As a keen observer of these episodes, I learned a great deal about the art of public speaking and how one could use this skill to navigate the delicate balance between stirring a crowd while still holding the power to channel its actions. So as President, I adopted a measured style of speaking- calibrated in content and in tone, necessary to back up my claims as a president that sought to avoid the incendiary approaches of his predecessors.

I had started to hone these skills during my earlier involvements in debates as a high-school student and on a stint, shortly before college, as the presenter of a youth variety program on Radio Nigeria, a government-owned AM radio station. The most crucial step in the development of these skills, though, happened when as an undergraduate I became a member of an all-amateur campus drama club where I acted in about 10 plays in 4 years. It was here that I came to learn how to project my voice, enunciate my words, and repeat the same line in many different ways altering my inflection or timing or both, to elicit the desired audience response.