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The music filled the bus and the driver tapped his chubby fingers to the rhythm.

“Pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop something/Pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop something/We dey pop champagne, pop champagne…”

He cradled the
steering wheel to his huge belly, his fat cheeks eternally seeming on
the verge of breaking into a smile. You could see how hard he had tried
to groom himself; the long nails chipped in parts; the dark oily hair
cut in the style called Gallas, tribute to the former Arsenal player
who made it so famous.

He seemed a bit too
old for relaxers and shady hairstyles, but the twinkle in his eye said
that perhaps he knew that, but so what? His check-shirt hugged his gut
so tight the buttons appeared ready to pop at the next big meal of
amala and ewedu washed down with the inevitable Gulder. Oh, yes, he
looked like a man who enjoyed his food with some brew.

But he was not a
big talker, preferring to limit his vocal efforts to singing the chorus
of the Dr. Sid/D’Banj song. When an angry driver overtook our bus,
hurling insults at him for no apparent reason, he didn’t even shout
back. He gazed placidly at the fellow through his window, and placing
an index finger to the side of his head, he turned it sharply, like a
screw. At Ogudu, he stopped to pick up an odd couple; a smallish fellow
in the garish colours of the LASTMA uniform and a much taller man. It
was soon clear that he knew them both. On spying the shorter guy, he
began to protest after they entered: “Oh no, no!”, shaking his head
like one who had committed an irredeemable blunder.

“Egbon,” he said,
addressing the tall chap and pointedly ignoring the uniformed fellow,
“I seriously thought you were alone. Seriously. I don’t usually carry
these wicked people.”

Goliath chuckled.

“Because of me,” he said, settling down, “Carry am today, I beg.”

The LASTMA official
pursed his lips, predicting dire consequences for errant drivers who
didn’t know how to show respect for authority. The driver made a face
and laughed. Suddenly, a bike man cut into our lane from the blind side
and went speeding past without a care.

“The people who drive okada are crazy,” he said quietly, “Every single one of them.”

Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you an oxymoron: a danfo driver with no stress.

Sitting beside him
up front, I again wondered what it was about fat men that makes you
feel comfortable in their company. They seemed more able to absorb
life’s pressures, to hide their neuroses under all those layers of
flesh. I remembered Caesar saying to Anthony: “Let me have men about me
that are fat; sleek-headed men and such as sleep o’ nights,” and I
thought, the Roman general would have loved this bus driver.

I got down at Ojota
feeling quite mellow, as if I had indeed popped some champagne, and I
began to see Lagosians differently. At the criminally built steps of
the overhead bridge at Ojota, an elderly lady with a tall load
stumbled, and a dashing young woman in an Afro and elegant shoes
stepped forward: “Mama, let me help you with the load,” she said. The
elderly woman refused, but the smile on her wrinkled face was priceless.

At the other end of the bridge, I ran into a schoolboy helping a blind man negotiate the bustle, and they were both laughing.

“Can they not see too?” asked the blind man every time someone
brushed past him. And their laughter would resume. I looked around me.
Everyone seemed to be in a good mood, all the Lagos madness gone. It
looked like my danfo driver’s attitude was catching. Yeah, pop the
champagne jare. Eko o ni baje.

So, on Saturday, the wind finally blew Algeria’s way.

Bordered by
Tunisia, where it all started, the so-called People’s Democratic
Republic of Algeria found itself shutting down Internet providers and
deleting Facebook accounts across the country as thousands of
protesters were arrested following street demonstrations.

No doubt taking
their cue from the people of Egypt and Tunisia, the citizens took to
the streets in the capital Algiers, demanding that the president –
Abdelaziz Bouteflika, who has been in office since 1999 – leave office;
this despite the fact that the government had initially banned the
gathering and warned citizens against joining the protest.

The conditions
that led to this final action are strikingly identical to those in
other parts of North Africa where protests have threatened the status
quo since the new year began: long-standing governance by state of
emergency, and a ban on public protest in Algiers. In response, an
estimated 26,000 riot police were set up to battle the demonstrators.
There were reports of 400 people detained, others stopped from coming
into cities, state-sponsored officials harassing journalists, and
plastic bullets and tear gas being used to disperse those arrested
during the five-kilometre-long march to 1 May Square in the capital’s
centre.

