But no nation can base its survival and development on luck and prayers alone while its leadership fritters away every available opportunity for success and concrete achievement.

Debate and divergence of views can only enrich our history and culture.

We have established a new basis in our country in which economic liberalization would continue to flourish alongside democratic forces and deregulated power structure.

Informed by our sad experience of history, we require nothing short of a foundation for lasting democracy.

With each new book, the march of our national history takes a step forward. When one is present at a book launch, one is bearing witness to the birth of a new body of ideas, to the coming into being of another testimony of history.

At the same, we need to remain sensitive to the reality that we are still an African society in which the majority of the people and communities live under severe deprivations and afflictions that are no fault of theirs.

It is of course the nature of historical contraction that the shortest distance to a historical destination is never a straight line.