Highly respected public speaker and Director, Kenyan School of Law, Professor Patrick Loch Otieno Lumumba, has explained why he believes Africa cannot be great if Nigeria is not great.
According t him, the democracy of Nigeria will only begin to have meaning when Nigeria provides leadership.
Lumumba submitted while delivering a lecture titled ‘Democracy in Africa: The Legacy of Abdulsalami Abubakar,’ organized by The Leadership Scorecard Integrated in Abuja in honour of former Head of State, General Abdulsalami Abubakar, who returned Nigeria to democratic rule in 1999.
Lumumba, former Director of the Kenyan Anti-Corruption Commission, also said in true democracy, those who have the honour and privilege to serve their country must be servants of their people.
He stated that those who have the honor and privilege of serving their country must have only one agenda: to be trustees of the things that they are entrusted with.
He added that those who have the honor and privilege of serving their people will go out there and be prepared to say that they are prepared to lay down their lives for the benefit of the people.
Lumumba stated that in true democracy, the people want to be told that if there is agriculture, it will be supported and they be able to deliver that they can feed themselves.
He explained that the in true democracy, the people want to be told that they will have good health system so that when they are sick, they will go to hospitals that are hospitals in the true sense of the word and not hospitals built for them and their leaders running away to different parts of the world to seek better medical care.
Lumumba also said the people would not want to see their education system being an education system prepared for them and then the children of those whom they have elected going to different parts of the world.
He disclosed that the people would want to ensure that they have power, particularly the younger generation, they want to ensure that they are enjoying the dividends of artificial intelligence, that governance facilitates them and makes them inventors and innovators and create for them, an environment where they can thrive.
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Lumumba asserted that if the aforementioned were not done, young men and women of the continent will be dying in the Mediterranean Sea; they will be humiliated at embassies of foreign countries and those who have the opportunity will run away to go and be engineers in different parts of the world.
He added that if true democracy is not practiced in Nigeria, the young men and women will not have faith in their country and would want to acquire the passports of different countries and will not be proud of democracy.
Lumumba told Abubakar that the democracy he cherished, the democracy he keeps talking about and walking around Africa for, is the democracy that promises Africans that Africa can be great again.
“And Africa must be great again. And Africa will never, ever be great, I submit to you Nigerians, if Nigeria is not great,” Lumumba said.
Explaining the rationale behind his submission, Lumumba said he arrived at the conclusion because with the population of over 300 million, if Nigeria can be made into a market, who can confront the continent of Africa.
“Who can ignore the continent of Africa? Tell me, where in the world do you not find a Nigerian? Somebody once told me that if you go to any place in the world and you do not find a Nigerian, run away from there because there is nothing to be done in that place.
“I am suggesting that the democracy of Nigeria will only begin to have meaning when Nigeria provides leadership.
“The time is now. As we celebrate democracy in Africa today, I am calling upon Nigeria and Nigerians to rise to the occasion, rise up so that your politics will be a point of reference so that when we watch men and women in the Senate in Nigeria and in the House of Representatives in Nigeria and we watch them debate, they will be debating about the things that relate to Africa; they will be debating about Africa Agenda 2063, they will be debating about Africa Continental Free Trade Area, they will not demand of anybody that wants to come to Nigeria who is an Africa must have a visa. No! Nigeria being as big as it is, should be the welcoming big brother because when you do that, we follow your leadership.
“We want to see a Nigeria that is economically dominant because if Nigeria is strong, then the test of Africa is strong,” Lumumba also said.
Lumumba further said when he hears occasionally Nigeria saying that it is the second largest and first largest economy in Africa sometimes, he wasn’t impressed because when Nigeria had a GDP of 500 billion, he is not impressed.
According to Lumumba, Nigeria “should have a GDP of $10 trillion then I will be impressed.”
He asserted that this is possible because Nigeria has the human resources and the intellectual wherewithal to ensure that it happens.
“When I hear Nigeria saying that they generate anything between 5,000 and 10,000 megawatts of electricity, I am not impressed. I am not impressed because little Denmark generates 35,000 megawatts of electricity and if Nigeria is to earn the dividends of democracy through industrialisation, Nigeria must now get and embark in the serious business of ensuring that Nigeria has energy to propel not only her and her neighbour, but the continent of Africa into the fourth industrial revolution. Those are the dividends of democracy,” Lumumba stated.
Lumumba added that he wants to hear that Nigeria is successful because Nigeria can be the defender of democracy in Africa and he wants to hear that when the leaders of Nigeria go to different parts of the world, they are treated with respect because Nigeria has demonstrated economically, politically and diplomatically that they are the dividends of democracy.