The Algerian
government decided to wage a concerted battle against the Internet, and
in a move to handicap the organisers and shut down their ability to
communicate with the rest of the world the authorities closed down
online access and stifled the demonstrators’ ability to organise
through Facebook.

Evidently,
something is happening across North Africa that the governments
couldn’t have imagined – a people pushed to the wall and pressed to the
ground have finally risen up to say enough of oppression and a
government that has continually refused to acquiesce to the wishes of
the citizens.

This is despite
the fact that these are a people who have been scarred by conflict
through their experience with the extremist Islamic insurgency in the
1990s that left hundreds of thousands dead. Indeed, Algeria has been a
hotbed of political crises, defined by the decade long battle for power
that lasted from 1992 to 2002.

But it was bound
to happen. An oil rich nation, Algeria has the eighth largest reserves
of natural gas in the world, yet the majority of the population –
especially its young people suffer from mass unemployment, a housing
crisis, debilitating poverty, all underpinned by political corruption.

The demands of the
protesters are for an end to the government of Bouteflika and its
19-year state of emergency. Mounting grievances over the spiralling
cost of food and unemployment finally exploded in the riots that began
early this month, no doubt encouraged by public protests in Tunisia
that forced its president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali to flee on January 14.

The Algerian
government tried to respond by reducing the prices of oil, sugar and
other basic necessities, and promising continued subsidies. Still the
people remain angry and in the past two weeks, almost 10 martyrs have
set themselves on fire.

This happens to be
the second time this year that ordinary Algerians are taking their
destinies into their hands. In January, at least five people were
killed and 1000 arrested as citizens took to the streets. Now the
February 12 Revolution – and the overflowing police cells – make an
eloquent statement: when a people decide that they have had it, there
are not enough army tankers to hold back the momentum.

Without a doubt,
what is happening is a people-power uprising that comes from years and
years of sitting down and taking it. As one of the protest leaders
noted, “Algerians want their voices to be heard too. They want
democratic change.” Right now, the rally has been disbanded and a
surface calm has returned to the country’s capital, but as another
protest leader told the media, in an ominous sign to dictators all over
the continent: “The fear is now gone,” he said.

Algeria’s
president should pay attention to these words. If not, he will soon
find out what Mr. Mubarak did too little too late – that the change
this time, is inevitable. Resistance is futile.

When I was a young
man in Cairo, we voiced our political views in whispers, if at all, and
only to friends we could trust. We lived in an atmosphere of fear and
repression. As far back as I can remember, I felt outrage as I
witnessed the misery of Egyptians struggling to put food on the table,
keep a roof over their heads and get medical care.

Half a century
later, the freedoms of the Egyptian people remain largely denied.
Egypt, the land of the Library of Alexandria, of a culture that
contributed groundbreaking advances in mathematics, medicine and
science, has fallen far behind. More than 40 percent of our people live
on less than $2 per day. Nearly 30 percent are illiterate, and Egypt is
on the list of failed states.

Under the three
decades of Hosni Mubarak’s rule, Egyptian society has lived under a
draconian “emergency law” that strips people of their most basic
rights, including freedom of association and of assembly, and has
imprisoned tens of thousands of political dissidents. While this
Orwellian regime has been valued by some of Egypt’s Western allies as
“stable,” providing, among other assets, a convenient location for
rendition, it has been in reality a ticking bomb and a vehicle for
radicalism.

But one aspect of
Egyptian society has changed in recent years. Young Egyptians, gazing
through the windows of the Internet, have gained a keener sense than
many of their elders of the freedoms and opportunities they lack. They
have found in social media a way to interact and share ideas,
bypassing, in virtual space, the restrictions placed on physical
freedom of assembly.

The world has
witnessed their courage and determination in recent weeks, but
democracy is not a cause that first occurred to them on January 25.
Propelled by a passionate belief in democratic ideals and the yearning
for a better future, they have long been mobilising and laying the
groundwork for change that they view as inevitable.

The tipping point
came with the Tunisian revolution, which sent a powerful psychological
message: “Yes, we can.” These young leaders are the future of Egypt.
They are too intelligent, too aware of what is at stake, too weary of
promises long unfulfilled, to settle for anything less than the
departure of the old regime. I am humbled by their bravery and resolve.

