VP’s Remarks At The 80th Anniversary Of Ikoyi Club 1938

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ELITES OWE A RESPONSIBILITY TO PLAN, MAKE SACRIFICES FOR THEIR COMMUNITIES – VP OSINBAJO

“It is their expected role to find common cause across professions, vocations, ethnicities and faiths, defining the minimum terms and conditions for the safety, security, growth and prosperity of the community. It is their role to define clearly, what is lofty, what is noble, what is deserving of honour and how these values can be sustained, preserved and enforced. This is the burden of privilege.” – Osinbajo

SPEECH BY HIS EXCELLENCY, PROF. YEMI OSINBAJO, SAN, GCON, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF NIGERIA, AT THE 80TH ANNIVERSARY OF IKOYI CLUB 1938 IN LAGOS STATE, ON THURSDAY SEPTEMBER 27, 2018

PROTOCOLS

I am deeply honoured to have been invited to participate in the celebrations of the 80th year of the Ikoyi Club, easily Nigeria’s premier recreation club. The club is without a doubt, in a class of its own, standing out in the diversity of its membership, cutting across tribes and tongues, across age and gender, religion and importantly this day, political affiliation.

I have in fact been told that your 6,000 members come from more than fifty different countries in the world.

In a world increasingly been buffeted by the temptation to retreat into partitioned spaces, and to define ourselves in terms of those who are like us and those who are not this diversity is an important lesson and very refreshing indeed.

At the time of its founding, the Ikoyi Club was a European-only club, closed to black people, and to Nigerians. The journey of the Club from these segregated beginnings, is today, clearly an embodiment of multiculturalism, and is also an important part of the story that should be told again and again, so that it serves as a permanent reminder that divisions and prejudices are unworthy of us and can be conquered.

There is also a sense in which this great club may be said to have experienced most of the years of Nigeria’s history with its various twists and turns. Despite the deep political involvements of many of your members at every phase of our history, Ikoyi club has survived.

From the colonial phase, the pre-colonial, independence, the first republic political crisis, the coups  and counter-coups, the civil war, the short restoration of civil rule and another military incursion and then civil rule since 1999, each phase has tested our resolve individually and collectively, to remain united and to live in peace. The Ikoyi Club 1938 survived it all, getting stronger, even as it became more diverse day by day. I congratulate you again.

To another point, this club has always had a substantial number of Nigeria’s business, political and professional elite. Men and women who have played and still play major roles in the Nigerian story. Here many ideas, policies, and thoughts which impacted and still impacts our politics, our business, our profession have been discussed and consummated over drinks or while playing golf.

Therefore in a real sense, we can say that this club is one of those were through the years, Nigeria’s development has been formally and informally debated. Perhaps this is as it should be. This is an elite community. And I say this in the most positive sense. Because a hallmark of elitism is exclusivity. But I raise this from the point of view that whether we like it or not, the elite in most societies are its pathfinders. In developing societies, in particular, such as ours, this role as elite finders, find themselves playing a crucial one. It is my thesis, that the privileged, or the elite both individually and collectively have a responsibility, an obligation to society to plan it, organise it, order or reorder it and above all to make sacrifices for it, for the maximum benefit of all. This is the burden of privilege. It is their obligation, individually and collectively, to chart the course for the millions they define and house the ethos and the public sense of the people.

It is their expected role to find common cause across professions, vocations, ethnicities and faiths, defining the minimum terms and conditions for the safety, security, growth and prosperity of the community. It is their role to define clearly, what is lofty, what is noble, what is deserving of honour and how these values can be sustained, preserved and enforced. This is the burden of privilege.

“Noblesse obliges” – nobility obligates or perhaps more correctly for our purpose, privilege obligates. The privileged position of the political, business and religious elite in any society is not merely for status, it is for sacrifice for the millions whose future depends on how responsible we are.

This in my respectful view, is the role of this esteemed Ikoyi Club 1938, which have had trust upon for decades now and l believe that in the coming years it will be a much more defining world.

I will be speaking for a few minutes about some of the issues on building the Nigeria of our dreams. The next decade will be defining for Nigeria. And there are four issues to address, the first is the nature of our Federation, the second is Poverty, the third is Governance especially corruption, the fourth is some of the effects of Climate Change. I have had the privilege of speaking on aspects of these issues on other occasions and you will permit me to reiterate some of my earlier views here.

