Press Releases

New Year 2009: Fashola Calls For Positive Thinking Among Nigerians

Dec 31, 2008 - As Nigeria joins the rest of the world to usher in the New Year 2009 today, Lagos State Governor, Mr. Babatunde Fashola (SAN), has called for positive thinking among Nigerians towards the future of the country.

In his New Year message to Lagosians, Governor Fashola said for the nation to achieve her set objectives of both the Millennium Development Goals for 2015 and the Vision 2020 Nigerians must fundamentally alter their thinking towards the nation and its development

In the message titled “As A Nation Thinketh, So Is She”, the Governor declared, “To make any reasonable progress towards meeting the objectives of both the MDGs and Vision 2020, we must fundamentally alter the way we think. Too often, we have allowed ourselves to be branded negatively; we have allowed others to define us and pigeon hole us unfairly as a people. This attitude must change because “As a nation thinketh, so is she”.

Describing Year 2009 as a very crucial year for Nigeria , Governor Fashola explained that every human being’s life was a function of the sum total of his or her innermost thoughts, pointing out that positive thinking engenders positive outlook. While negative thinking would most likely result in negative circumstances.

“As it is with individuals so I believe it is with nations. As a nation thinketh, so is she. Only our dreams can limit us”, the Governor said, expressing dismay that as a people “we have, too often allowed ourselves to be branded negatively; we have allowed others to define us and pigeon hole us unfairly”.

He urged Nigerians to draw a lesson from the last American Presidential electioneering campaigns during which, according to him, though focus was largely on the problems of America such as inaccessible health care, declining standards in education, a huge budget deficit, moral decay and degeneration of values and other symptoms of economic crisis to name a few , none of the candidate ever defined America in terms of those challenges.

“Rather, at every point they defined America in terms of her innate greatness and capacity to overcome the challenges. They believed firmly that what ever was wrong with America could eventually be overcome by what is right and great about America ”, the Governor said.

The Governor declared, “Our country is on the march towards fulfilling our manifest destiny as we join the rest of the world in ushering in the New Year, 2009. The New Year is one of great expectations for us. It is one in which the whole world is watching to see how quickly we can begin to actualize our immense potentials as a country”.

Querying why it should be different in the case of Nigeria , Fashola told Nigerians, “Let us learn to define ourselves by those strengths that will enable us to overcome our weaknesses; by those virtues in the vast majority of our people that will ultimately enable us to overcome the vices of a negligible percentage of our population”.

”Let us begin to define and project our national image by the millions of remarkably resilient, hard working and faithful men and women all over the country working from morning till night, many in difficult circumstances, to feed and maintain their families”, he enjoined.

Calling on all Nigerians to approach nation building with the seriousness it deserves and to stop replacing failed institutions with new ones just because they can easily be created. Governor Fashola further declared, “The reality is that each institution that failed means that people have failed. We must learn to tackle the problem with a solution approach rather than an avoidance approach. Problems will not go away except they are solved and creating new institutions without correcting the human lapses that incapacitated the failure of old ones will get us nowhere”.

He said the progress of the nation depended substantially on the seriousness, focus, vision and discipline of those in leadership positions, adding, however, that equally critical was the need for every Nigerian, no matter their stations in life, to discover the leader within them and exercise a positive influence in their own little sphere of existence.

Wishing every Nigerian and Lagosians a blessed, happy and prosperous New Year, the Governor assured Lagosians that his administration intends to sustain and even accelerate the pace of its infrastructure and environmental renewal programme in the New Year, adding, “In the course of doing this, we may be called upon to make sacrifices or bear inconveniences. We will continue to count on your good will, support and cooperation at all times”.