The ideals of knowledge, improvement and influence have been prescribed for Africans to face the challenges of the global recession and climate change.

Speakers at the opening of the first international colloquium on law and development-Kuramo Conference 2010 gave these suggestions in Lagos on Tuesday.

A former Chief Secretary to the treasury in the U.K, Lord Paul Boateng, and Rev. Jesse Jackson, former U.S Special envoy to Africa said Africa should chart a new course through the creation of an enabling environment and social equality.

Rev. Jesse Jackson who is also a U.S. civil rights leader called for an African version of the Marshall Plan, saying the continent deserved reconstruction and assistance, similar to that given to post-war Europe, after the years of "colonial rape" it suffered.

However, Jackson later acknowledged designing a plan on such a large scale would require increased accountability in nations like oil-rich Nigeria. There, experts estimate as much as $380 billion has been embezzled from crude oil revenues since Africa's most populous nation gained its independence from Britain in 1960.

"In order for countries to overcome disparities, they need to get fair trade and favoured-nation trade status to cover the ravages of war and occupation and colonization," Jackson told a legal gathering called the Kuramo Conference. "The formula was good for European reconstruction - it should apply to Africa."

The Marshall Plan, put forward by the U.S. to rebuild Europe after the war with the Axis Powers, cost roughly $13 billion at the time.

Jackson offered no estimate on what a similar program aimed at road, sewer and building construction would cost across the continent, but said Western nations had an obligation to the countries they once occupied.

Speaking about Nigeria, Jackson said Nigeria is too rich for any of its citizenry to be poor, adding that all Nigerians must rise up immediately to fight the scourge of corruption.

He said: We can do it. We can stop it, because corruption is a crime against humanity. Nigeria is so rich yet her people are so poor. We must fight in a big way. We must fight corruption and poverty. Fighting corruption is crucial to fighting poverty.

Jackson added that Nigeria must ensure that the freedom of other African countries from the oppressive rule of their colonial masters should not be allowed to disintegrate.

After his speech, Jackson told reporters that Nigeria had to demand accountability from its leaders.

"Nigeria needs allies and help," he said. "Look at the impact of its oil-trading partners, who have benefited so handsomely from a relationship that is not mutually beneficial."

Jackson acknowledged that he once benefited from Nigeria's largesse: he toured South Africa to protest apartheid in the 1980s with the financial backing of then-military dictator and current presidential aspirant Ibrahim Babangida.

Lord Paul Boateng, on the other hand said Africa economies have the capacity to boom despite the current global meltdown ravaging economies around the globe.

He also said Nigeria and its huge potentials is the key to the success of Africa.

He spoke with journalists at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport (MMIA), Lagos on why the economies of developing countries have continued to dwindle.

According to Boateng, The good news is that Africa has proved to be remarkably resilient in terms of its economy during this current global downturn and we have every expectation that Africa would come through this difficult process for her world to make a stronger and better place.

He posited that to make the economies of developing countries work, Africans have the responsibility to ensure that their economies are well managed, adding that it is by doing this that African continent can grow and create jobs for its people.

In his words, The key to that is that all of us recognising the responsibility that we have to ensure that the economy are managed well, that we have effective and sound micro- economic policy and that together we create a continent in which there is growth with jobs

Boateng, the first black cabinet minister in UK contended that the growth of developing economies and job creation go hand in hand and that if these aspects are fixed economies of developing countries, where African countries belong will be stronger for it.

The truth is that both of them go together, growth and jobs and the good news is that Africa should be on track to come out of this recession stronger than it was before.

The former secretary to the treasury, who said he was delighted to be in Lagos, said that the Kuramo conference is a clear sign that the government and people of Lagos recognise the role of this great metropolis in rebuilding and strengthening the African economy.

On the future of Nigerian economy, he said: Nigeria and its future, Nigeria and its huge potentials are the key to the success of Africa that is why all people of good will look to Nigeria to demonstrate leadership, to demonstrate the strength that historically I believe that it has and to fulfil that it displayed somewhat 50 years ago when the people of Nigeria won their independent so this is a great conference and we are looking forward very much to do a serious work in order to make sure that the economy of Africa and its people fulfil the potentials that they have.

Also speaking, Wole Soyinka revealed that he is presently putting together a play that would expose the new paradigm of corruption in Nigeria.

He urged Nigerians to wake up and put their leaders on their toes, noting that endemic greed and vampire tendencies of African leaders can ruin the continent.