Regarding the matter of the nature of our Federation, there is no doubt that the best structure for an ethnically and religiously diverse population is a Federation, one that recognizes those diversities, for instance, language diversity. More importantly, the Federation should have strong States. So, for emphasis, there are two streams of thought that I intend to advance here and these are:

The first, the State that constitute this Federation must do certain things for themselves. The second is the devolution of more power to the States, enabling the States to control more of their resources and make more of their own administrative decisions such as the creation of Local Governments; the State and community police, including the State prisons; creation of special courts and tribunals of equivalent jurisdiction to high courts.

The point I am making is that States must have more powers and more rights in other to have the kind of effective Federation.

The phenomenal achievements of the Western Regional Government of Chief Obafemi Awolowo in six years, illustrate how the convergence of the two imperatives I have mentioned earlier can be used to transform the socio-economic destinies of millions.

He was Premier of the Western Region of Nigeria from 1954 to 1960. The Western region is what today constitutes Oyo, Ogun, Ondo, Ekiti, Osun, parts of Kwara and Kogi, Edo and Delta,  Lagos (as far as Jibowu/ Ikeja, Agege).

The six year period of the Awolowo government is often cited as one of the most progressive of any government in the developing world. Some of the major accomplishments include a major agricultural revolution, government supporting and subsidizing cash crop production, using commodity exchanges to enhance agri-business, several farm settlements, several Agro-allied and other industries including Oodua Textile Industries, Ado Ekiti, Okitipupa Oil Palm Mills, Oluwa Glass Ifon Ceramics, and Ire Ekiti Brick Industry, as well as several industrial estates or parks, including the Ikeja Industrial Estate. A network of roads across the region, the University of Ife (now Obafemi Awolowo University), the 26-storey Cocoa House in Ibadan, Airport Hotel, Ikeja, Western Nigeria Television Authority (first of its kind in Africa, ahead of many European countries and certainly ahead of South Africa).

But by far, the most significant of these achievements is the Free Universal Primary Education. In 1952 when the scheme was proposed, 381,000 children were enrolled in school. By 1955 when the scheme took off, 811,432 children were enrolled and the numbers continued to grow.

The government devoted as much as 41.2% of the 1958/59 recurrent budget to education, at that time, one of the highest in the world. At the same time, the region nurtured a vibrant Civil Service and Judicial system, which is widely acknowledged as a model, even today.

So, how were Awo’s phenomenal achievements possible? There was no oil revenue and no federal revenue. In fact, the Western region gave revenue to the central government. How did they do it? Mostly taxes and revenues from agriculture, especially cocoa.

Free education which was audaciously launched by the Awolowo government was directly on the back of income taxes. A capitation or poll tax was imposed by the Western region government mainly to fund free education, despite much opposition and protests. For those who follow his political history, Awolowo of course lost elections in the West on account of his insistence on free education. That kind of political courage is always difficult to find these days but that is the cost of leadership.

The truth is that a combination of visionary leadership and strong autonomous States is a winning formula for economic development, and that is really as simple as it is. Awolowo was also a visionary leader but he also had an autonomous region behind him. But the process of creating stronger sub-nationals is possible even without making any major constitutional changes.

I have spoken to re-emphasise the point that the Western region, is over more or less the same States, and it is covered by the States in the West today. States generate its own revenue and you see that today, the reverse is the case and we will come to that.

But l want to make a point that in other to create stronger States today, you don’t need a constitutional amendment to do that. There are several existing positions today including Supreme Court decisions, which as early as we can, indeed create more autonomous States if we are willing to do so.

Our current constitutional and legal framework makes it possible. In the period from the civilian government beginning in 1999, l have had the privilege of serving in Lagos State under Ashiwaju Bola Tinubu, and during that period, the Lagos State government challenged the Federal Government and the National Assembly before the Supreme Court in at least twelve major several cases designed to deepen the independence and the autonomy of States. They were directed on creating stronger States. In those cases, the Supreme Court established the following principles in the cases:

The first is that States could by the law of the State House of Assembly, create their own local governments. However, after the creation by law, the State would have to go a step further by submitting returns to the National Assembly, which in turn, would list the new local government areas to be in the Constitution.

It is because the States could create their own local governments that the Lagos State government at the time, took the position that it could hold elections into the LCDAs that it created without any other law.

