What is going on everybody, Estas here. Welcome back to another video. So in today's video, we're going to be talking about the top couple of stocks and ETFs that I'm watching and looking to trade heading into the fourth week of June in 2019, as well as going over a couple of stocks and ETFs that you guys ended up calling out either on Friday's video in the comments section or in the call-out section in our Discord group chat. And if you did call out a stock, I really do appreciate it. I will be getting to it in this video. But before we do get into the topics of today's video for everybody out there that finds value in these videos, you enjoy the content that I'm putting up here on YouTube, feel free to go down below and hit that like button. It really supports me and supports the channel in general. And if you actually want to be further connected with our community, the StriveSmart community, there are two links down below in the description box, one of them being the Discord group chat and the other one being the Facebook group. I guarantee you guys will find a ton of value in those two communities.  So let's just get into it, guys. Without further ado, let's talk about what the S&P did very quickly last week, going over here to the five-day five-minute chart. You guys can see based on the past week's performance, the S&P has been continuing the uptrend that it's been on pretty much ever since the beginning of June in 2019. You all should know by now that the month of May was a big sell-off month, and then we got the news of a potential rate cut, and that sent the markets flying, right? We hit a bottom at about 27.30, and we actually hit an all-time high this past Friday at about 29.64. And if we go back to that five-day five-minute chart, you guys can see we started off the week at about 28.87, ended up hitting again that all-time high at about 28.64. And you can see the consolidation of the S&P 500 pretty much for the rest of the day, ever since we did hit, or rather after we hit that all-time high. We've been consolidating on the 29.50 level, which if we go back to the 184-hour chart, notice how that was actually the previous all-time high that we hit back in April of 2019 towards the end of the April month. We hit that high. That's when we sold off for the month of May. And now we're pretty much at that level again, and we're holding that level of the old resistance as a new support. And another thing I want to mention here, guys, is the S&P, and honestly the whole market or all the markets in general, the NASDAQ and the Dow, they're pretty overbought in terms of the RSI indicator. And for those of you guys who don't know, the RSI indicator is this indicator that you see right down here. The 30 threshold is very oversold. If this line was down here, that means the S&P would be very oversold. And since it's up at the 70 level and it's above the 70 level, that means it's extremely, extremely overbought. So that's kind of a worrisome factor for me. But with the way the market has been performing lately, the way it's just been running up crazily, I wouldn't be surprised if we did end up hitting a 3000 S&P 500 here in the next couple of weeks, especially if we do actually get a rate cut in July, which a bunch of people think is going to happen. So that's kind of the rundown right now on the S&P 500 guys, the 500 largest publicly traded U.S. companies. Let's say we start to sell off from here, we may be testing the 2915 level. If we break that, we may be going at 2900 flat. And from there, if we break that level, 2885 is going to be a level that I'm going to be keeping an eye on. But until we do get that confirming factor of us breaking down, I don't really think we're going to be hitting those levels quite yet. We need to just see how the market is performing. And actually, you guys can see the futures right now, they opened up about an hour ago. You guys can see the S&P future is up $4.75 right now. The NASDAQ is up about $16.75. And the Dow Jones Industrial Average is up around $24. So the major markets, the Dow, S&P, NASDAQ, the futures right now, they're all up. And if this continues into tomorrow's session, into tomorrow's pre-market session, who knows, guys, that could signal a green day for tomorrow, for at least the beginning of tomorrow in the stock market. So let's just get into the stocks, the ETFs that I'm personally watching now, now that we got that little update out of the way. And I actually talked about some of these in Friday's video towards the end of the video. But if you guys didn't catch that, I'm going to be going over those stocks and some other ones as well right now. So the first one that I'm watching is INTC, also known as Intel Corporation. So Intel Corporation, this stock has been hammered over the past couple of months. I don't know if it was due to the earnings report. I'm assuming it was because we can see we peaked at $59.59 back in the middle of April. And