Together we can make Nigeria truly great - Read Ochicha's powerful independence day message

Mr. Odey Ochicha, Chairman, Governing Council of Federal Polytechnic, Ille -Uju 

Happy Independence celebration to you all, my dear brothers and sisters.

Together, we can make our dear country, Nigeria truly great, prosperous and world class by the year 2030 when she will 70 years old.

It took United Arab Emirates, UAE less than 20 years to be world class. It took Malaysia 22 years to be world class. It took Singapore 25 years to be world class and it took China 10 times the size of our country, Nigeria and with a population of about 1.3billion people to be world class.

All these nations are not as endowed and rich in natural resources as our dear country, Nigeria, yet they are developed, advanced, modern and world class.
We just got to refocus our leadership architecture, redirect our leadership structure and change our mindset to join the league of developed and world class nations.

We need at all levels of governance leaders who are visionary, selfless, caring, patriotic, competent and capable to take us from 3rd world to 1st world nations by 2030.

We need a balanced federation of equal rights, equal opportunities, equal participation, equal representation, equal citizenship and justice for all.

We must do away with imposed, selected and arrangee leadership at all levels.

We must do away with the monsters of poor leadership, corruption, ethnicity, greed, selfishness, injustice, godfatherism, and nepotism etc in order to be world class.

We must learn to work together bearing in mind Henry Ford's powerful statement that "Coming together is a beginning, staying together is progress and working together is success.

Together, we can succeed to reposition and repackage our dear country, Nigeria to be world class in the next 13 years. Yes, we can with focus, determination, commitment and patriotism. God bless us all.

God bless Nigeria to be better, bigger, stronger, greater and world class, Amen.

Mr. Odey Ochicha is the Chairman,  Governing Council of Federal Polytechnic; Ille-Uju, Ondo State.