Many, particularly
in the West, have bought the Mubarak regime’s fiction that a democratic
Egypt will turn into chaos or a religious state, abrogate the fragile
peace with Israel and become hostile to the West. But the people of
Egypt – the grandmothers in veils who have dared to share Tahrir Square
with army tanks, the jubilant young people who have risked their lives
for their first taste of these new freedoms – are not so easily fooled.

The United States
and its allies have spent the better part of the last decade, at a cost
of hundreds of billions of dollars and countless lives, fighting wars
to establish democracy in Iraq and Afghanistan. Now that the youth of
Cairo, armed with nothing but Facebook and the power of their
convictions, have drawn millions into the street to demand a true
Egyptian democracy, it would be absurd to continue to tacitly endorse
the rule of a regime that has lost its own people’s trust.

What needs to
happen instead is a peaceful and orderly transition of power, to
channel the revolutionary fervour into concrete steps for a new Egypt
based on freedom and social justice. The new leaders will have to
guarantee the rights of all Egyptians. They will need to dissolve the
current parliament, no longer remotely representative of the people.
They will also need to abolish the constitution, which has become an
instrument of repression, and replace it with a provisional
Constitution, a three-person presidential council and a transitional
government of national unity.

The presidential
council should include a representative of the military, embodying the
sharing of power needed to ensure continuity and stability during this
critical transition. The job of the presidential council and the
interim government during this period should be to set in motion the
process that will turn Egypt into a free and democratic society. This
includes drafting a democratic constitution to be put to a referendum,
and preparing for free and fair presidential and parliamentary
elections within one year.

We are at the dawn
of a new Egypt. A free and democratic society, at peace with itself and
with its neighbours, will be a bulwark of stability in the Middle East
and a worthy partner in the international community. The rebirth of
Egypt represents the hope of a new era in which Arab society, Muslim
culture and the Middle East are no longer viewed through the lens of
war and radicalism, but as contributors to the forward march of
humanity, modernised by advanced science and technology, enriched by
our diversity of art and culture and united by shared universal values.

We have nothing to fear but the shadow of a repressive past.

Mohamed El Baradei is a Nobel Peace laureate and former director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency

© 2011 The New York Times

The philosopher
Aristotle once opined that youth is a form of ‘permanent intoxication’.
Youth knows everything and is capable of everything.

In the early
seventies I sauntered into Mada Hills, a missionary boarding school in
the pleasant meadows of the ancient savannah that makes up the
heartland of our country. The civil war had ended. Learning came very
easily to us. We took on the best of our rivals in sports and
inter-schools debates. Love letters were sometimes dipped in talcum
powder – most of it silly and innocent. The white missionary teachers
gave us the best education any child could ever ask.

University was
another three years of fun. Bongos Ikwue, Christie Essien and Kris
Okotie were the reigning musical idols. When the annual milk round
arrived in our final year, a friend and I went off to play tennis. The
civil service, we believed, was for those who did not have what it took
to become scholars. Banking was for the lower orders. Ayodele Awojobi
in engineering, Ojetunji Aboyade in economics, Jibril Aminu in
medicine, Iya Abubakar in mathematics, Wole Soyinka in literature and
B. J. Dudley in political science were, for us, the ideals of the New
Man. We had unwavering faith in our own abilities and in Nigeria’s
manifest destiny as a great nation.

We were the
generation that came after what Soyinka has termed the Penkelemes Years
— the fruits of the Holy Spirit. Every graduate worth his or her salt
was literally guaranteed a job. Outside our country, nobody ever
questioned the quality of a Nigerian degree certificate.

And then the
barbarians arrived at the gates. It started with Shehu Shagari. By
August 1985, Nigeria’s death knell had been sealed.

A nation’s hope
lies in its youths. The current seismic tremor blazing through the
Middle East has its origins and indeed its inspiration, in the youth.
Yesterday it was Tunisia; today it is Egypt. Tahrir Square in the heart
of Cairo has become the symbol and battleground of youth resistance
against the Last Pharaoh. We also hear of rumblings in Yemen, Algeria
and Jordan.

Statistics released
by the ILO in January paint a bleak picture for the Middle East and
North Africa (the MENA countries), where the youths make up 60 percent
of the population. Over 40 percent of working adults live on less than
US$2 per day, with 24 percent of youths without gainful employment. In
Jordan and Algeria the figures stand at 30 and 40 percent respectively.