But in consultation again with the State House of Assembly, we passed an LCDA law to empower the LCDAs not only to function administratively, but to be capable of rendering the sort of services that local governments render. The important point to be made is that after the Supreme Court had said that we had the right to create local governments, we have not back tracked on that since then and even up till today, State governments have maintained that position.

The second principle is that after the Supreme Court had given its judgement, that the right to create local government have not backed out, and under the very able leadership of the current governor Akinwunmi Ambode to see the expansion of the work of the local government. Another point that the Supreme Court made which is also important is that everything relating to local government must be within the province of the State. In other words, the Federal Government really have no role to play in inspecting the local governments. The National Assembly has no power whatsoever under any provision of the Constitution, to increase or alter the tenure of the elected officers of the Local Government Councils.  Only the House of Assembly of a State has such power.

The third point is that a State has exclusive legislative and executive authority over urban and regional planning functions. Even with respect to federal lands in States, the Federal Government must seek building or other development control permits from the State. It is to this effect that the State has exclusive authority to make laws on urban and regional planning. Even where federal land is concerned, the Federal Government has no choice and this is a very important principle. The Federal Government gave us some buildings. The most important point that the Supreme Court made is that if you want to build anything in the State, you must seek the permission of the State government and it must also go through the process of getting the development permit. The Federal Government cannot appear in a State even on its own federal land to build without the State permission.

The fourth is that the President has no power, however good his reasons may be, to seize or withhold the statutory allocation of a State or local government. No matter how good the reason of the Federal Government may be, it cannot withhold the funds of a State.

Permit me to consider the next ruling of the Supreme Court in some detail to demonstrate the extensive powers of State legislatures, especially over the supervision of statutory allocations. The case had to do with the monitoring of revenue allocated to Local Government Councils from the Federation account.

On the 12th of May 2005, the National Assembly passed a law titled the “Monitoring of Revenue Allocation to Local Government Act 2005.” The law established a monitoring committee for funds allocated to local governments and required each State to give an account of how it expended local government allocations to the Accountant General of the Federation. Lagos State challenged the law.

In the lead judgment of Honourable Justice Niki Tobi, his Lordship took time to explain the practical implications of the principle of Federalism in our Constitution, he said “Federalism, as a viable concept of organizing a pluralistic society such as Nigeria, for governance, does not encourage so much concentration of power in the centre.” Each of the Federating units must be independent and coordinate. Each of them exists not as an appendage of the other, but as an autonomous entity in the sense of being able to exercise its own will in the conduct of its affairs, free from direction by another government.” This his Lordship contrasted with unitarism – an arrangement where the Constitution “concentrates at the central or national level a very strong central command, making the regions or groups parasitic on the centre, in the sense that they do not enjoy any autonomy.”

The Honourable Justice of the Supreme Court then went on to examine the respective powers of the Federal and State legislatures, concluding the exercise as follows:

The first is, considering section 4(2) of the Constitution, the National Assembly could not exercise legislative powers in matters not included in the Exclusive Legislative List. The State Houses of Assembly on the other hand, can legislate on matters not included in the Exclusive List as well as matters reserved to them on the Concurrent List.

Secondly, the only constitutional function of the National Assembly, under section 162(5), is to allocate to the States the amount standing to the credit of Local Government Councils whereupon the National Assembly became functus officio. It is the constitutional function of the House of Assembly to distribute the amount. In other words, “section 162(5) stops at allocation, and section 162(8) picks up from section 162(5) to distribute the money.”

The third point, the establishment of a State Joint Local Government Committee, is the function and responsibility of the Government of a State which is vested with the power to maintain the State Joint Local Government Account by the appropriate sections of the Constitution.

The moment a State maintains a special account in the name and style of “State Joint Local Government Account”, it ceases to be Federal Government finance and the Accountant General of the Federation cannot police the funds.

The final point is, the rendition of monthly accounts to a federal body in a matter which is within the exclusive domain of the State vide the appropriate provision of the Constitution is against the federal structure in the Constitution.

And the court concluded that as regards provision of that law which empowers the Auditor General of the Federation to submit a report to each House of the National Assembly stating how monies allocated to each State for the benefit of its Local Councils were spent, the Court held that the Auditor-General of the Federation had nothing to do with an exclusively State affair.

