Home

Consulting

Search

Immigration

News

Articles

Feedback

Society   ULAA

Press Releases

(Welcomes Nigeria's democratic progress, outlines areas of
cooperation) 

Following is a transcript of a August 26 speech by President Clinton
before a joint assembly of the Nigerian Senate and House of
Representatives in the Nigerian capital of Abuja:

(begin transcript)

THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary (Abuja, Nigeria)
August 26, 2000

REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT IN ADDRESS TO JOINT ASSEMBLY

House of Representatives Chamber National Assembly Building
Abuja, Nigeria

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much. (Applause.) Mr. President of the
Senate, the Speaker, Mr. Deputy President and Deputy Speaker, members
of the Assembly. It is a great honor for me to be here with members of
my Cabinet and government, members of the United States Congress,
mayors of some of our greater cities, and my daughter. And we're glad
to be here. (Applause.)

I must say, this is the first time I have been introduced as President
in eight years, speaking to parliamentary bodies all over the world,
where they played a song before I spoke. (Laughter and applause.) I
liked it a lot. (Laughter.) It got us all in a good frame of mind.

Twenty-two years ago, President Jimmy Carter became the first
President ever to visit sub-Saharan Africa when he arrived in Nigeria,
saying he had come from a great nation to visit a great nation.
(Applause.) More than two years ago, I came to Africa for the longest
visit ever by an American President to build a new partnership with
your continent. But sadly, in Nigeria, an illegitimate government was
killing its people and squandering your resources. All most Americans
knew about Nigeria then was a sign at their local airport warning them
not to fly here.

A year later, Nigeria found a transitional leader who kept his
promises. (Applause.) Then, Nigerians elected a President and a
National Assembly and entrusted to them -- to you -- the hard work of
rebuilding your nation and building your democracy.

Now, once again, Americans and people all around the world will know
Nigeria for its music and art, for its Nobel Prize winners and its
Super Falcons, for its commitment to peacekeeping and its leadership
in Africa and around the world. In other words, once again, people
will know Nigeria as a great nation. (Applause.)

You have begun to walk the long road to repair the wrongs and errors
of the past, and to build bridges to a better future. The road is
harder and the rewards are slower than all hoped it would be when you
began. But what is most important is that today you are moving
forward, not backward. And I am here because your fight -- your fight
for democracy and human rights, for equity and economic growth, for
peace and tolerance -- your fight is America's fight and the world's
fight. (Applause.)

Indeed, the whole world has a big stake in your success -- and not
simply because of your size or the wealth of your natural resources,
or even your capacity to help lift this entire continent to peace and
prosperity; but also because so many of the great human dramas of our
time are being played out on the Nigerian stage.

For example, can a great country that is home to one in six Africans
succeed in building a democracy amidst so much diversity and a past of
so much trouble? Can a developing country, blessed with enormous human
and natural resources, thrive in a global economy and lift all its
people? Can a nation so blessed by the verve and vigor of countless
traditions and many faiths be enriched by its diversity, not enfeebled
by it? I believe the answer to all those questions can, and must be,
yes. (Applause.)

There are still those around the world who see democracy as a luxury
that people seek only when times are good. Nigerians have shown us
that democracy is a necessity, especially when times are hard. The
dictators of your past hoped the hard times would silence your voices,
banish your leaders, destroy your spirit. But even in the darkest
days, Nigeria's people knew they must stand up for freedom, the
freedom their founders promised.

Achebe championed it, Sunny Ade sang for it. Journalists like Akinwumi
Adesukar fought for it. Lawyers like Gani Fawehinmi testified for it.
(Applause.) Political leaders like Yar'Adua died for it. (Applause.)
And most important, the people of Nigeria voted for it. (Applause.)

Now, at last, you have your country back. Nigerians are electing their
leaders, acting to cut corruption and investigate past abuses,
shedding light on human rights violations, turning a fearless press
into a free press. It is a brave beginning.

But you know better than I how much more must be done. Every nation
that has struggled to build democracy has found that success depends
on leaders who believe government exists to serve people, not the
other way around. President Obasanjo is such a leader. And the
struggle to build democracy depends also on you, on legislators who
will be both a check on and a balance to executive authority and be a
source --(applause.) You know, if I said that to my Congress, they
would still be clapping and standing. (Laughter.)

And this is important, too -- let me finish. (Laughter.) In the
constitutional system, the Legislature provides a check and balance to
the Executive, but it must also be a source of creative, responsible
leadership, for in the end, work must be done and progress must be
made. (Applause.)

