BOOK SUMMARY

In writing the Book, WE HAVE TO BELONG, the Author is emphatic about certain home truths. There is therefore a palpable feeling of urgency throughout the script as the author takes the reader through an unmistakably rigorous journey around an ever-budding nation ridden with daunting challenges alongside the prospects these unwittingly throw up. The reader is at once immersed in the ongoing turbulence that is the author’s literary stomping grounds, as she traverses the Nigerian historical landscape with the vantage authority of an eyewitness who has chosen to peer way below the surface of the unfolding reality.This is a little more than a book because even as we meander around the bumps and the undulating waves of upheavals which this book introduces into the uneasy calm of our gaze across the political vista of Nigeria, a more numbing realization settles upon our shoulders

– We are smack in the eye of this storm.

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What people are saying

A lot here most of the time seems like a leaf in the wind. Leaders half the time are groping in the dark. The led are confused wishing they were citizens of other Nations. For the youth who constitute the bulk of the Nigerian population, the future seems to have been mapped out, cooked and served by an older passing generation that won't be part of that future. Toyosi Akerele-Ogunsij snaps us all out of this triumph over Nothing noting that this floundering must end and the reins must be handed over to those who will take the Nigerian ship to its desired destination. As you finish reading, you’ll like lacing your boots to start the journey, already.

Funke Egbemode, Managing Director/Editor-in-chief, New Telegraph Newspapers & President, Nigerian Guild of Editors

"Toyosi Akerele-Ogunsiji is a vibrant voice for the future of Africa. Her rational passion and urgency for Nigeria's Transformation are an inspiration to all those seeking progress in developing Countries. Citizens are ready for fresh leadership to fight corruption all over the world."

Professor Nicco Mele is Former Senior Vice President and Deputy Publisher of the Los Angeles Times and Author of The End of Big: How The Internet Makes David the New Goliath and Director of the Harvard Kennedy School's Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy.

"Nigeria, an emerging Superpower currently enmeshed in a series of crises including Poverty, Inequality and Insecurity desperately needs authentic and audacious Leaders and Citizens. While others grumble about the rot, Toyosi Akerele-Ogunsiji offers practical solutions as WE HAVE TO BELONG at its finest, is a well thought out exposition which should be the go-to title for anyone who seeks to understand how Nigeria got to where she is today and how her people can sidestep the conundrums that have set their great nation back for decades."

Juliette Kayyem, National Security Analyst of CNN, Former Assistant Secretary for Intergovernmental Affairs in the United States Department of Homeland Security and Author of Security Mom.

We Have To Belong is as much a terrific call to action as it is a haunting assessment of humanity’s growing inability to govern itself. At its core, this book was written from the heart and soul of an author who understands that humanity is bigger than any one individual, but who also recognizes that one individual can change humanity. Akerele-Ogunsiji has provided the blueprint and the rationale for the 21st Century leader. Her work could not have come at a more important time.

Professor Steve Jarding, Lecturer in Public Policy, Shorenstein Center for Media, Politics and Public Policy, Harvard University John F. Kennedy School of Government

"In this brilliant and rousing call to arms, Toyosi Akerele-Ogunsiji x-rays how the failure of leadership by Nigeria's political class and their accomplices have delayed our country's destiny and stifled the dreams of her youth. This book is a powerful argument for real change in our country and the role of citizens, youth and women in bringing about nothing less than a citizen-revolution. It is required reading from a prominent leader of Nigeria's emerging generation of activists and change-makers."

Professor Kingsley Chiedu Moghalu, Former Deputy Governor, Central Bank of Nigeria and Professor of International Business and Public Policy, The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University

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