The US President Barrack Obama has urged African leaders to desist from the culture of bribery and nepotism, in order to eliminate corruption on the continent.

He was addressing a rally at the Kasarani Stadium in Nairobi, on the last day of his three-day tour to Kenya.

President Obama is the first United States president to visit Kenya.

He said corruption is one of the factors that are slowing development in Africa.

“Corruption holds back every aspect of economic and civil life. It’s an anchor that weighs you down,” President Obama stated.

“If you need to pay a bribe and hire somebody’s brother, who is not very good and doesn’t come to work in order to start a business, that is going to create less jobs for everybody because every shilling that is paid as a bribe, could be put into the pocket of somebody who is actually doing an honest day’s job.

“I want to be very clear here, a politics that is based solely on tribe and ethnicity is a politics that is doomed to tear a country apart. It is a failure, a failure of imagination.”

President Obama left Nairobi for the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa last evening for a two-day visit.

He is also expected to address the African Union.