Civil servants are Nigeria’s major problem, says Afe Babalola

By Oseheye Okwuofu, Ibadan

Legal luminary Chief Afe Babalola (SAN) has said Nigeria’s civil servants are the nation’s major problem.

He said he turned down ministerial appointment twice because of corrupt civil servants.

The eminent lawyer said the nation’s civil servants would make him create instant enmity, if he had accepted the offer to serve as a minister.

Babalola spoke yesterday with The Nation after a dinner on the conferment of Honorary Doctor of Letters (D.Lit.) on him by the University of Ibadan (UI) in the Oyo State capital.

The dinner was organised by lawyers in law firms of Emmanuel Chambers & Co., in Abuja, Ibadan, Port Harcourt and Lagos to show appreciation to Babalola, their Principal Partner.

The eminent lawyer said none of Nigeria’s civil servants could work like him.

The founder of Afe Babalola University, Ado-Ekiti (ABUAD) said: “Well, I turned ministerial appointments down for two reasons. One, I cannot work with the present type of civil servants in this country. The civil servants are the problems in this country. None of them can work the way I work.

“I will create instant enmity, if I accepted to be a minister. The second reason is that my clients are so many. They protested and felt I would be disappointing them if I accepted to be a minister.”

Admitting that Nigeria is a difficult country, Babalola said there is still hope for the country, especially with the renewed investment in education, despite its myriads of problems.

The legal luminary stressed the importance of charity, the act of giving, saying many Nigerians do not like to give because everybody wants the government to do everything.

Citing the case of UI, Babalola said the university has trained over 300,000 graduates, among who are billionaires, yet it cannot give N5 billion in an endowment.

“Great universities in the world today depend, not only on school fees, but mostly on endowment and giving. People who attend my university come from different families, rich families, but not many of them appreciate that they can give gifts, they can endow chairs, they can even put up buildings. And I advise them to do so,” he said.