Human Development and Leadership Institute (HDLI), based in Sacramento, California, is launching its innovative Global Proper Education Program (GPEP) for developing countries of Africa (with Nigeria as pilot country), on April 5, 2003, (4:30 PM), at Laguna Town Hall, 3020 Renwick Avenue, Elk Grove, CA 95758.

The GPEP, which is a socio-economic development program, aims at positively changing the mind-set of the people in the developing world of Africa, by empowering them with appropriate knowledge that will enable them to achieve the needed social and economic development. In addition, the GPEP aims at equipping the people with the means to end bribery and corruption, waste and inefficiency in governance, fraud and embezzlement of public funds, selfishness, greed and poverty, which are common occurrences in the Third World countries of Africa. And this would ensure the peaceful co-existence and freedom of the diverse groups that inhabit the region. It is a common understanding that ignorance (lack of basic knowledge) and lack of ‘substantive freedoms and capabilities’ lead to the poverty of the people of this region and, therefore, societal underdevelopment. The GPEP will adopt an integrated and multifaceted approach to neutralize the existing anti-development value systems of the people of Nigeria (and Africa), and replace it with pro-development value systems devoid of ‘instrumental leadership,’ which breeds bribery and corruption and the perpetual poverty of the people. Thus, the GPEP serves as a cultural adjustment instrument, which will positively change the existing bad value systems, and create a new region in which equal opportunity, patriotism, freedom, democracy, and self-sustaining economy are the cornerstone.