from there, we tanked all the way down to $44 in the matter of one month. And you can see the earnings report. I think it probably was due to the earnings report, you know, the earnings report after we saw that we tanked, we hit the bottom at about $44, where we got a triple bottom. And it was actually a pretty good support from back in what month was this guys, let me take a look for you back in the middle towards the end of October in 2018, we got the bottom at about $42 before making that run up to nearly $60. We sold off, we got the triple bottom. And from there, guys, a really good confirming uptrend pattern that we saw was the break out of the 50 SMA here. We saw once we broke out of the 50 SMA, we started to hold that level as a support, which was a very good, another very good confirming sign. And from there, guys, we started to, again, make higher lows and higher highs until we broke out of the 180 SMA a couple of days ago, which was actually the confirming factor that I was personally waiting for to put money into INTC. I have yet to actually buy INTC, but I am watching it due to this pattern that we are seeing right now, as well as the bullish cross that is starting to form here, which is a 50 SMA, the 50 SMA crossing above the 180 SMA. And for those of you guys that don't know what a bullish cross is, it's pretty much signifying a potential bullish bullish run here, right? The moving averages, we use those to identify trends, bearish and bullish trends. Notice how the 50 SMA crossed below the 180 SMA here back in the beginning of May. And from there, we saw a lot of blood, right? We saw a lot of red. And now we're seeing the 50 SMA cross above the 180 SMA. So this can be the signal that we need on a technical basis for the INTC stock here to continue its run. So I'm really liking it right now. Honestly, guys, where we are at this point, we're right near the 50 SMA. So this could be a pop zone right now. We need to see, in my opinion, a $48 pop into the $48 level, maybe $48.50, before potentially what I'm looking for, before potentially taking a position. And that's honestly going to break us out of this resistance from the past couple of days. And it's going to be pushing us to that high or high that we need to see for the continuation of the uptrend. And from there, the next resistance I'm looking at here, we can probably trade this between $48.50 to about $50. Notice how over the past 180 days, which is this time frame chart that I'm looking at, the $50 price point has been a strong resistance. Notice how here, $49.50 to $50, we got topped off here once, twice, three times, four times, five times here before we broke out of it. So this is a very strong resistance nonetheless. So that is what I'm looking for, a bounce on the 50 SMA, which we're already doing. And if we break out of 50, we may be going at $50.50, maybe $52, those are the next resistance levels. But INTC right now, it's looking very good on a reversal pattern here. So another one that I'm watching is 3M Company, which is kind of in the same pattern as INTC. It's been battered down a lot over the past couple of months. 3M has kind of been in a situation where their income or their revenue, their top line, has been growing a lot over the past couple of years. And that has really put pressure honestly on the stock here over the past couple of months, as well as the China, the China trade war, the China trade tariffs. This has a lot of pressure on 3M as well, because a lot of their sales actually do come from China, I believe like 20, 30% of their sales or something like that. So once we got that trade, the tariffs, the trade war tension a couple of months back, two, three months back, that dropped the stock from 220 all the way down to 159. And very similar to INTC, this was being rejected by the 50 SMA. Now we're actually breaking out of it, or we did a couple of weeks ago. And now we're holding it as a new support. We broke out of the 166 level, which is very nice. That was a resistance. We're holding that or we did bounce on it as a new support. Very, very nice. And we pushed up to a higher high here a couple of days ago, pretty much this whole past week, if we go to the five day five minute, you know, we hit 166. And we launched off of that, and then we hit a high of 174. And we're maintaining that 180 SMA support very nicely. But the thing is here, guys, is we're out of resistance on the 184 hour chart under this 180 SMA. So ideally here, I would want to see a break out of that level, I would want to see a bullish cross. And I would want to see a break into, I would say the 176, 177 before considering a position. And at that point, honestly, guys, you know, 3M might be a bit overbought because it's already overbought at this level. So if we popped up a bit more, that would put it at an even more overbought status. So I'm thinking now, you know, we might actually get rejected by the 180 SMA, we may retest that 50 