The Director at the Faculty of Academic Affairs and Research at the Kofi Annan International Peacekeeping and training Centre (KAIPTC), Prof. Kwesi Aning, has said that African leaders have failed and continue to fail the continent on a number of things.
He said that because of the failed promises and actions of leaders on the continent, there is a growing disconnect between what they intend to do, and what actually happens on the grounds.
“I’m going to be very frank, because more often than not in these conversations, people are way too polite. There is a disconnect between the political and economic elite and what they say and how they behave, and the [sic] of people who are uneducated and unemployed,” he said.
Prof Kwesi Aning further said that the situation is such that nothing on the continent means anything anymore to most Africans.
This, he added, has come about because of the failed promises of leaders, which have emboldened extremists to act with impunity.
“The state in Africa means absolutely nothing to the people of this continent. Our leaders have failed and they continue to fail. In their search for power, they lie – they tell stories and make promises that they know they cannot fulfil, and that disconnect creates an anger, frustration that then allows the narratives of those who want to destroy the state; the extremists, to sound rational and to give hope.
“Because those who have appropriated the leaders of this state, have failed to deliver. People are desperate and anybody who will give them hope, like a sinking or a drowning person, they’ll hang onto it. So, we need a new narrative; a narrative that gives hope predicated on trust, on self-respect, and honesty,” he said.
Prof Kwesi Aning made this known while speaking at the West African Security Roundtable – Insiders and Outsiders: Meeting the African Security Challenge in the 2020s, which was hosted by President Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria, President Ernest Bai Koroma of Sierra Leone, and Dr. Greg Mills, Head of the Brenthurst Foundation.
The event, which was in partnership with the KAIPTC, forms part of a series across the region: Accra, Abidjan, Dakar, Niamey, and Abeokuta.
Watch Prof Aning speak in the video below:
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