This is Census Week in Nigeria. And this is a preliminary comment. News reports are very disheartening. Shortage of materials and inadequate logistics. Protests and violent riots by unpaid and under-paid enumerators. Political rent-seeking and nepotism. Insufficient hands. Abscondment by fraudulent workers after collecting their allowances. To think that there was a trial-run just a few months ago, which was so high-soundingly hailed by those in charge, this is a monumental climb-down! We must worry.

Thankfully, the president has ordered a 2-day extension in response to the barrage of complaints and threats from all over the land. My assessment is that we actually need another week, with localised work-free days, supervised by governors and council chairmen. We'll see.

Somehow the problem must be systemic. Right in Abuja, the seat of federal might and power - with its limited spatial demography - the complaints were outpouring right from Day 1. And it was on global television! I shudder.

But we must ask: Are we such a country of compulsive complainants or a conglomeration of congenital incompetents? This be a subject for another day. For the census, pray silence, we had enough pseudo-census data/exercises to learn/draw from. Voters Registration. The National Identity Card Project. National Programme on Immunisation. School Enrollment /Exams Data. Etc. etc. So, dear country, why this millennium miasma?

Then, we must ponder: What do we say to the Donor Community which generously helped fund this exercise? Never mind today's taxpayer, but how shall we tell the troubling tale to our children and their children - with its apparently convoluted twists and turns? What is all this thing about federal officials, state funtionaries and local government operatives, all confusing and confronting themselves in an exercise which should be thoroughly LGA-based? Our legendary duplication disease?

And, finally, INEC: If the Population Commission with all it had in time and resources could be this hampered, what happens to the Electoral Commission? And 2007???

Hey, Nigeria, we must make this census a success. Too much at stake. Including the natural seething of those who grudge the deletion of "ethnicity and religion" from the head-count data! Too much at stake. May God bless NIGERIA.

Africa is the future of GSM with Nigeria at the hub. There are now about 20 million cell and fixed wireless phones in just 5 years, up from less than half a million functional lines under the previous state monopoly regime, in Nigeria. With the exclusivity period over for the initial GSM operators and the advent of unified licensing, the field is now open to real competition. And it seems the Obasanjo administration is determined to finally privatise NITEL, the first national carrier this year. We hear some Nigerian firms are putting up a good fight in the bidding show.

Why am I excited? Because the GSM and other mobile technologies will play a decisive role in bridging the digital divide. It will help Internet penetration with all the attendant benefits, evidence of which Globacom - a wholly Nigerian player and second national carrier - has set in motion through its landmark offerings. Mike Adenuga is a true patriot. We hear he is building the most modern network for a pan African deployment over the next few years. He already has switches in the UK, US, Germany and France, as well as submarine optic fibre cable (Lagos-London) for international traffic. Switches in Hong Kong and Singapore will follow suit. Wow. Surely Africa can find more Adenugas, can't we?

I love the way MTN, the largest GSM network, is challenging everyone else. Soon, once it sorts out its internal wranglings and finds a major investor to secure its future, Vmobile should be able to exert itself. What Nitel does depends on who gets it. I would have loved a deep-pocket
Nigerian entity with Asian Technical Partners to join the fray. This will guard against possible monopolies in this critical utility-sector.

Whatever happens, there is a new market for IT business now in Africa. This is the time for our Diaspora Assets to be deployed. Especially the successful souls in Europe and The Americas. You guys should follow the Indian and Taiwanese examples and quickly embrace backward integration with future creativity with mother land. Home needs you....NOW!

By the way, those ads.....Real heaven! Creativity at the highest levels. Competition is bringing the best out of operators, giving the consumers wonderful adverts plus alluring promos. And I'm at my most pride when they feature on global broadcasts - CNN, BBC, and African sporting events. Good feeling, folks...Keep it up.

With some real debt relief thanks I'm asking a few open questions today: We have the figures for African Debts, where are the figures of African Assets? So that we and our friends...from Geldof to Bono, Blair to Brown, Bill Clinton to Bill Gates, Canada to Japan, to name a few, can truly proclaim how broke or bankrupt this continent is. So we can better square things up...once and for all. Fair, isn't it?

Assets here means financial, human and other resources, including real estate, of African holding and standing to the credit of Africans - dead or alive! Assets means both legal and illegal, open and coded, free or entangled possessions and entitlements. The world is doing it on drugs, human trafficking and lately on terrorism; let's please do it on corruption.

Those who see double or multiple standards when it comes to Africa and third world loots, have a point...don't they! You steal in the advanced countries and you pay for it, heavily. You mindlessly loot in other countries, including hallowed national treasuries, and there is a safe haven for the billions! Haba.

How useful is this Assets Analysis? Huge. It will reduce the present costs to debt-forgiving countries and bodies, and will then ensure resource husbandry in developing countries for the UN Millennium Development Goals. Surely, this must be morally and judicially attractive to all? Which is why an International Tribunal on Corruption is long overdue. It should operate under the most liberal and practical jurisprudence, including making locus standi a Common Licence. Let the world's resources be for the world's peoples. The UN must be robustly strengthened to help assure so.

Africa should be able to help in this costing crusade. There should be no hiding place for mindless looters anywhere. But the world owes us as much as we owe the world. Until we say "we are", why should they say "thou art"?