The Lagos State legislature has also in this tradition of establishing and pushing the frontiers of federalism by legislation and litigation where necessary, have also made great strides.

In more recent times, the Hotel Occupancy and Restaurant Consumption Tax Law Cap which imposes a 5% tax on sales in hotels and restaurants was passed by this House, it was challenged by the Federal Government at the Supreme Court, but the court declared that the law valid because matters of hotel and consumption tax are State affairs.

Also, the Lagos State Internal Revenue Administration Law 2006 established the autonomy of Lagos State Internal Revenue Service by State Law (for the first time). Aside from several structural changes brought about by the law, it granted LIRS autonomy from the civil service such that its remuneration and disciplinary processes were more business-like.

The Lagos State government, through its House of Assembly, enacted the Lagos State Waterways Authority Act and also modified the National Inland Waterways Authority Act of 2004 by the Lagos State Law. The law established the Lagos State Waterways Authority and saddled the agency inter alia with the regulation and management of the “internal waterways” of Lagos State.

The House of Assembly did this pursuant to the provisions of Section 315 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 which empowers it to repeal an existing law. The Lagos State government argued that by the said provision, it had the power to repeal the National Inland Waterways Authority Act which vests the powers over its inland waterways of Nigeria in the National Inland Waterways Authority (NIWA). These are consequential legislation which strengthen State autonomy.

Today Lagos State earns more generated revenues than 31 States in Nigeria put together. Ogun State started after Lagos State in trying to generate its own revenue. Ogun State is number four now on the generally generation list. We are ahead of some States that has natural resources. Several natural resources States don’t earn as much as Ogun State internally generated revenue. Just to develop the point that you may have natural resources but it is some seriousness that will help to generate what is required to run States as it is to run countries.

The next big issue is poverty, it is a big problem in our nation and it is measured by the number of people who can afford only the basic essentials of shelter, food and clothing.  Absolute poverty has been for Nigeria, about the biggest economic challenge in the past three decades. The NBS published figures of its household poverty surveys in 2012 showing that despite rising oil prices and growth figures, poverty increased in every study cycle. Let me give some of the figures, Nigeria’s population in poverty:

1980: 17.1 million

1985: 34.7 million

1992: 39.2 million

1996: 67.1 million

2004: 68.7 million

2010: 112.47 million people in Nigeria living under a dollar per day.

The figures the next cycle are currently being compiled by the NBS. To quote: “The NBS said that relative poverty was most apparent in the Northern part of the country, with Sokoto State’s poverty rate the highest at 86.4%. In the North-west and North-east of the country, poverty rates were recorded at 77.7% and 76.3% respectively, compared to the South-west at 59.1%. The problem of poverty and the attendant deficits in human development index becomes more significant because our population continues to grow at about 3% annually, and we are to become the world’s third most populous nation by 2050. Of this population, over 60% will be young people.

How is it possible that despite economic growth figures improving, poverty would be rising at the same time? The paradox of jobless growth or what Stephen Dauda, Nigerian economist describes as “non-pro-poor growth” is first, high oil revenues do not necessarily translate to jobs. The oil industry by itself produces few jobs.

The high revenues can only translate to jobs and an appreciation in living standards if the revenues are invested in the diversification of the economy, infrastructure, education healthcare, and social protection for those who cannot work. The question of course is what happens to the revenues?  The most important drain on our resources is grand corruption! The stealing of large sums of the public resource by public officials in collaboration with private individuals.

In the Nigerian case, I use the expression of grand corruption to describe the direct looting of the treasury not necessarily tied to any government contracts. It is this heinous phenomenon that the Buhari Administration has been able to stop. What happens with grand corruption is that it puts large government resources in the hands of a few. The few spend the resources on their own priorities; houses, cars locally and abroad. It provides an initial buzz because money seems to be flowing. In Abuja at a time, there seemed to be a boost in real estate transactions because of the availability of government resources in the hands of corrupt office holders. That buzz did not stop poverty rising. Why? Because it simply is not sustainable. And the resources have not been invested in a manner that is planned to benefit the majority. No economy can survive on the theft of the commonwealth by its custodians.

The second flowing from the first is the poor investment in infrastructure and the creation of an enabling environment for business. The third is the lack of commitment to the diversification of the economy, which would conduce to the diversification of revenue sources. This is both an issue at the national and sub-national level. We have seen already how the States total dependence on monthly FAAC allocations has led to a situation where few States can pay salaries without Federal allocation. Yearly IGR in most States cannot pay their wage bills in one month.