SMA at about $170. And from there, if we hold it and continue the run, that could be a good entry, maybe at 170, 171, 172, all the way up to maybe 178, 180. That's what I'm personally watching here on 3M. And one warning sign about 3M, again, if the China trade war, the tariff situation gets worse, this can have a lot more pressure on 3M in the next couple of months. So be mindful of that. You don't want to get caught up in a trade here where, you know, you get in at 170, and then all of a sudden we get some tweets from Trump or whatever, and it sends the stock down, you know, be careful with that, keep a tight stop loss. That's at least what I'm personally doing. If I do get into 3M. So Disney is another one, guys, I talked about this one on Friday. Disney right now has hit a resistance at about 143, 144-ish. This was from back in the towards the end of April in 2019. You guys can see we hit that level again on the 14th of June, got pushed down from there, hit it again on the 18th of June, got pushed down. And we actually just hit it again this past week, where we got hit and pushed down again. But the thing is, we're still holding this trend from the past couple of weeks slash months here on Disney, as you guys can see from this trend line here. And we're also still holding that 50SMA as a support, which gives me reason to believe that the uptrend is still intact. Until we break downwards, probably down into the 130s, maybe 120s again, you know, Disney's uptrend is still intact. And I'm viewing this as a potential dip by until the technicals tell me otherwise, right? So we're seeing that now, this could be a nice position here, especially if we sell off and maybe retest that 50SMA, maybe at 139, that'll bring the R side down a bit to a healthier level. That can be a nice entry point. But honestly, guys, there are other stocks and ETFs out there that offer a lot more potential in my opinion. But I still figured I'd throw in Disney in the list, because it's still one that I'm definitely watching. I'm definitely looking to trade this, especially leading up to the release of their streaming service here in a couple of months. I think a lot more hype is going to build up into Disney. And honestly, guys, I've mentioned this in the past couple of videos, once that streaming service does release, I think Disney might actually start to cool off because we got the price news of what the streaming service was going to be, which shot the stock up and pumped a lot of hype into the stock. And typically, when there's a big event in a particular company and they release whatever that service or product is, the stock typically not always, but sometimes it does cool off afterwards as that hype starts to fizzle down if that makes any sense. So Disney, D-I-S, definitely watching that one. And AMD is another one that I'm watching here, Advanced Micro Devices. This one hit, I think that's an all-time high at about $34.30. Yup, it was an all-time high. We actually broke their resistance very briefly from back in September of 2018. And if we go to here, the 184-hour chart, you guys can see that we sold off pretty aggressively. We broke the $30 level, but we're still holding this 50 or rather the 180SMA support, which has been a support over the past couple of months of trading here pretty much since the beginning of 2019. So I'm thinking here, guys, if we do end up holding the 180SMA, we do end up holding this 29-old resistance as a new support. This could be a good entry on AMD, especially since the RSI is very, very oversold. But one thing to be mindful of is a lot of these semiconductor stocks right now are under pressure. We saw Broadcom, their guidance for the next year, it's pretty negative. And this actually dumped a lot of the semi stocks. You guys can see AMD has been tanking over the past couple of trading days due to this.  I think Micron, if we go to Micron very quickly, Micron did very poorly when that news came out. And it's honestly been doing poorly for the past couple of months.   And it is at a level where it's been bouncing over the past couple of months. So I definitely think it's worth watching despite semi stocks being under pressure as of right now. So those are four stocks that I'm watching. A subscriber actually commented JD, JD.com. For those of you guys that don't know, this is known as the Amazon of China, right? You know, Alibaba is also known as the Amazon of China. But a lot of people view JD.com as that as well. And we notice how, you know, obviously the Chinese stocks have been under pressure just like some of these American companies due to the tariff situation with China. We peaked at about $31 here. We started to sell off down to about $25. And that was actually a pretty big downside move there. I think this was in the beginning of April, I'm assuming, right? Yeah, beginning of April, yep, from $31 down to about $25. That was about a 20% drop. And from there, guys, we've been