Radical former Director of the Kenyan Anti-Corruption Agency, Prof. Patrick Lumumba, on Wednesday in Abuja took to the cleaners African leaders for the growing insecurity and economic crisis in the region, saying they have failed the masses.
While specifically accusing the leaders of discussing trivialities during the recent African Union summit in Addis-Ababa, Ethiopia, Lumumba blamed the challenges to Africa’s greatness on the problems of leadership structure and institutional corruption.
Lumumba stated these in his lecture titled: “Census 2022: Concerns for internally displaced persons and implications on the 2023 general elections”, during the 20th anniversary of Jos-based human rights organization, Stefanos Foundation.
The anti-corruption czar maintained that Nigeria was a missing link to Africa’s greatness.
Lumumba said, “During the two-day summit, I, like many Africans waited to hear our leaders talk about the conflict in Africa, especially Mali, Burkina Faso, about the insurgency in Nigeria, about the conflict in Central African Republic, Eastern Congo, Northern Mozambique, Southern Cameroon, Sudan and different part of Africa but I only listen to them talk about whether Israel should have observer status at the AU. Indeed they did not stop there, they constituted a team of African Heads of States where Israel will have observer status at AU. I was disappointed.”
He said that the proliferation of IDP camps in the region which should ordinarily serve as a temporary base but now permanent abode for many citizens was a result of a lack of empathy from the leaders.
According to the Professor of Law, the time had come for Africans to ask themselves painful and uncomfortable questions.
“We Africans have been nice to each other for too long. Now the time has come when we must speak the truth in all its nakedness that it will prick our conscience.”
While making reference to one of the works of late foremost writer and author, Chinua Achebe, Lumumba wondered how Africans at every election cycle foster on themselves dictators and yet they celebrate them.
“How is it that a continent that is so endowed continues to be demeaning this manner. How is it that this Nigeria which has the largest population of Africans, a country which has the most educated men and women on earth, a country that has produced good and great men, with great scholars and evangelists continues to converse?
“How is that this Nigeria the land of great evangelists and Ulamas can allow conflict to take root? There are questions we must pose because the day Nigeria gets it right is the day Africa gets it right.
“It goes as much as saying that if Nigeria realizes economic development, Africa will realise economic development and we pray that on daily basis that Nigeria will realize its economic potential.”
Speaking earlier, the Programme Coordinator of Stefanos Foundation, Mark Lidpo said terrorists’ activities in the country encouraged high level of crime with impunity and has now given room for political exploitations affecting the rule of law and good governance.
He said that bias, intolerance, marginalization, and sectional scheming have further deepened the fault lines, noting there are no signs of “these ills abating any time soon”.
Lidpo said the SF had been working to intervene in the agony, pain, and suffering that this violence has caused thousands of people in the country.
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