The fourth is the poor investment in infrastructure over the years in the businesses of the bottom of the pyramid, the so-called informal sector.

The approach of our government to the issue of poverty originated from the debates at the manifesto drafting stage, in which I had the privilege of participating. The two classic sides at play were those who felt that so long as we created a sufficiently enabling environment for the formal sector to thrive, we would create enough jobs and opportunities for all. There was no need for a massive welfare scheme. And no need for direct government creation of jobs. It always leads to dependency and it is unsustainable.

The other argument and the one that prevailed was that while we supported a private sector led economy, we had to intentionally address the creation of economic opportunities for the bottom of the pyramid, the poorest. We were also convinced that the government still had to create some jobs directly, especially for the large number of young people coming out of tertiary institutions.  We also decided that our sole focus would be on:

1. Ensuring at least thirty percent of the budget on capital, especially infrastructure as Nigerian economists T. O. AKINBOBOLA * & M. O. O. SAIBU said:  “as growth in public capital expenditure rises, unemployment falls and the human development index improves. Therefore, infrastructure‐based policies, which initially reduce unemployment, will also improve the living conditions.”
2. Diversifying the economy especially agriculture, mining and the promotion of MSMEs.
3. Strong fiscal discipline, especially zero tolerance for grand corruption.
4. Support to States for payments of salaries and emoluments.
5. A social protection programme covering at least five million of the poorest.  Most of these were captured in detail in APC’s manifesto but more importantly, our Economic Recovery and Growth Plan.

Generally speaking, we have kept faith with these objectives. By putting in place stricter regime of fiscal discipline, we were despite earning 60% less revenues, but we are able to provide for 30 % capital expenditure from 2016. We invested so far a total of N2.7trillon in capital spend, the highest ever in the history of the country. This covers investments in rail, roads, power and dams. Most of the major rail projects are counterpart funded by China. In diversifying the economy, agriculture has been a major success story with increasing budgetary allocation to agriculture from N8.8billion in 2015 to N46.2billion in 2016 and N103.8billion in 2017.

Through the Anchor Borrowers’ Programme, credit is given directly to small holder farmers, through the CBN and 13 participating banks. So far, credit totalling N120.6billion has been given to 720,000 small holder farms, cultivating twelve commodities including rice, wheat, cotton, soya beans, cassava, poultry and groundnuts, across the 36 States and FCT.

In addition, we launched a special fertilizer programme to improve local blending capacity in collaboration with Morocco. Today, we have 11 fertilizer lending plants with a capacity of 2.1million metric tonnes, production of 7million 50kg bags of fertilizer price dropped from N13,000 per 50kg to N 5,500. The Anchor Borrowers Programme is now digitized. With all farmlands GPRS mapped, biometric data of farmers captured, electronic cards issued and specific inputs are required. This has enhanced traceability and enhanced productivity and yield.

Today, but for a few drawbacks, we are confidently approaching self-sufficiency in rice production. From importing $5million dollars of rice daily, official imports are down to 2%.

We have paid attention to supporting the States through loans, Paris Club refunds owed since 2005, and budget support facilities totalling N1.9trillion so far. The simple reason being to ensure that consumer spending in the States does not suffer even more. On the assumption of office in 2015, over 20 States were owing salaries for periods ranging from 3 to 12 months. For most States, the regular income of civil servants is a critical part of the economy.

A major plank of the Buhari Administration’s plan to move the needle positively on the poverty numbers is the Social Investment Programme.  The SIP is the largest and most ambitious social protection programme in the history of Nigeria. We provided N500billion for it in both 2016 and 2017. But the total spend on the programme is 190 billion from both budgets, about 10 million direct beneficiaries.

The N-Power programme, our graduate employment scheme now employs 500,000 young men and women in every local government of Nigeria. It is the largest post-tertiary jobs project in Africa. We now know that we can train large numbers electronically.

Secondly, we have demonstrated that a transparent process of employment is possible. All of these young men and women have testified that they knew nobody, paid nobody to get the jobs they now have.