The story of
Muhammad Bouazizi (March 29, 1984 – January 4, 2011), who has become
the symbol of the Jasmine Revolution in Tunisia, is not untypical.

Born in Sidi
Bouzid, a suburb of Tunis, he grew up in a humble home and was bright
enough to study computer science at university. His father died and
left him with the responsibility of looking after his ailing mother and
five siblings.

Jobs were nowhere
to come by. He decided to set up a stall to sell fruits and vegetables.
A police woman accosted him for failing to produce a permit. He
mentioned his dead father and poor family. The police woman replied
with slaps across his face and insults to his dead father. The poor
young man could not take it. His complaint having fallen on deaf ears,
he set himself ablaze. The rest, as they say, is history.

Sooner or later,
what US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton describes as ‘the perfect
storm’ will come to our shores unless we do something drastic about the
abysmal situation of our youths. We have succeeded in creating in the
last two decades a truly monstrous anti-civilisation where the youths
have had no option but to turn to cultism, prostitution, drugs and
violent crime. With youth unemployment hovering at nearly 60 percent,
we are living on a time bomb.

These problems are
no doubt the results of decades of misguided policies purveyed by
cruel, backward tyrants. I have no illusions that they can be resolved
with a magic wand. But we have to start today.

We must overhaul
agencies such as NDE, NAPEP and SMEDAN so that they give real value for
money and address the needs of the youth for gainful and productive
employment.

The Greek
philosopher Diogenes wisely noted that “the foundation of every state
is the education of its youth”. We have to re-examine our education
system and the tragic semi-literates that the system is producing these
days. A situation where the humanities are the most popular courses can
only lead to disaster.

A recent global
survey put Nigeria at number 77 out of 80 countries in the ratio of
scientists/engineers to population. India today has more scientists and
engineers than the whole of the EU put together. The Chinese churn out
some 700,000 scientists and engineers per annum. We cannot offer our
youth a future unless we turn resolutely in the direction of science,
technology, skills and vocational training.

Linked to this is
the need for a concerted national industrialisation strategy that will
boost jobs and spur growth while ensuring long-term sustainable
development. It requires nothing less than the reinvention of Nigeria.

“Look at him!” the
emcee at celebrations to mark 25 years in power for Ugandan President
Yoweri Museveni shouts into a mic. “Look at him! He is very fit!” The
former rebel decked out in his usual – and fairly unique – floppy hat
and suit combo ambles down a grass slope and waves cheerily to his
supporters.

“Look!” she shouts
again. “You can even see from the way he is walking!” Moments later, a
pick-up truck draws alongside the 66-year-old and he slowly clambers up
onto the back to continue saluting the crowds.

“Oh…” she pauses for a moment before quickly gathering herself.

“He is in a car
now!” she booms. “That is the modern way! He needs that vantage point
to see you. He is a kind-hearted man who wants to see you!” A nice bit
of quick-thinking there from one of the party faithful all too aware
the Ugandan opposition wants to portray the famously shrewd operator as
past it.

That shrewd
operating was plain to see, as “Sevo” was careful not to make the bash
about himself – rather it was about Uganda and its progress.

Reading out a list
of 551 war heroes and parroting statistics about growth and exports
didn’t exactly make for a great party but it got the message across: I
care about the people. I rely on heroic Ugandans. I have made things
better.

Few Ugandans would
deny that. The country Museveni took hold of in 1986 decked out in his
fatigues had become something of a sorry husk after years of civil war.
He quickly made it stable, got it growing convincingly and became an
example for other African leaders – the oft mentioned 90s “new breed”.

But, for many in the country and outside, something’s gone wrong.

And it hinges on one of his most famous quotes.

“The problem of
Africa in general and Uganda in particular is not the people but
leaders who want to overstay in power,” he said when he took the helm A
quarter of a century later, he’s still there.

As he spoke about a new road at his celebration, a Ugandan leaned to me:

“120kms of road is what he’s boasting about after 25 years! Big deal,” he said.

That opinion was
reflected to some extent on radio phone-in shows and on social
networking site, Twitter, as the country tried to make sense of his
tenure.

A man identifying
himself as Jeff called into a radio show and said: “The liberators have
grown fat. And the people they liberated have grown skinny.” That
perception, right or wrong, that Museveni and the ruling National
Resistance Movement have been feeding at the trough, is particularly
damaging and anger is growing, an anger that was reflected on the
radio, on the TV and in Kampala’s bars.