The South Korean president, Moo-Hun Roh, has just concluded a 3-day state visit to Nigeria. He came here straight from Egypt (ha! you remember something?). Wait. Soon after, Thabo Mbeki, our highly beloved (because he has refused the ever-tempting and self-immolating "sit-tight" apple!) South African president, was here - on a stopover from the inauguration of Michelle Bachelet as Chile's first female president. We hear they talked about Charles Taylor, the former Liberian leader whose current first-ever elected female African president, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, was here the week before, seeking his extradition. Taylor, the former warlord, has been indicted for war crimes by the UN Tribunal in Sierra Leone. Now back to Mbeki and South Africa (hey, aren't you recalling something!). You know I was going on so positively about the Egypt-Nigeria-South Africa tripod for the upliftment of our dear continent and the assurance of the new renaissance....yes? Now you can see...yes. The Obasanj/Mbeki bond, in and out of political office, will be magical for NEPAD.

Recall, if you may, the water-from-the-Mediterranean sea-to-the-Tripoli desert miracle. It was widely, even wildly hailed as the 8th wonder of the world. President Gaddafi, the Libyan strongman, got the South Koreans to perform the multibillion-dollar wonder which western experts previously declared as an impossible wishful thinking! No matter. Recall, if you can, that the Apartheid System installed a first world economy in a third world country for western interests in Africa. That infrastructure is now been sensibly managed by the Mandela Visionaries. And boy, Nigerians fought for and madly love the Madiba!

If Olusegun Obasanjo, the Nigerian president (some would say strongman, considering his distinct pedigree, predilections, privileges, propensities and postures), were to kindly adopt the much recommended Mandela/Mbeki approach to political tenure sanctity, thus squelching the now out-of-control war for tenure extension, just see the glorious alliance we can have in the Mandela/Obasanjo/Mbeki elderstatesmanship. Please join us in praying for the distinguished African son. Amen.

Today's theory therefore is the building of the 9th Wonder (there will be several others to be proposed on this floor, so stop wondering...will you!) of the world. Let us build a Multiplex Afrobahn from Cairo to Cape Town on a 5-Year Time Table. It should run 150-300 km parallel to River Nile, bundling the following into the mix: multiple train-tracks, Tripoli-style sea water and desalination open conduits, multi-lane mega highways, hydo-stations, wind-stations, solar-stations, corn-cities/sugar cane-cities/beet-cities, cassava-cities, fish-towns, multi-track telecoms nodes, mega industrial zones, mega sports zones, mega inland ports, millenniun airports and AU military camps/forts.

Egypt, Libya, Algeria, Nigeria, South Africa should fund-guarantee it, using Korean expertise, tying in Sino-African bilaterals, and tapping IMF/World Bank entitlements (note this!). Africa should then unleash its multitude of jobless youths, idle military, diaspora brains and numerous universities on the project.

This can be done TODAY! And the Management Team? Obasanjo/Mbeki/Kofi Annan/Gaddafi/Mubarak (the last two, calling snap elections to find credible successors in their countries by 2008). Incidentally, the Korean president was wooing Africa for our votes to enable his foreign minister succeed Kofi Annan as UN secretary general.

I suggest that , by this project, Africa will become an instant world destination...just like China/India/UAE-Dubai. And why not!

1981. Few talked about China or India or Brazil or Turkey...as economic or political forces. 1989. As the Berlin Wall came down and the Soviet Union unraveled, business schools were teaching just-in-time management made in Japan. Dubai was essentially a stop on the way to Hong Kong.

1984. On a private study tour to Hong Kong, I stopped over in Dubai. The future stared me in the face. And I never stopped thinking and talking about it. I was to later meet some of their delegates during UN Habitat II in Istanbul who confirmed the inexorable march to stardom.

1995. The UN Conference on Women took us to Beijing. It was one big construction site! My tour told me things....The future was here! This I shared with my colleagues and some of our kind hosts. And I told every Chinese I could to start learning English and French!

1996. UN Habitat II Summit took us to Istanbul. My tour told me that Turkey was no East-West Junction for nothing. It will be the future glue of the Full Europe! Its secular state is good for Turkey, good for Europe, good for the meeting of religious civilisations and the conversations of cultures. I encouraged our kind hosts to pick up European Languages fast.

Today, Dubai-UAE is a destination of choice. Turkey is on its way to EU membership. China, India and Brazil are key to the new world order, starting if you like with the WTO. Lesson!

These highlights are the oil with which Dear Africa and its Diaspora must eat the roasted yams of our own renaissance. Nigeria, South Africa and Egypt must lead the way. And the time has ticked into injury time now....we must play catch-up!

If our politicians seek legacies of honour, and our sons and daughters abroad get on board (whether invited/solicited or not), 10 Years will be enough to turn things around. For sure, I know that of Nigeria....if the right team takes over in 2007, we can surprise the world in 5 YEARS flat!

All countries of the continent must embrace DUAL nationality for citizens in diaspora by the end of 2006. Crucial. And NEPAD/AU should not go the OAU way!!

As I reflect this day, I worry and wonder. Keep a date...and get posted why. As I contemplate the future, I remain in the assurance that, at least for some important countries, Nigeria inclusive, the rebound is in view. Keep a date...for why I'm sure!