Speeches

2012 Annual Thanksgiving Service

Jan 8, 2012 - I welcome you all very warmly to this year's Annual Thanksgiving service which is the 13th that the Government of Lagos State is holding since the return of democratic governance.

I welcome you with a lot of gratitude to God and to you all the good people of our State.

I acknowledge that the past year was filled with challenges and the New Year has already brought its own set of challenges. But in all of these, we are grateful to be alive.

We remember all those who have passed on and we sympathize with their families and dependents; we especially condemn acts of violence that have prematurely terminated human lives.

The past year was an election year for us and we are grateful to all of you for your support and encouragement that propelled our party and candidates to victory.

In our meeting of thanksgiving today, I want to appeal to all of us who are here and those who are not here to remember that vengeance does not belong to us.

This is the ground upon which I re-call parts of my address last year, where I stated that it is our humanity that binds us more deeply than our faith or ethnic identity.

Our humanity is represented by the bonds of blood, food, water and brotherhood that we share.

It is manifestly demonstrated here today at this venue where Christians and Muslims of different ethnic identities gather to offer thanksgiving to God.

I could express it no better than it was done in the book titled "God is not a Christian" written by Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Nobel Laureate, at pages 5-6:

"They tell the story of a drunk who crossed the street and accosted a pedestrian, asking him, "I shay, which ish the other shide of the street?" The pedestrian, somewhat nonplussed, replied, "That side, of course!" The drunk said, "Shtrange. When I wash on that shide, they shaid it wash thish shide." Where the other side of the street is depends on where we are. Our perspective differs with our context, the things that have helped to form us; and religion is one of the most potent of these formative influences; helping to determine how and what we apprehend of reality and how we operate in our own specific context.

My first point seems overwhelmingly simple: that the accidents of birth and geography determine to a very large extent to what faith we belong. The chances are very great that if you were born in Pakistan you are a Muslim, or a Hindu if you happened to be born in India, or a Shintoist if it is Japan, and a Christian if you were born in Italy. I don't know what significant fact can be drawn from this- perhaps that we should not succumb too easily to the temptation to exclusiveness and dogmatic claims to a monopoly of the truth of our particular faith. You could so easily have been an adherent of the faith that you are now denigrating, but for the fact that you were born here rather than there."

Two points I seek to emphasize therefore are:-first, that both religions come from the Middle East and secondly that even amongst brothers of the same faith whether of Christian or Muslim hue, ethnic differences can blur their brotherhood of faith and humanity.

Such negative differences must never find a place in any part of our State or our country and every one of us owes a duty to positively do something to prevent such an occurrence.

I am convinced that in the same way that our offering of thanksgiving last year was accepted by God, this year's thanksgiving will find favour with our Creator and He will accept and reward it with His own unquantifiable might and presence.

Yes, there are challenges. But I believe that within those challenges lie inherent opportunities. I have always tried to see my glass as half full rather than as half empty.

I urge us all to do the same. If we do, maybe, it is possible to see another side of our challenges as I have tried to see them.

Today is not so much for speech making as it is for thanksgiving. And for that reason I would conclude by wishing us all a prosperous year 2012 and thank you all for your attention.

God bless us all.

Babatunde Raji Fashola, SAN
Governor of Lagos State