' Conventional response is always the 'government'. "It is not the function of our government to keep the citizen from falling into error;" said Robert Jackson, U.S. Supreme Court Justice in 1950, "it is the function of the citizen to keep the government from falling into error." In all, we the people also have to be governable. If we stay long enough in the dark, we will adapt to seeing without light. As Will Rogers once said, "We can not all be heroes because someone has to sit on the curb and clap as they go by".
The true test of morality of any country is what it does with its children, the very downtrodden, and the woman. Perhaps our leaders can use this line of caution by Cyril Connolly, "Always be nice to those younger than you, because they are the ones who will be writing about you".

Things that disunited us for so long could have been summed up in Robert Wilson's Quantum Psychology, "People have murdered each other, in massive wars and guerilla actions, for many centuries, and still murder each other in the present, over Ideologies and Religions which, stated as propositions, appear neither true nor false to modern logicians-meaningless propositions that look meaningful to the linguistically naive".

As we approach the 21st century, Nigerians must out grow this dangerous fanaticism of fundamentalism of all species: Protestantism, Catholicism, Judaism, Islam, as well as countless other so called black supernaturalism. The people come first, anything else later. John Stuart Mill, while speaking On Liberty in 1859, wrote, "The only freedom which deserves the name, is that of pursuing our own good in our own way, so long as we do not attempt to deprive others of theirs, or impede their efforts to obtain it". As Mark Twain reminds us, "Man is a Religious Animal. He is the only Religious Animal. He is the only animal that has True Religion-several of them. He is the only animal that loves his neighbor as himself and cuts his throat if his theology isn't straight".

In history, people and nations behave wisely once they have exhausted all other alternative forms of governance. Really, we are all equally wise and equally foolish before God. As late U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower once warned, "I think that people want peace so much that one of these days government had better get out of their way and let them have it.... What counts is not necessarily the size of the dog in the fight - it's the size of the fight in the dog". This world is full of people whose idea of a satisfactory future is, in fact, a return to the idealized past. Really, if you come to look at it, noted Cyril Connolly, "The past is the only dead thing that smells sweet".

I like to sum up by reminding those of us outside Nigeria with this advice by George Santayana, "A man's feet should be planted in his country, but his eyes should survey the world". And to this, one Lily Tomlin remarked, "The trouble with the rat-race is that even if you win, you're still a rat". I thank all of you, the great people of Edo. Let me reassure everyone here that I am fully aware of the job that you expect of my office. I promise you that only destiny can fail me, not anything within my God's given power.