On Twitter some
were equally scathing, especially after I tweeted from the party that
Museveni had said, “We have recovered. We are now going to take off.”
“Huh!” journalist Evelyn Lirri replied. “It’s taken 25 years to
recover. We might need another 20 to take off.” Alan Kasujja, a radio
host, tweeted that there was good and bad to the legacy.

There were others,
though, who had nothing but praise for Museveni and were unconvinced
that any of the opposition leaders could do better – an opinion
seemingly shared by the U.S. as revealed in a cable obtained by
WikiLeaks.

The opposition is
“fractured and politically immature,” the dispatch said. “It is by no
means clear (they) would improve governance in Uganda in any way.” For
some, despite the marathon stint in power, Museveni is still the
country’s best bet.

So what do you think? Is he still fit for power? Or is it time he took a rest?

REUTERS

If there is any
debate that Nigerians should be glad to have, it’s about the economy.
With the crippling poverty and scarcity that average Nigerians daily
face, it is in fact a wonder that this issue is not being examined more
widely.

The economy was
certainly a subject of the campaign of former vice president, Atiku
Abubakar, before he decided to make zoning the premise of his
candidacy. But while he maintained his focus on the economy, informed
Nigerians had cause to pay attention – and apparently, so did the
Nigerian government, as its minister for finance, Olusegun Aganga,
engaged in a sustained war of words with the Atiku team.

Mr. Abubakar
criticised this government’s handling of the economy, questioning the
non-implementation of budgets, the disappearance of excess crude
account monies (even at a time when oil prices were far above the
benchmark), the foreign reserves being depleted so badly that our
status with rating agencies began to drop and the wisdom government
that premised its calculations on making debt a benchmark.

Faced with a
minister of finance with impressive educational and professional
experience as Mr. Aganga these were not easy questions for many
Nigerians to ask. But Mr. Abubakar effectively made it clear that as
far as he could tell there was no viable strategy on the economy being
implemented.

While it is
possible to chalk up all of that hot air to the usual back-and-forth of
politicians focused only on winning elections, Mr. Abubakar’s campaign
for his party’s presidential nomination is over, he lost, but the same
questions are still being asked by the likes of Adamu Ciroma, himself a
former Minister of Finance and Chukwuma Soludo erstwhile governor of
the Central Bank.

In an open letter
to Mr. Aganga challenging the minister to a debate on the economy –
Soludo raised a long line of issues. He criticized the government for
its inability to evolve a “sensible debt strategy” flaying the
administration’s debt-to-DGP ratio as well as the constant debt
accumulation. Pointing out what he referred to as “ignorance” in the
ministry’s aping of the models of countries like the United States, the
United Kingdom and others in Europe while Nigeria is not in a
recession, he recalled that Mr. Aganga assumed office with an oil price
benchmark of about $75 per barrel and external reserves of about
$42billion, but has so far lost about $10billion in foreign reserves at
a time of unprecedented export boom, even with oil prices now over $90
per barrel.

Mr. Soludo also
questioned the Eurobond issued by Nigeria, noting that the joy over
oversubscription is misplaced considering the attractive returns
foreigners were offered, while referring to a London Financial Times
report on Nigeria in January that questioned the economic management
skill of this administration.

Unfortunately, the
minister for finance had no response beyond pointing to the amount of
money lost by investors in the capital market while Mr. Soludo was in
office and the millions now being used to bail banks out under the
Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria as well as accusing Mr. Soludo
of misrepresentation.

Unfortunately,
while we can take a safe bet that none of Mr. Soludo’s latest
statements are altruistic (especially considering the rot his successor
met, as well as the many questions he himself left unanswered in his
time), the minister’s response will not suffice. The questions asked
demand satisfactory answers.

For what it is
worth, Messrs Abubakar, Soludo and others have found an easy target in
the Jonathan administration’s economic competence. Whatever the
intentions of the accusers, when ordinary Nigerians take a look at the
handling of the nation’s debt profile, reserves, those telling ratings,
the free fall with the banks and the stock exchange and above all, that
most telling indicator: the fact that, over the past year, nothing has
really changed in the conditions of living, then it becomes apparent
that someone somewhere has failed. Why, and what exactly is going on?