actually trending up right over the past couple of trading weeks here since the beginning of June, we hit the 25 level, right? We broke out of the 50 SMA resistance. Now we're holding it as a new support, which is very nice. Higher lows and higher highs, which is nice for an uptrend pattern as well. We're breaking out of this 180 SMA resistance now. But one thing I'm looking at, guys, is take a look at that trend line that I just drew, right? $31, you know, is a high. The next high is $30.95. And notice how that's a lower high from the previous. The next high is at about $30.50, which is a lower high from the previous. And now we're at a point at the resistance of this channel where we've been rejected, or rather the resistance of this trend line where we've been rejected over the past couple of trading weeks and months. So this is a point in time where I think if we do this, what I just showed you guys on this trend line, you know, if we break out of the resistance and into, let's say, the $30 level, that's a huge bullish breakout on JD.com. And notice how we talked about the moving averages, the bullish crosses when the 50 SMA is crossing above the 180 SMA. Well, what's going on here, guys? Well, the 180 SMA is about to be crossed above by the 50 SMA. We're noticing how there's about to be a bullish cross here. So this could be a play, especially if we break into the $29.50, $30 level, if we break out of this top line here, this top level of resistance. But again, be very, very careful, guys, because if we even get a single tweet, some news that the tariff situation, there's no trade war in sight, this can hit these stocks, 3M included, very, very heavily.  So JD, I'm watching it, but I'm being very cautious due to what I just said. And it's kind of overbought at this point, but we could break out if we do end up getting out of that level, guys. So GOOS is another stock that was called out. And we can see here, I'm not too sure what went down with their earnings report, but I'm assuming it wasn't the best because the stock went from $48 all the way down to $31, guys. That's a drop of about 32%. So in my opinion, when you see a stock dropping 32% after an earnings report, you have to understand that that earnings report was probably not the best. And we notice how we ended up bottoming out at about $31, pretty strong support at that level. And now we're starting to break back into above rather this 50 simple moving average. Notice how we're starting to hold that level as a new support and we're starting to potentially test this 180SMA here in the next couple of weeks if the stock starts to break into the $40 level. But one thing, especially with companies that report bad earnings report that I'm mindful of is the narrative around that company, right? I don't know what the narrative is around GOOS, but if the narrative around GOOS is poor after that earnings report, this can send the stock down even further. We may be hitting this 180SMA before getting rejected again. But on the short term, if we do end up filling this gap, this could be a nice play. But if the narrative is negative due to that earnings report, again, we may be selling off from there. We've seen this time and time again, the narrative is super important. We've seen Tesla stock is a perfect example of this, right? And I've talked about this a lot on the channel. Tesla stock is a company that has been hammered over the past couple of months, mostly due to, obviously, you know, they're unprofitable, right? Their production numbers were lacking. And also, the narrative surrounding the company is very, very negative. Analysts hate Tesla. The media, I feel like, hates Tesla. And this has been dropping the stock like crazy over the past couple of months. Take a look, literally from 380 all the way down to 176, guys, I can't even believe it. That's like 55% of a drop there. And now we're noticing finally some life in Tesla. But I'm still being very, very cautious because they still haven't reported a good earnings report. The narrative is still negative. And the production numbers, we don't know what they are right now. So let's say, you know, they report a great earnings report, the next quarter, let's say they turn a profit, let's say their production numbers are amazing. You know, this could be the shift in the narrative that we need to see before Tesla finally starts to see the light of day again, before it finally starts to see a breakout. But as of now, you know, it's looking decent. We're looking like we're holding that 180 SMA. But again, I'm not fully convinced that we're going to pop up quite yet. But hey, who knows, I can be 100% wrong. But I'm just being very, very cautious here with Tesla. So those are just a couple of stocks I'm watching 3M, Disney, you know, Intel, AMD, Tesla, JD.com, Goose, those are just a couple here. And of course, just like every single week, guys, you know, I mentioned these every single week. So a lot of you guys probably already know them. But the market ETFs here, TQQQ, you know, SQQQQ, these are ETFs that I'm watching that trade on the NASDAQ and their inverse leveraged ETFs, they go up three times what the NASDAQ is going down, right? Or let me reiterate that for you guys, I don't want to confuse you all the SQQQ ETF goes up three times what the NASDAQ is going down. So let's say, for example, the NASDAQ sells off 2% one day, SQQQQ is going to be going up 6%, right?  