Democracy depends upon a political culture that welcomes spirited
debate without letting politics become a blood sport. It depends on
strong institutions, an independent judiciary, a military under firm
civilian control. It requires the contributions of women and men
alike. (Applause.) I must say I am very glad to see a number of women
in this audience today, and also I am glad that Nigerian women have
their own Vital Voices program -- (applause) -- a program that my wife
has worked very hard for, both in Africa and all around the world.

Of course, in the end, successful political change must begin to
improve people's daily lives. That is the democracy dividend Nigerians
have waited for.

But no one should expect that all the damage done over a generation
can be undone in a year. (Applause.) Real change demands perseverance
and patience. It demands openness to honorable compromise and
cooperation. It demands support on a constant basis from the people of
Nigeria and from your friends abroad. That does not mean being patient
with corruption or injustice, but to give up hope because change comes
slowly would only be to hand a victory to those who do not want to
change at all. (Applause.)

Remember something we Americans have learned in over 224 years of
experience with democracy: It is always and everywhere a work in
progress. It took my own country almost 90 years and a bitter civil
war to set every American free. It took another 100 years to give
every American the basic rights our Constitution promised them from
the beginning.

Since the time of our revolution, our best minds have debated how to
balance the responsibilities of our national and state government;
what the proper balance is between the President and the Congress;
what is the role of the courts in our national life. And since the
very beginning, we have worked hard with varying degrees of success
and occasional, regrettable, sometimes painful failures, to weave the
diverse threads of our nation into a coherent, unified tapestry.

Today, America has people from over 200 racial, ethnic and religious
groups. We have school districts in America where, in one school
district, the parents of the children speak over 100 different
languages. It is an interesting challenge. But it is one that I am
convinced is a great opportunity, just as your diversity -- your
religious diversity and your ethnic diversity -- is a great
opportunity. In a global society, growing ever more intertwined -- a
great opportunity if we can find unity in our common humanity; if we
can learn not only to tolerate our differences, but actually to
celebrate our differences; if we can believe that how we worship, how
we speak, who our parents were, where they came from are terribly
important, but on this Earth, the most important thing is our common
humanity, then there can be no stopping us. (Applause.)

Now, no society has every fully solved this problem. As you struggle
with it you think of the Middle East, Northern Ireland, the Balkans,
the ongoing tragedy of Kashmir. And you realize it is a formidable
challenge. You also know, of course, that democracy does not answer
such questions. It simply gives all free people the chance to find the
answers that work for them.

I know that decades of mis-rule and deprivation have made your
religious and ethnic divisions deeper. Nobody can wave a hand and make
the problems go away. But that is no reason to let the idea of one
united Nigeria slip away. After all, after all this time, if we
started trying to redraw the map of Africa, we would simply be piling
new grievances on old. Even if we could separate all the people of
Africa by ethnicity and faith, would we really rid this continent of
strife? Think of all the things that would be broken up and all the
mountains of progress that have been built up that would be taken down
if that were the case.

Where there is too much deprivation and too little tolerance,
differences among people will always seem greater, and will always be
like open sores waiting to be turned into arrows of hatred by those
who will be advantaged by doing so. But I think it is worth noting for
the entire world that against the background of vast cultural
differences, a history of repression and ethnic strife, the hopeful
fact here today is that Nigeria's 250 different ethnic groups have
stayed together in one nation. (Applause.) You have struggled for
democracy together. You have forged national institutions together.
All your greatest achievements have come when you have worked
together.

It is not for me to tell you how to resolve all the issues that I
follow more closely than you might imagine I do. You're a free people,
an independent people, and you must resolve them. All I can tell you
is what I have seen and experienced these last years as President in
the United States and in working with other good people with similar
aspirations on every continent of the globe. We have to find honorable
ways to reconcile our differences on common ground.

The overwhelming fact of modern life everywhere, believe it or not, is
not the growth of the global economy, not the explosion of information
technology and the Internet, but the growing interdependence these
changes are bringing. Whether we like it or not, more and more our
fates are tied together -- within nations and beyond national borders,
even beyond continental borders and across great oceans. Whether we
like it or not, it is happening. You can think of big examples, like
our economic interconnections. You can think of anecdotal examples,
like the fact that we now have a phenomenon in the world known as
"airport malaria," where people get malaria in airports in nations
where there has never been an single case of malaria because they just
pass other people who have it, from around the world in the airport.

