LEGAL icon, Chief Afe Babalola, SAN, has attributed the pervasive poverty and hunger in Nigeria to bad leadership.
Afe Babalola Babalola, who said the culture of begging was alien to the Yoruba race in the past, lamented that bad leadership has turned virtually all Nigerians into beggars, particularly in southwest Nigeria.
The founder of Afe Babalola University, Ado Ekiti, ABUAD, said the Yoruba people had deep resentment for begging in the 40s and 50s, adding that ”today, they have seen begging as a way of life, contrary to what they believed in , because of poverty caused by bad governance.”
Babalola said this in Ado Ekiti, yesterday, when the leadership of the Pharmaceutical Council of Nigeria, PCN, paid a visit to ABUAD on assessment tour of the Pharmacy Department of the newly commissioned 400-bed Afe Babalola University Teaching Hospital, ABUTH.
He said: “Today, Nigeria is at a crossroad. The Yoruba were not used to begging in the 40s and 50s, they used to stone beggars because they viewed it as a shameful act.” “But today, go to occasions and see how well dressed people beg for money.
That was why we want to join the change agents using our university as a model even ABUAD is synonymous with change.