So this could be a play if the markets in particular the NASDAQ see a sell off in the next week, right? But on the flip side, TQQQ, this is one that follows the NASDAQ. And let's say the NASDAQ goes up 2% in a day, the TQQQ ETF is going to be up 6%. It's a 3x leveraged ETF, right? And I get this question a lot, guys, I get this question a lot. Should I hold these as a long term investment, guys? And me personally, I will never ever do that because the objective of these is to day trade them. You can literally go on the website and literally read that. These are not meant to be long term holds due to the decay of them. They're literally meant to be day tradable. Maybe you can hold them for a couple of days due to the extreme volatility. But over time, they decay and you will just lose your butt if you hold these for a year or two years due to that decay. And I advise you guys read up into that. It's actually pretty interesting how those work. I could do a whole video on that. I don't want to mention it and talk about it now because this video will be 45 minutes long and I don't want to do that. But read up into the decay and these inverse leveraged ETFs, you'll be fascinated about how it works. So those are two that I'm always watching, right? SPXS and SPXL, these two are the same as TQQQ and SQQQQ, but they trade on the S&P 500, so SPXS is going up three times what the S&P is going down. So let's say the S&P goes down 2% one day, this will be up 6%. Let's say the SPX goes up 2%, SPXL is going to be up 6%. So those are two that I'm watching pretty much every single week here trading in the stock market. We've noticed how gold, I've been talking about gold a lot, gold's been going on a ridiculous run over these past couple of weeks as well. We hit $1415, now you guys can see we're actually up $8 right now, up 0.6%. So excuse me, gold will be a pretty interesting thing to watch for this upcoming week and Jnug, in particular, which is an ETF that goes up rather whenever gold is going up at a 3x rate. Notice how Jnug's a bit overbought now, so ideally I'd like to see a pullback, maybe back down to $1050, maybe $1075. I'm not sure if we'll get that because gold has been extremely hot, but if we do get that, I think that'll be a very juicy entry point. But let's say we see gold running up until the $1415, level $1420, you know, at that point Jnug will maybe still be a good play, although it's overbought due to how hot gold is, right? It's kind of at this point where technicals don't even matter anymore with Jnug and gold, they just continue to run, although they're overbought. And sometimes that's how it is, and that's kind of how I'm viewing the markets right now. They're continuing to run, although they're overbought, although they're overextended, it seems like the technicals don't even matter at this point, right? Crude oil is another one that I'm watching in particular UWT, and this kind of fits the same thing as gold in the markets in general. It's been overbought, but it continues to run.  And at this point, we're breaking out of the 180SMA. We're at a resistance from a couple of months ago back in February at about $5750 to $58, where I think if we break this level and maybe we retest it as a new support, we may be filling the gap back up to $60. And at that point, if we do do that, UWT, which goes up whenever crude oil is going up at a 3x rate, this is going to be an awesome play. And take a look, it's overbought, guys, but again, these have just been disregarding the technicals. They just don't care at this point. But if it does cool off, that's going to offer us a bit bigger of a margin of profit. But let's say it continues to run, it breaks out of the 180SMA, that can be a big breakout play there. We're noticing how natural gas right now has been one of those that have been dropping day after day after day. Literally, in this month alone, it's gone from $260 down to about $215. And at this point, we're very oversold. And maybe we see a little run back up to that 50SMA resistance, kind of like we saw back in the beginning. On the 6th of June, we kind of saw a little run from $233 back up to $241. If we see something similar like that, maybe from $220 up to, let's say, $230 before retesting that 50SMA resistance, you guys at that point, UGAZ, which goes up whenever natural gas goes up, this can be a very nice bounce back play. And I'm personally watching it. And the beauty of leveraged ETFs, guys, if you play them