Whether we like it or not, your destiny is tied to mine, and mine to
yours, and the future will only make it more so. You can see it in all
the positive things we can build together and in the common threats we
face from enemies of a nation state, from the narco-traffickers, the
gun runners, from the terrorists, from those who would develop weapons
of mass destruction geared to the Electronic Age, very difficult to
detect and easy to move.

Now, we have to decide what we're going to do with the fundamental
fact of modern life -- our interdependence. Is it possible for the
Muslims and the Christians here to recognize that and find common
ground? Can we find peace in Jerusalem between the Muslims, the
Christians and the Jews? Can we find peace in the Balkans between the
Muslims, the Orthodox Christians and the Catholics? Will we ever bring
and end to the conflict between the Catholics and the Protestants in
Northern Ireland -- I mean, finally ever really have it over with
completely? Can the Hindus and the Muslims learn to live together in
Kashmir?

Isn't it interesting, when I cam here, in part, to help you move into
the information revolution more quickly, to spread its benefits to
more of your people, that all over the world in this most modern of
ages, we are bedeviled by humanity's oldest problem: the fear of the
other, people who are different from us.

I'm sure there was a time in the deep, distant mists of memory, when
everyone had to be afraid of people who were not of their tribe; when
food was scarce and there was no means of communication. But all of us
still carry around with us the fear of people who are different from
us. And it is such a short step from being afraid of someone to
distrusting them, to disliking them, to hating them, to oppressing
them, to using violence against them. It is a slippery, slippery
slope.

So I say again, the biggest challenge for people in the United States,
where people still, I'm ashamed to say, lose their lives because they
are different -- not nearly as much as it used to be, it's a rare
occurrence, but it still tears at our hearts, because we know everyone
counts, everyone deserves a chance at life, and we all do better when
we help each other, and when we find a way for everyone to follow his
or her own path through life, guided by their own lights and their own
faith.

So I say to you, I come here with that in mind. The world needs
Nigeria to succeed. (Applause.) Every great nation must become more
than the sum of its parts. If we are torn by our differences, then we
become less than the sum of our parts. Nigeria has within it the seeds
of every great development going on in the world today, and it has a
future worth fighting for. You are already a champion of peace,
democracy and justice. Last month in Tokyo, your President reminded
leaders of the Group of Eight very firmly that we are all tenants of
the same global village.

He said, and I quote, "We must deal with the challenges for
development not as separate entities, but in partnership, as members
of the same global family, with shared interests and
responsibilities." So today, I would like to talk just a few minutes
about how our two nations, with our shared experience of diversity and
our common faith in freedom, can work as partners to build a better
future.

I believe we have two broad challenges. The first is to work together
to help Nigeria prepare its economy for success in the 21st century,
and then to make Nigeria the engine of economic growth and renewal
across the continent. The second is to work together to help build the
peace that Nigeria and all of Africa so desperately need.

To build stronger economies we must confront the diseases that are
draining the life out of Africa's cities and villages, especially
AIDS, but also TB and malaria. AIDS will reduce life expectancy in
Africa by 20 years. It is destroying families and wiping out economic
gains as fast as nations can make them. It is stealing the future of
Africa. In the long run, the only way to wipe out these killer
diseases is to provide effective, affordable treatments and vaccines.
Just last week, I signed into law a new $60-million investment in
vaccine research and new support for AIDS treatment and prevention
around the world, including Nigeria. (Applause.)

In the meantime, however, while we wait for the long run, we have to
face reality. I salute President Obasanjo for his leadership in
recognizing we can't beat AIDS by denying it, we can't beat AIDS by
stigmatizing it. Right now, we can only beat AIDS by preventing it, by
changing behavior and changing attitudes and breaking the silence
about how the disease is transmitted and how it can be stopped. This
is a matter of life or death.

There are nations in Africa -- two -- that have had a significant
reduction in the AIDS rate because they have acted aggressively on the
question of prevention. Tomorrow the President and I will meet with
Nigerians on the front line of this fight and I will congratulate
them.

Building a stronger economy also means helping all children learn. In
the old economy, a country's economic prospects were limited by its
place on the map and its natural resources. Location was everything.
In the new economy, information, education, and motivation are
everything.

When I was coming down here today, Reverend Jackson said to me, remind
everybody that America, to help Nigeria, involves more than the
government; it's also Wall Street and Silicon Valley. That's what's
growing our economy and it can help to grow yours.

