Dear Young friends,
Life may not always present us the second chance to see another new year, so we are happy and thankful to God for leading us to 2014. Words cannot describe my delight and excitement for witnessing another year as a Nigerian. As we celebrate the end of one year and the beginning of another, it is very obvious that there is a crisis of leadership consequently a great demand for a new breed of leaders that will rebuild and re-position all the different institutions and spheres of influence in our nation.

Today, the greatest need in our nation is not for “more leaders” but for “more servant leaders.” Today, there are many things in our country that can be rightly criticized: things of which none of us is proud – things which we must collectively take responsibility to change. Today, our motherland is buffeted by mass hunger, poverty, crime, corruption, environmental degradation, massive unemployment, disease, primitive state of basic infrastructure, occultism, militancy, terrorism, youth restiveness and violence, kidnapping etc. Of a truth, there is urgent demand for nurturing and mentoring dynamic and effective leaders in order to re-position our motherland for greatness.

2014 must be one in which our young people should be able to look forward to an enhanced empowerment and education. It should be one in which fewer of them become victims of cultism, rape, drug addiction, drug and human trafficking, hooliganism, crime or are forced to grow up in hunger, poverty, on the street or in jail.

2014 is the time to unfold new horizons and realize new dreams and visions, to rediscover the hope, strength, energies, potentials, talents, gifts and faith within and to gear up for new challenges. I am happy to announce to you that Salimo~Wits Foundation will work with you as a partner and as a friend because we believe in you, in your dreams and vision as well as in your ability to change Nigeria.

As I said earlier, our nation is in great demand for a new breed of servant leaders who will rebuild and re-position all the different institutions and spheres of influence. And you are that servant leader that our nation awaits. Let the words of the famous American Republican Carl Schurz be your slogan for 2014: “My country; and my country is My country, right or wrong; if right, to be kept right; and if wrong, to be set right.” Nigeria’s future is up to all of us. All of us at the Salimo-Wits Foundation welcome you into 2014 with prayers of good health, happiness and success.

Dan Ekoko
President and Founder