right, you can profit on the upside and the downside. Let's say I wanted to play this push up. Let's say it plays out perfectly to my plan, which it doesn't always do that. Honestly, guys, sometimes it never does that. But let's say it does, sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't. But let's say we start to pop up to $230, we can profit on the upside on UGAZ. And let's say we start to get overbought on the RSI. Let's say we start to get rejected there. We can profit on the downside if we continue the downwards push by flipping our money into DGAZ, DGAZ, which goes up whenever natural gas is selling off. And this has been absolutely on fire, guys. Take a look. From $122 in the beginning of June, all the way to nearly $205. That's almost a double in the matter of two, three weeks, which is absolutely crazy. So those are just a couple of ETFs and stocks that I'm personally watching this week, guys. If you enjoyed this video, go down below and hit that like button again. It really supports me and supports the channel in general. Leave a comment down below. Let me know what do you guys think about these picks? What do you guys think about the stock market this week in the next month? What do you think is going to happen? Are we going to hit a $3,000 SPX? Are we going to sell off? Maybe go back to $2,700. I would love to know what you guys have to think. And if you guys have yet to subscribe to the channel, what are you doing? Hit that red button. Subscribe to the channel. Hit that notification bell so you're notified every single time that I do make a video. I'll catch you all in the next video. Have a great rest of your weekend. I hope you all do great this week. Peace out.


May I declare today not everyone is meant to marry. Jesus said so. Matthew chapter 19 verse 11 but he said to them all cannot accept the same but only those to whom it has been given.


Where we going? Under here? Come on, come on, come on, come on! I most certainly did. Thanks, Titan. It's been easy for your community outreach specialist for the Pasco Sheriff's Office, and I just wanted to hop on here and say a huge thank you to all of you that have been following along since day one. Those of you that have just subscribed yesterday, last week, I appreciate all of you. We all do. The comments, the likes, the encouragement, the views, it's all wonderful, but we made it to 150 about time, right? But here's to another 50. And I just want to let you guys know that I know I promised like a blooper video every 50, but I swear this time around I pretty much just left all of the bloopers in the original footage. So some of these are just outtakes. It's not as long as normal, but next 50, I got you guys taking care of. So thank you for following along and I'll see you next time. What? I knew that was your name. I knew something. Give me a fun back. Fun back. Fun back. About me? Yeah. Ooh, actually, I got you. Chocolate or vanilla? Vanilla. Cupcakes or cake? Cake with chocolate icing, but the bread is the... I think it's also vanilla bread, right? Mm-hmm. Yeah, that. Oh, you're so specific. Okay. Cupcakes or ice cream cake? Ice cream cake? Absolutely. Ice cream cake or pasta? Pasta. Pasta or burgers? Pasta. Pasta or garlic bread? Pasta. Pasta or jam and out in a public place on your guitar? How about jamming out in public to my guitar while eating pasta? I'll take it. Ooh, look at that pretty back there. Wow, that just got real... Dumb. We're entering this way. Speaking of both of them... Tell us your name. What are you doing with my hands? Introduce yourself. Let's see if their tails are... Oh, and then the dog. Ooh, you guys growling. Is that my makeup? No. Oh, gosh. Can you show you my shark tattoo now, too? You can, you can. Okay. Truly, before we start, what's that? What's that right there? So, this is my shark badge holder. I am obsessed with sharks. In my second life, I'll be a marine biologist and study sharks. Oh, I love it. I love it so much. He's my little buddy. Hi, dog nugs. Hi. Don't pay attention to me. Hello. Let's see. But mom has to know those are the best shots, though. Hi, Ham. Hi, Ham. He's catching on. He didn't like swimming. I don't know what. But he got used to it. Okay. Why is this done? Why is this done? Why is this done? Fun fast. Fun fast.  I needed a new battery, just to be honest here. Okay, so. Rookie mistake. Oh, okay. My nerve. The last one? Just over there. Just over there. All right. So like a couple more questions. I can't prepare to work for the guys just so everybody's aware. I don't want anybody to think I didn't come over. Shae, but did you come to work? Did you come prepared to work? Because you took a call at 2.09 and you were supposed to pick up our social media coordinator at 2. So therefore your tweet along didn't start until like 3.50. So. Hi. Oh, wait. You and Bud. You and Bud. I know. Yeah. Hi, Nogget. You're not happy now? Yeah. You're such a hero. Okay, are you done?