Government Enterprise and Empowerment Programme (GEEP): N15.183billion in interest-free loans ranging from N50,000 to N350,000 disbursed to more than 300,000 market women, traders, artisans, farmers across all 36 States of the country and the FCT, under GEEP (56% of the loans have gone to women). The TraderMoni programme is an important component of giving micro-credit to the bottom of the trading pyramid. The smallest businesses, the one table trader, the bread or plantain seller or the MA Shai. This is the largest segment of our working population; their inventory is no more than N5000 – N10,000. They are an important part of the value chain of most goods, they sell the single sachets of soap, sugar, and spices to the largest numbers of our people. But they are forgotten and ignored in economic plans and budgets, and considered too unwieldy and risky for micro credit loans.

Under the scheme, we are giving microcredits to 2million petty traders across the country.  The scheme enables them to draw further credit if they are able to pay back within six months. The credit schemes also gives them credit to replenish and increase their inventories, we give them a stronger chance to earn more, while they also service the value chain that they are a part of. But more importantly, we bring them into the formal sector, where they have access to government and private credit and we lift more permanently out of poverty.

Financial inclusion, GEEP has led to the opening of 349,000 new bank accounts/wallets for beneficiaries and intending beneficiaries.

Home Grown School Feeding Programme (HGSFP): currently a total of over 9million pupils in 45,394 public primary schools across 24 States and 80,000 jobs created from the school feeding programme.

The conditional cash transfer scheme which aims at giving monthly to the poorest one million households. We are currently slightly over the 500,000 household mark.

In addition to the creation of jobs, two other issues are critical to resolving the poverty problem. The first is education, second is healthcare.

Education, especially relevant education, is the surest pathway out of poverty. The immediate challenge is to resolve some of the crisis in that sector. The outrageous number of out-of-school children is about 10 million, and these include, to quote Prof Iman, “the children of the pastoralist communities who are spread across the country, the Almajiri and girl-child, found predominantly in the North, the out-of-school boys in the South-west and South-east as well as children of migrant fishermen in the South-south.  In addition, there is the growing number of migrant farmer children in parts of Ebonyi, Ekiti and Ondo States and more recently, children displaced by the Boko Haram insurgency in the North-east”

There is also the problem of poorly trained and poorly remunerated teachers, and low investment in education, at both national and sub-national levels. There is a crucial need to address the issues by a mass youth and adult literacy programme leveraging radio and electronic and mobile platforms.

Comprehensive educational curriculum including Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM), and Technical, Vocational Education and Training (TVET) and Teacher Education, Capacity Building and Professional Development.  These are issues that must be addressed.

At the last meeting of the National Economic Council; a council involving all of the State governments, we had a full discussion of this issue of education and how to deal with the educational challenge. One of the major problems we have is how to ensure that our adult population, that is even illiterate, is also made literate. And how to ensure that our growing youth population that is illiterate, is somehow, made literate. There is no way we can do it without technology. It is clear that we need to use technology and all the mobile and electronic platforms and some of those experiments going on. I know that at the Ministry of Education, there is a lot going on regarding using radios and mobile platforms for mass education.

There is a need to focus, spend time and put resources behind education, not just at the Federal level but in particular, at the State level. This is because the States have primarily, the duty to ensure that primary and secondary education is funded. It is within the province of the State Government, the Federal Government does not own primary and secondary schools, except the unity schools.

Most of the problems we have are solvable, but perhaps it is important for us to talk about the public health challenges that we have. The good news is that most of the problems in our healthcare system are also solvable. It is better funding and more deliberately targeted preventive healthcare.

Finally, let’s take a look at population challenges, the problem we will be facing in the next few decades is the challenge of population growth. The challenge is also an opportunity for us to get prepared, with creating the resources and creating an enabling environment to make sure that we are not left at a deficit, we will really encounter the various dangers and some of the burdens that we have been told about especially by those who believe that if we are not careful, we probably will be the 3rd largest population in the world. But I am quite confident that doing the right things and moving things right and especially controlling corruption, we can certainly deal with a lot of our problems.

Let me again thank the Ikoyi Club 1938 for this very kind invitation to be here with you today. There is no question at all that this club is one of the great legacies of our nation, Ikoyi Club 1938 certainly is the legacy of our nation. 80 years gone already.

The question of course is where will we be in another 80 years? The scripture as they say is already here, and l pray for Ikoyi Club 1938 on your anniversary that as your days, so shall your strength and so shall your wisdom, and so shall you favour with God.  Amen.