Speeches

2011 Annual Thanksgiving Service

Jan 2, 2011 - Your Excellencies, Leaders of Governments, public servants, political leaders, distinguished and eminent Lagosians and Nigerians, my lords spiritual, men and women of God, on behalf of the Government of Lagos, my darling wife, members of COWLSO and the host Ministry of Home Affairs and Culture, I welcome you all very warmly to our annual thanksgiving service the twelfth in the series which started under Governor Tinubu in 1999.

To those who witnessed the beginning and who are here again, I say it is good to see you again.

To those who are joining us for the first time, I welcome you most heartily to your first experience to a unique devotion of gratitude which I hope will herald a new relationship for you with the architect of our existence.

To the instruments of God, all of whom He used to start and sustain what has become an annual family reunion of people who are grateful for His mercies, our gratitude is unquantifiable.

To all members of staff and my darling wife who have worked tirelessly up till 2am this morning to prepare this event, I express sincere gratitude.

To all Lagosians who are here and those who cannot be here, I wish us all a happy and prosperous year that is filled with possibilities of pleasant surprises beyond our expectations.

Before I yield to our spiritual leaders who will conduct this service of gratitude and thanksgiving, I wish to renew the appeal I made last year at the 2010 Thanksgiving Service of the need to promote peaceful co-existence and our common bond of humanity that is based on mutual respect for choices of religion, faith and mode of worship.

I wish to emphasize that while our choices of faith, religion and mode of worship distinguish us; they should not in any way divide us or sever our common bond of humanity that is represented by the fact that we share the same water, same hospitals, same markets, same buses and so much more.

Our consumption of meat, the giving and taking of money, transfusion of blood for medical emergencies are not distinguished by our religious distinctions. Our drinking water is blind to our religion.

I see therefore that our distinctions of religious preferences are matters of choice and freewill which our creator gave to us without condition.

That is why Muslims and Christians are gathered today in these premises to thank one God.

This is why we must all resolve to do more to promote our common humanity.

We can do this by renewing and enriching those values that promote our dignity and avoid those that diminish us.

We must seek to enjoy life and its pleasures with restraint on one hand and plenty of love at every time.

By love, I mean respect and care. I mean compassion and empathy and values of similar type.

It is abundance of those types of values that will enrich our State and nation.

It is those kinds of values that will transform our electoral processes from a do or die affair to a legitimate expression of desire for public service and leadership to God's people.

It is the abundance of such values that will reduce the incidence of kidnapping adults and children in the hope to profit financially from an act that diminishes us as a people.

It is the abundance of those values that will help make us better followers of our leaders and invest us with the requisite moral platform to challenge their shortcomings.

Distinguished ladies and gentlemen, I have chosen to speak of values because I believe that it is a critical and missing content in our national life.

I do this because I know that although we seek leadership, we do not seek any type of leadership. We seek good leadership.

A leadership that is defined by the highest values is the only type that can help us fulfill our aspirations.

Only the deep can call to the deep; and a defective factory or assembly line cannot produce an efficient or qualitative product.

It is only a society that is driven by pursuit of the highest values that can produce a leader with such values.

As we give thanks for 2010 and what God will do in 2011, I pray that he embarrasses Nigeria with riches of leadership that is defined by the highest values.

I am certain that this is a prayer that God will answer because I believe that all will be well.

I welcome you all. Happy New Year.

Eko o ni baje.

Babatunde Raji Fashola, SAN
Governor of Lagos State