Prof. Patrick Lumumba, a radical former Director of the Kenyan Anti-Corruption Agency, took African leaders to task on Wednesday in Abuja for the region’s growing insecurity and economic crisis, accusing them of failing the masses.
Lumumba blamed the challenges to Africa’s greatness on problems with leadership structure and institutional corruption, specifically accusing leaders of discussing trivialities during the recent African Union summit in Addis-Abeba, Ethiopia.
Lumumba made these remarks during a lecture titled “Census 2022: Concerns for Internally Displaced Persons and Implications for the 2023 General Elections” at the 20th anniversary of the Jos-based human rights organization, Stefanos Foundation.
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Nigeria, according to the anti-corruption czar, was a missing link in Africa’s greatness.
“During the two-day summit, I, like many Africans, waited to hear our leaders talk about the conflict in Africa, especially Mali and Burkina Faso, about the insurgency in Nigeria, about the conflict in Central African Republic, Eastern Congo, Northern Mozambique, Southern Cameroon, Sudan, and different parts of Africa,” Lumumba said.
They did not stop there; they formed a team of African heads of state in which Israel will have observer status at the AU. “I was let down.”
According to him, the proliferation of IDP camps in the region, which should normally serve as a temporary base but have now become permanent residences for many citizens, is the result of a lack of sympathy from leaders.
According to the law professor, the time had come for Africans to confront themselves with difficult and uncomfortable questions.
“We Africans have been too nice to one another for far too long.” Now is the time to speak the truth in all its nakedness, even if it will prick our conscience.”
Lumumba wondered, in reference to one of the works of late foremost writer and author Chinua Achebe, how Africans foster dictators on themselves during each election cycle and yet celebrate them.
“How can a continent so endowed continue to be degraded in this way?”
“How is it that this Nigeria, with the largest African population, the most educated men and women on the planet, a country that has produced good and great men, with great scholars and evangelists, continues to converse?”
How can Nigeria, the land of great evangelists and Ulamas, allow conflict to take root? We must ask questions because the day Nigeria gets it right is the day Africa gets it right.
It goes so far as to say that if Nigeria achieves economic development, Africa will achieve economic development, and we pray on a daily basis that Nigeria realizes its potential.
Earlier, Mark Lidpo, the Program Coordinator of the Stefanos Foundation, stated that terrorist activities in the country encouraged a high level of crime with impunity, which has now given room for political exploitations affecting the rule of law and good governance.
Bias, intolerance, marginalization, and sectional scheming, he said, have exacerbated the fault lines, and he sees no signs of “these ills abating any time soon.”
According to Lidpo, the SF has been working to intervene in the agony, pain, and suffering caused by the country’s violence.
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