Marvin St. Louis, Information Assistant, Consumer Affairs Department. The Ministry of Commerce, Manufacturing, Business Development, Corporatives and Consumer Affairs is experiencing a shipping delay of brown sugar due to supply chain issues and is actively working to expedite shipments to St. Lucia. Global supply chain issues constrain a variety of basic goods from reaching the hands of consumers. When shipments continue to be impacted due to container shortages, specifically 20-foot containers are becoming increasingly difficult to source due to congestion at ports and rising demand. The Ministry would like to reassure the public that every avenue is being pursued to mitigate the impact of the global supply chain disruptions. Brown sugar is expected to arrive by this weekend, however, refined sugar is available to consumers for purchase. The Ministry wishes to thank you for your patience and understanding.


Excellency, U.S. Ambassador, and all of our friends and colleagues who are on the school, and of course the Mandela Washington Fellows, congratulations to you all, as being selected as fellows, and also for the very great work that you do. We must commend the U.S. government also for keeping the dream of Yali alive. Listening to the leaders of the three tracks and the great work that they lead is evidence that we're listening today to Africa's most exciting story. It's certainly Nigeria's most exciting story. The story of a present and a future that could be stared by our nation's incredibly talented and optimistic young men and women. The innovation, the creativity, and thoughtfulness that I've seen in the different projects that we have developed is evidence of your belief and confidence in the future of this country, and indeed in the future of the continent. And I took time to look at all of the projects that have been done in a very large number of them, the different profiles, I read through all the profiles, and I'm really quite taken, I'm really quite overwhelmed by just the sheer range of the depth of what has been done. And this, in my view, is the best news possible, the news of great hope and enthusiasm about the future. Hope is the fuel of progress and prosperity. And I think that every generation has a responsibility to itself and the future to believe enough in its own abilities and God-given resources to build societies where people can live their lives in peace, joy, and prosperity. But within any generation, only a few wholeheartedly take on that challenge, the challenge of building society. Most believe that the task is for someone else, and that such endeavors cannot even pay the bills anyway. So let me say to you that you may not know this, but those of you who are so active in these various not-for-profit causes belong to a small club of those ready to pay the price to see their countries and communities grow. So you are individually and collectively in-nation builders, and that is what public service is about, your young public service, even if you are not in government employees. But I want to say something which may, of course, turn out to be controversial, and that is that you need to go the extra level. If you're not already involved, get involved in politics, while a lot can be achieved in government, while a lot can be achieved in civil society, and I'll talk about that in a moment, government still holds the ace in terms of capacity and resources to bring the social groups to the largest numbers. Besides, you know, being deciders instead of pressure groups at the table in policy formulation are hugely different positions. The consummation of great ideas to transform our societies ultimately will depend on, quote, those politicians, as we sometimes derisively describe them. I was once where you were. I was part of several civil society groups growing up. I joined the first, I joined the first civil society group that was a part of when I was 24. I was teaching at the time, I started teaching at the time of the University of Lagos. I also co-founded the anti-corruption group Integrity, and then Convention on Business Integrity, which is still alive and well today, and they functioned out of Mapuja and Lagos. At the time, we published a weekly bulletin called Scootling to expose official corruption, and that was during the Abacha era and there was quite a bit of trouble there and even just trying to get this kind of information across. And we got into all sorts of trouble and all sorts of skirmishes with no enforcement. I was chair of the Legal Research and Development Center, where we worked on civil rights issues and legal defense for the poor. We did a couple of legal defense initiatives. We got funding from donors and all of that and tried to do the best we could. But if I count the number of those that were able to reach, maybe in the years, maybe about a hundred or so. So we achieved some good. But compared to the scale of the problem, it was really a deal. But in 1999 came politics and I was appointed Attorney General of Lagos. With that platform, we took on the corruption in the legal judiciary and we set a model. We reviewed the issues of corruption in the legal judiciary and how to address it, from remuneration to discipline and all of that. And we were able to put in place, you know, an anti-corruption framework that has lasted several years. And I'll just give you a quick example of what happened in Lagos at the time. Now, we did a survey of legal practitioners who were in, who practiced in the courts in Lagos. And we asked a question about integrity of Lagos judicial officers at the time. 89% of them said that the judiciary was notoriously corrupt. And those are notoriously corrupt. 