William Jefferson Clinton,
Former President United States of America

Quote from his address to the Joint Session of the Nigerian National Assembly in Abuja,
Saturday 26 August 2000.

“One of in the great minds of the information age is a Nigerian-American named Phillip Emegwalli. He had to leave school because his parents couldn’t pay the fees. He lived in the refugee camp during your civil war. He won a scholarship to University and went on to invent a formula that lets computers make 3.1 billion calculation per seconds.

Some people call him the “Bill Gates of Africa”.

But what I want to say to you is there is another Phillip Emeagwali -- or hundreds of them --or thousands of them -- growing up in Nigeria today.

I thought about it when I was driving in from the airport and then driving around to my appointments, looking into the faces of children. You never know what potential is in their minds and in their hearts, or what imagination they have; what they have already thought of and dreamed of that may be locked in because they don’t have the means to bring it out.

That‘s really what education is.

It’s our responsibility to make sure all your children have the chance to live their dreams so that you don’t miss the benefit of their contributions and neither the rest of the world.

It is in our interest in America to reach out to 98 percent of human race that has never connected to the Internet, to the 269 out of every 270 Nigerians who still lack a Telephone.”

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