One of the great minds of the Information Age is a Nigerian American
named Philip Emeagwali. He had to leave school because his parents
couldn't pay the fees. He lived in a refugee camp during your civil
war. He won a scholarship to university and went on to invent a
formula that lets computers make 3.1 billion calculations per second.
(Applause.) Some people call him the Bill Gates of Africa. (Laughter
and applause.)

But what I want to say to you is there is another Philip Emeagwali --
or hundreds of them -- or thousands of them -- growing up in Nigeria
today. I thought about it when I was driving in from the airport and
then driving around to my appointments, looking into the face of
children. You never know what potential is in their mind and in their
heart; what imagination they have; what they have already thought of
and dreamed of that may be locked in because they don't have the means
to take it out.

That's really what education is. It's our responsibility to make sure
all your children have the chance to live their dreams so that you
don't miss the benefit of their contributions and neither does the
rest of the world. It's in our interest in America to reach out to the
98 percent of the human race that has never connected to the Internet,
to the 269 of every 270 Nigerians who still lack a telephone.

I am glad to announce that the United States will work with Nigeria
NGOs and universities to set up community resource centers to provide
Internet access, training and support to people in all regions of your
country. (Applause.) I also discussed with the President earlier today
a $300-million initiative we have launched to provide a nutritious
meal -- a free breakfast or a free lunch -- for children in school,
enough to feed another 9 million kids in school that aren't in school
today, including in Nigeria.

We know that if we could offer -- and I'm going to the other developed
countries asking them to contribute, and then we're going to nation by
nation, working with governmental groups, working with farm groups --
we don't want to upset any local farm economies -- we understand their
challenges here -- but we know if we could guarantee every child in
every developing nation one nutritious meal a day, we could
dramatically increase school enrollment -- among boys, and especially
among girls. We don't have a child to waste. I hope we can do this in
Nigeria, and I hope you will work with us to get the job done.
(Applause.)

I have also asked the Peace Corps to reestablish its partnership with
Nigeria as soon as possible to help with education, health and
information technology.

Building a strong economy also means creating strong institutions, and
above all, the rule of law. Your Nobel laureate, Wole Soyinka, has
written that he imagines a day when Nigeria is "an unstoppable nation,
one whose citizens anywhere in the world would be revered simply by
the very possession of a Nigerian passport."

I don't need to tell you that the actions of a small group of
Nigerians took away that possibility, took away the pride of carrying
the passport, stealing the opportunity from every decent and honest
citizen of this country. But we will bring the pride and prosperity
back by cracking down together on crime, corruption, fraud and drugs.
(Applause.)

Our FBI is again working with Nigeria to fight international and
financial crime. Our law enforcement agencies are working to say to
narco-traffickers, there should be no safe havens in Nigeria. As we do
these things, we will be able to say loud and clear to investors all
over the world: Come to Nigeria. (Applause.) This is a place of
untapped opportunity because it is a place of unlimited potential.
(Applause.)

This year, I signed into law our Africa trade bill, and many of its
champions are here with me from our Congress. It will help us to seize
that opportunity, creating good jobs and wealth on both sides of the
Atlantic. The challenge is to make sure any foreign involvement in
your economy promotes equitable development, lifting people and
communities that have given much for Nigeria's economic progress, but
so far have gained too little from it.

Neither the people, nor the private sector want a future in which
investors exist in fortified islands surrounded by seas of misery.
Democracy gives us a chance to avoid that future. Of course, I'm
thinking especially of the Niger Delta. I hope government and business
will forge a partnership with local people to bring real, lasting
social progress, a clean environment and economic opportunity.

We face, of course, another obstacle to Nigeria's economic
development, the burden of debt that past governments left on your
shoulders. The United States has taken the lead in rescheduling
Nigeria's debt within the Paris Club, and I believe we should do more.
Nigeria shouldn't have to choose between paying interest on debt and
meeting basic human needs, especially in education and health.
(Applause.) We are prepared to support a substantial reduction of
Nigeria's debts on a multilateral basis, as long as your economic and
financial reforms continue to make progress, and you ensure that the
benefits of debt reduction go to the people. (Applause.)

Now, let me say, as we do our part to support your economic growth and
economic growth throughout Africa, we must also work together and
build on African efforts to end the conflicts that are bleeding hope
from too many places. If there's one thing I would want the American
people to learn from trip here it is the true, extraordinary extent of
Nigeria's leadership for peace in West Africa and around the world.
(Applause.)

