Ferocious speaker and former Director of Kenya Anti-Corruption Commission, Mr. Patrick Lumumba yesterday in Abuja bombed Nigerian leaders with hard words, saying “The African continent has lagged behind in most facets of human development because its largest country, Nigeria, has remained in poverty due to fraudulent activities in public service.”
While charging current Nigerian leaders do everything within their capacity to address endemic graft, he said only such revolutionary redirection will refocus Africa on the path towards prosperity.
He said “Africa is behind because Nigeria has not realized her potential. It’s time the leaders rise up because one in every five Africans is a Nigerian.”
Mr. Lumumba spoke at the two-day anti-corruption summit at the Nigerian Air Force Conference Centre in Abuja put together by the National Assembly under the leadership of Senate President Bukola Saraki and Speaker Yakubu Dogara.
In his submission, he made it clear that this it is time for Nigeria, and Africa as a whole, to abandon the culture of “punishing small thieves and electing big ones.”
The Kenyan professor of law, said Nigeria is a microcosm of Africa and, as such, cannot afford to keep getting it wrong, warning that this is time for a sustainable “Behavioural change culture to be instilled in Nigeria and Africa in general”.
Earlier in his opening remarks, the President of the National Assembly and Senate, Dr. Bukola Saraki agreed that “Nigeria had failed to seriously fight against corruption for more than 40 years,” but assured that “the National Assembly will work to partner with the Buhari administration for lasting solutions to the menace”.
