Debate and divergence of views can only enrich our history and culture.
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.
The work of Nigeria is not complete for as long as there is any one Nigerian who goes to bed on empty stomach.
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.
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.
The challenge as we saw in the Nigerian project was to restructure the economy decisively in the direction of a modern free market as an appropriate environment for cultivation of freedom and democracy and the natural emergence of a new social order.
Democracy opens new vistas and opportunities. We should use the opportunities it offers to correct past mistakes not to blunder anew.
It is only through books that we partake of the great harvest that is human civilization across the ages.
A society that does not correctly interpret and appreciate its past cannot understand its present fortunes and adversities and can be caught unawares in a fast changing world.
It is of course the nature of historical contraction that the shortest distance to a historical destination is never a straight line.
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.
I believe that historians and analysts of historical events need the authority of facts supplied by living witnesses to the events, which they make their subject.
To meet the expectations of the majority of our people, and to open up new vistas of economic opportunity so that the aspirations of Nigerians can stand a fair chance of being fulfilled in a lifetime, there must be a truly committed leadership in a democratic Nigeria.
Our approach to economic development must be modern, focused and in tune with the global trend.
I am not sure that you, the younger generations, will like to go to war that we went through. So, we learn as the mistakes are being committed.
Each one of us, and, indeed, all those who aspire to national leadership must bring their own visions, views and styles to the business of reforming Nigeria, and the search for solutions.
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.
For as long as our people are held hostage by controllable socio-economic forces, we cannot afford to be indifferent to the ravages of poverty in all its dimensions and ramifications.
If you ask me to summarise our mission, I would put it this way: We were a military regime that sought to lay the foundations for freedom and liberty in a complex society.
Informed by our sad experience of history, we require nothing short of a foundation for lasting democracy.