I hope our members of Congress who are here today will tell this to
their colleagues back home. Over the past decade, with all of its
problems, Nigeria has spent $10 billion and sacrificed hundreds of its
soldiers lives for peace in West Africa. (Applause.) Nigeria was the
first nation, with South Africa, to condemn the recent coup in Cote
d'Ivoire. And Nigerian soldiers and diplomats, including General
Abubakar, are trying to restart the peace process in Congo. In these
ways, you are building the record of a moral superpower. (Applause.)

That's a long way to come in just a couple of years, and I urge you to
stay with it. But I know -- I know from the murmurs in this chamber
and from the murmurs I heard in the congressional chamber when I said
the United States must go to Bosnia, the United States must go to
Kosovo, the United States must train an Africa Crisis Response
Initiative, the United States must come here and help you train to
deal with the challenges of Sierra Leone -- I know that many of you
have often felt the burden of your peacekeeping was heavier than the
benefit. I know you have felt that.

But there's no one else in West Africa with the size, the standing,
the strength of military forces to do it. If you don't do it, who will
do it? But you should not have to do it alone. That's what's been
wrong with what's happened in the last several years. You have too
heavy a burden. Because of your size, everyone expects you to lead,
and to do so with enormous sensitivity to the needs of others. But
despite your size, you cannot lead alone, and you shouldn't have to
pay the enormous price. I am determined, if you're willing to lead, to
get you the international support you need and deserve to meet those
responsibilities. (Applause.)

This week, the first of five Nigerian peacekeeping battalions began
working with American military trainers and receiving American
equipment. With battalions from Ghana and other African nations, they
will receive almost $60 million in support to be a commanding force
for peace in Sierra Leone and an integral part of Nigeria's
democratization. We think the first battalions will be ready to deploy
with U.N. forces early next year. We expect them to make an enormous
difference in replacing the reign of terror with the rule of law. As
they do, all of West Africa will benefit from the promise of peace and
stability, and the prospect of closer military and economic
cooperation. And Nigeria will take another step toward building a 21st
century army that is strong and strongly committed to democracy.

Let me say to the military leaders who are here with us today that the
world honors your choice to take the army out of politics and make it
a pillar of a democratic state. (Applause.)

Last year, President Obasanjo came to Washington and reminded us that
peace is indivisible. I have worked to build a new relationship
between America and Africa because our futures are indivisible. It
matters to us whether you become and engine of growth and opportunity,
or a place of unrelieved despair. It matters whether we push back the
forces of crime, corruption, and disease together, or leave them to
divide and conquer us. It matters whether we reach out with Africans
to build peace, or leave millions of God's children to suffer alone.

Our common future depends on whether Africa's 739 million people gain
the chance to live their dreams. And Nigeria is a pivot point on which
all Africa's future turns. (Applause.)

Ten years ago, a young Nigerian named Ben Okri published a novel, "The
Famished Road" that captured imaginations all over the world. He wrote
of a spirit child who defies his elders and chooses to be born into
the turmoil and struggle of human life. The time and place were modern
Nigeria, but the questions the novel poses speak to all of us in a
language that is as universal as the human spirit.

In a time of change and uncertainty, Okri asks us, "Who can dream a
good road and then live to travel on it?" Nigerians, as much as any
nation on Earth, have dreamed this road -- since Anthony Enahoro stood
up in a colonial Parliament and demanded your independence in 1953.
Nigerians have dreamed this road in music and art and literature and
political struggle, and in your contributions to prosperity and
progress, among the immigrants to my country and so many others.

Now, at the dawn of a new century, the road is open at home to all
citizens of Nigeria. You have the chance to build a new Nigeria. We
have the chance to build a lasting network of ties between Africa and
the United States. I know it will not be easy to walk the road. But
you have already endured such stiff challenges. You have beaten such
long odds to get this far. And after all, the road of freedom is the
only road worth taking.

I hope that as President, I have helped a little bit to take us a few
steps down that road together. I am certain that America will walk
with you in the years to come. And I hope you will remember, if
nothing else, what I said about our interdependence. Yes, you need us
today because at this fleeting moment in history, we are the world's
richest country. But over the long run of life and over the long run
of a nation's life, and over the long run of civilization on this
planet, the rich and the poor often change places. What endures is our
common humanity. (Applause.)

If you can find it amidst all your differences, and we can find amidst
all ours, and then we can reach out across the ocean, across the
cultures, across the different histories with a common future for all
of our children, freedom's road will prevail.

Thank you, and God bless you.  (Applause.)

(end transcript)

(Distributed by the Office of International Information Programs, U.S.
Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov )