Most importantly, nothing has happened to change my conviction that freedom and the love of liberty remain the essential defining attributes of our national character as a people.

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.

The return of democracy in our land has indeed thrown the problems of development into bolder relief.

Even now, we make no apologies for the choice we made. The sacrifices we made were selfless. The options we offered were patriotic while the paths we chose were well thought out.

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.

There are no doubts that, the situation in the country today, indicates that there is much more work to do in the process of reforming the political economy and improving the quality of life of our people and communities.

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