89%. That was 1999. So we knew that we had our work cut out for us. We then decided what were the relations. Lagos judges at the time were paid 46,000 a month. Not enough, of course, we won't, you know, pay school fees or anything. So we had to look at remuneration. And we took decisive steps on remuneration. The one fear that many judges have is that they would not have a home to live when they, when they leave office because you're not allowed to practice law once you leave office as a judge. So Lagos state government, as a matter of policy, decided that we would provide a home for judges. And that would be their home. And they can take, they can take it away with them when they, when they leave office. A big, you know, house, four bedroom house, the boys' quarters and all of that, in the place of their choice, Ikoi, Leki or Ikeja, depending on which they chose. And then we took to the question of discipline, if a report is made with processes immediately to the NJC. As a consequence of the steps that we took, 22 judges, 22 magistrates lost their jobs. It was sad for corruption. That was the first time in the history of the state that anyone had ever been sad for corruption, anyone at all, or had ever even been reprimanded. Three judges lost their jobs also. But then, when we did that survey again with the World Bank in 2007, asking the same questions about Lagos judges in the high courts of Lagos, 0%, 0% said that judges were corrupt, 0%. Now, it's not that the judges suddenly had a change of heart, but we put in place a system that guaranteed not just remuneration, but also discipline. But the point, the reason why I make this point is that states, after what we did in Lagos, copied that very example, the same example. So many states improved remuneration and improved the wide variety of things. But the point that I'm making is that it took public office to be able to get the scale of change that was required to make a difference. It took public office. With our public office, I would have remained a pressure group activist. I would have done some nice things. I would have been involved. As a matter of fact, I was also a fellow of the Roadstrap fellow. I'd have done all of that kind of stuff. But I wouldn't have been able to make the change of the changes that my country required. The second thing we did in Lagos at the time was that we established the Citizens' Rights Department. For the first time in the history of our country, a department was established in the Ministry of Justice for the rights of citizens. And that's important because the Ministry of Justice is not just a ministry of law and order. It's a ministry for justice for the people. And that ministry, that department had what was called the Office of the Public Defender. The concept would be borrowed from U.S. states and were able to do the legal defense. Government provided funding for thousands of Lagosians, thousands, literally thousands. But the more interesting part of that story is that almost every state in Nigeria adopted the Citizens' Rights Department, adopted the Office of the Public Defender. Now, go back to when I was an activist working in the legal research and the legal research and involvement organizations, where we were trying to do some work on legal defense. Yes, we did so. We did a few. But we certainly couldn't achieve the scale that we were able to achieve in public service. So simply the point I'm making is that African nations, especially our nation, cannot afford to have its best minds and our most committed social activists remain only in the civil space. You know, we simply can't afford it. You guys have to get involved. You've got to get involved in politics. You've got to be in a position to make the difference on the scale that is required. You've got to be able to do that. And of course, there are many who will not be involved in politics, but those that are inclined should. And I think it's absolutely important. Of course, there will be many, many challenges, even in the way of getting hurt in politics. But I want to say to you that that for me is, you know, should be an objective that you should set for yourselves to get involved at whatever level of politics so that we can make the kind of difference on the scale that are required to make the difference.