Inaugural Speech of President Adebayo Clement Akomolafe
Federal Republic of Nigeria
May 2023
Zuma Rock, Abuja
“Today We Find Promise – Today We Find Ourselves”
Tonight is a night of voices – the voices of aspirations once defeated, the sounds of dreams once conquered, the echoes of hope once lost, and now the melody of a promise newly born. Nigeria, this is your night! Tonight is the answer to the questions our founding fathers posed to a starry sky: the possibility of unity in diversity, the opportunity for prosperity and a better life, the guarantee of a future for all our unborn children. With courageous lines of people stretching past broken-down blocks and potholed highways, with purple-stained thumbs and locally organized movements by our youth, and the daring words of a generation that wouldn’t give up, you, Nigeria, have given the world one more grand reason to believe that even in the midst of crippling poverty, darkness and despair, there is hope!
I congratulate the congresses of cultures here present. Mr. President, I salute your courage and the moral splendor you have displayed before and during my transition to the Presidency of this nation. Your faithful adherence to the wishes of a seeking generation will forever be a monument to the greatness of your administration. To my wife and strength, the beauty and harmony of our household, and to my three daughters, this night is your night as well. Though you have had to miss daddy for many nights, your silent tears and sacrifices of patience will not go unrewarded – I promise you that, my loves! To those who said it couldn’t be done in our time and in our country, to those who insisted that Nigeria is no place for fairytales and ambitious dreams, to those who warned us against spinning wasteful fantasies, this is your night as well!
Our story is a tale of hope and grit in the face of a nonchalant sun. Ours is a story with watery beginnings – when the fiancée of a colonial lord stood above the raging rivers and christened this nation. She would name us after a river – flowing without prejudice – to nourish the parched and dry earth. Unfortunately, our name has historically given us nothing more than a metaphor. For purposes true to the interests of an empire, the colonists brought strangers and asked them to live with each other – leaving us with the silent promise of a life we can share, a hope we can mutually embrace, and a nation we can together build. Years after the last ship pulled away from our docks and the Union Jack was lowered for the green and white stripes, our fathers found the courage to envision a land of difference, a land of confluence and meaningful coexistence and a land of promise.
Years after, the cannons would be blackened with gun powder, bullets would fly through the chests of our slain brothers in the East, many mosques and churches would burn down in the flames of indignation, a hundred and one machetes would cut angry wounds on the backs of frightened Osu people, a tightened noose would suffocate a minority leader, and a new father would walk away from the tears of his new child and his resting wife – his pained eyes filled with despair as he contemplates a hospital bill he cannot pay.
Where is the promise?
Years after, a family would die on a Federal highway riddled with potholes, an entire police department would celebrate a good day’s job as they pour out stuffed money from their pockets, a minister of education would throw a lavish birthday party as poor teachers take to the streets in protest, a nation will recoil in horror as estimates of looted funds are made public, and many communities would suffer without water, food and shelter for their children.
Just In Case I Become President
Posted by davidluiz in Headline, Political
Federal Republic of Nigeria
May 2023
Zuma Rock, Abuja
“Today We Find Promise – Today We Find Ourselves”
Tonight is a night of voices – the voices of aspirations once defeated, the sounds of dreams once conquered, the echoes of hope once lost, and now the melody of a promise newly born. Nigeria, this is your night! Tonight is the answer to the questions our founding fathers posed to a starry sky: the possibility of unity in diversity, the opportunity for prosperity and a better life, the guarantee of a future for all our unborn children. With courageous lines of people stretching past broken-down blocks and potholed highways, with purple-stained thumbs and locally organized movements by our youth, and the daring words of a generation that wouldn’t give up, you, Nigeria, have given the world one more grand reason to believe that even in the midst of crippling poverty, darkness and despair, there is hope!
I congratulate the congresses of cultures here present. Mr. President, I salute your courage and the moral splendor you have displayed before and during my transition to the Presidency of this nation. Your faithful adherence to the wishes of a seeking generation will forever be a monument to the greatness of your administration. To my wife and strength, the beauty and harmony of our household, and to my three daughters, this night is your night as well. Though you have had to miss daddy for many nights, your silent tears and sacrifices of patience will not go unrewarded – I promise you that, my loves! To those who said it couldn’t be done in our time and in our country, to those who insisted that Nigeria is no place for fairytales and ambitious dreams, to those who warned us against spinning wasteful fantasies, this is your night as well!
Our story is a tale of hope and grit in the face of a nonchalant sun. Ours is a story with watery beginnings – when the fiancée of a colonial lord stood above the raging rivers and christened this nation. She would name us after a river – flowing without prejudice – to nourish the parched and dry earth. Unfortunately, our name has historically given us nothing more than a metaphor. For purposes true to the interests of an empire, the colonists brought strangers and asked them to live with each other – leaving us with the silent promise of a life we can share, a hope we can mutually embrace, and a nation we can together build. Years after the last ship pulled away from our docks and the Union Jack was lowered for the green and white stripes, our fathers found the courage to envision a land of difference, a land of confluence and meaningful coexistence and a land of promise.
Years after, the cannons would be blackened with gun powder, bullets would fly through the chests of our slain brothers in the East, many mosques and churches would burn down in the flames of indignation, a hundred and one machetes would cut angry wounds on the backs of frightened Osu people, a tightened noose would suffocate a minority leader, and a new father would walk away from the tears of his new child and his resting wife – his pained eyes filled with despair as he contemplates a hospital bill he cannot pay.
Where is the promise?
Years after, a family would die on a Federal highway riddled with potholes, an entire police department would celebrate a good day’s job as they pour out stuffed money from their pockets, a minister of education would throw a lavish birthday party as poor teachers take to the streets in protest, a nation will recoil in horror as estimates of looted funds are made public, and many communities would suffer without water, food and shelter for their children.
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