A Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Chief Afe Babalola, has said bad leadership is fast turning Nigerians to beggars.

Saying the culture of begging was alien to the Yoruba race, Babalola lamented that it had become a common thing to see Nigerians begging on the streets “because of poverty caused by bad governance.”

The PCN was on an assessment tour of the Pharmacy Department of the newly-inaugurated 400-bedded Afe Babalola University Teaching Hospital.

He said, “Today, Nigeria is at the crossroads. The Yoruba were not used to begging in the 40’s and 50’s, 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.

“In our school here, we do not concentrate alone on academics, we are into farming. Our moringa tree is used to produce eight products that are consumed and provide jobs for our people.”

The President of the PCN, Prof. Mbang Femi-Oyewo, said the mission of the regulatory body in ABUAD was to assess the Pharmacy Department and to guide on how to give the recommendations to the university on how best to run the department.

She said, “We want this university to have an excellent Pharmacy Department that will serve as a reference point just like every other department in the hospital and that can meet international standard.

“This is a regulatory body that gives recommendations based on facilities we see. We want to ensure that the department is not left behind, and that is why we are here to give professional advice, because we don’t want people to be travelling to India for medical treatment when we have a facility like ABUTH.

Pharmacy department is very essential and it requires special expertise for its operations. We want the best practice here that aligns with the global best practices and that is why we are here as a regulatory body,” he said.

Punch