Aggrieved
opposition politicians might not deserve an answer to those questions,
but the generality of the Nigerian public does. And we are still
waiting.

With the range of investment options
available for the individual investor, it can be difficult to determine
which investment is right for you. With stock markets up one day and
down the next, many investors face the dilemma of whether to invest
directly in stocks or to use mutual funds as their investment tool. In
order to decide which approach best meets your needs, it is important
to consider some of the pros and cons of each of them.
Clearly, the answer will vary from
person to person, depending on such factors as: How much risk you are
comfortable with, how much money you have to invest, how knowledgeable
you are about financial matters, and how much time and effort you are
willing and able to devote to this task. Each approach to investing has
advantages and disadvantages. Here are some questions you should ask
yourself to help you make the assessment.

Do you have the knowledge, time or inclination to build your portfolio and monitor your investments yourself?

Mutual funds are managed by experienced
professionals who are well acquainted with the dangers and
opportunities that come with investing. They will make the day-to-day
buy and sell decisions about which stocks, bonds, or other securities
to invest in, thus relieving the investor of that responsibility. As
with all investments, mutual funds will not perform to expectations all
the time. To have the best chance of success, it is important to select
a fund manager with a quality management team and a good track record,
but even then, only a few funds will consistently outperform the market.
If you decide to buy stocks on your
own, you will have more control over what you are investing. But as you
will also have to devote more time and attention to your investments,
it is important to make a realistic assessment of your ability to
handle that responsibility.

It will take time and effort to
familiarise yourself with the basics of stock investing. You should
have a sense of how to analyse a company to be able to arrive at your
own independent judgment of its value and how that compares to its
current market price. You should certainly be prepared to spend time
reviewing your portfolio periodically and if you are a new investor or
not disposed to put in that amount of time, and even more during
periods of volatility, then you are better off in funds, which are very
convenient and generally require less attention. The alternative is to
manage your own portfolio of individual stocks and bonds. If you do not
have the knowledge, experience or inclination, then this may not be a
good idea.
It is very tempting to listen to all
the rumours and noise out there and appear to be selecting stocks. If
you are going to buy based on a friend’s hunch about which are the
“best” stocks and which are the ones to avoid, and substitute their
judgment for yours, then you are probably better off sticking to mutual
funds.

Do you have enough money to be able to create a diversified portfolio?

How much do you have to invest? Mutual
funds offer a clear opportunity for smaller investors who do not have a
lot of money to invest. In Nigeria, there are several funds that offer
low initial investments of N10, 000. If you want to build a reasonably
diversified portfolio of individual stocks on the other hand, you will
usually require a much larger sum.
Mutual funds can reach a wider
diversification than can be reached by individual stocks. Dividing up
your funds among a few stocks is not usually enough to cushion you
against a severe market downturn. By pooling several stocks as an
equity fund does, the risk of loss in investing is reduced. If one
company or sector performs badly, it tends to be balanced by other
companies that may be performing better. By owning a wide variety of
stocks across various sectors, you reduce your risk of loss.

There are
different types of mutual funds to choose from including money market
funds, bond funds and equity funds to suit different objectives. It is
important to note however, that individual stocks tend to have a
greater upside potential than most mutual funds; as with all investing,
you trade some risk for greater potential reward.
Mutual funds are considered to be among
the most liquid investments. As shares in a mutual fund can be bought
and sold any business day, it is easy for investors to have access to
their money, as the fund is always available to buy its own shares.
When you invest in individual stocks, you have to wait for a broker to
find a buyer for your shares; this could take several days or longer
particularly if the stock is not widely traded.

Mutual funds and stocks?

For those who would rather let
professionals handle things on their behalf, mutual funds are the
natural choice. At the other end of the spectrum are those who may want
a greater level of participation with their investing. For this group,
stocks will be the more attractive alternative. You do not have to
narrow down your choice to one or the other; indeed investing in a mix
of both mutual funds and individual stocks appears to be a good
compromise for the majority of investors. The over arching
consideration must be to adopt a long-term investment strategy and to
ensure that a diversified portfolio is built with clear financial goals
and objectives in mind.

Write to personalfinance@234next.com with your questions and comments. We would love to hear from you. All letters will be considered for publication, and if selected, may be edited.

Ikhide Ikheloa