African leadership crisis – where are the beautiful ones?

I recently met a gentleman in a bookstore and we seemed to have been interested in the same novel and this prompted a conversation. He introduced himself as a Senegalese and we started talking about problems in our respective countries and the African continent as a whole. He also said his favorite book of all time is Ayikwei Armah’s ‘The beautiful ones are not yet born’ and wished Africa had more visionary leaders. His tone showed a lot of disappointment as he painfully narrated how as a university student then, he had supported former President A. Wade for president as an agent for change. He however turned out more corrupt than any before him. He regretted how African leaders with some of them highly educated, behave so dishonorably.

Ex President Wade is just an epitome of what ‘leadership’ looks like for the most part on the continent. For instance, President Wade gave a ‘parting gift’ to a departing IMF official, a bag of money rumored to be $200 000 cash. A 650 ft bronze statue - the African Renaissance Monument was built during his tenure in office by a North Korean contractor costing about $27m and paid for with 40 hectares of land. For his intellectual input, President Wade demands 35% of all tourist profits from the monument should be paid to him directly.

Africa has been referred to as the Dark Continent and has truly lived up to this derogative term in all sense of the phrase. After several decades of independence, countries are still being baby-sat, spoon-fed and ordered about. A continent plagued with so many ethnic and religious conflicts as well as greed and corruption continue to lag behind in everything going on in the world. Even with all the natural resources you are endowed with, you hardly know what to use them for. The world has turned you into consumers and you accept whole heartedly because you never invest in research, encourage manufacturing or innovation. This attitude personifies the servant in the ‘Parable of the Talent’ who buried his talent and reproduced it without any profits and gave it back to the master ‘as is’ (Matt. 25:14 – 30). Africa is formally the dumping ground for shoddy goods in the world, especially because authorities don’t insist on any standards and will accept bribes and allow anything to be dumped on the market. Most Chinese goods for instance have hazardous metals like lead in them so these are mostly not allowed in developed countries. However, they are able to dump these especially on the Sub- Saharan African market and nobody cares. Currently, Africans can’t have enough of Chinese goods and are oblivious to health hazards of these goods.

Since many African countries gained independence, there have been probably a handful of true LEADERS in the true sense of the word. Plagued with so many mistakes by former presidents and dictators, new ones come in and repeat the same mistakes and almost boast of the creation of new ones. Yet a True Leader sees mistakes as a great resource and an opportunity to do better. I dare to say that true democracy as practiced in the West will be almost impossible to implement or practiced unless one day ‘the beautiful ones are born’ and true selfless leaders emerge. Current heads of states are ignorantly arrogant and don’t know how to emulate success. Leadership is not synonymous with hubris and leadership is certainly not, ‘do you know who I am? Consider a name/title such as ‘His Excellency Sheikh Professor Alhaji Dr. Yahya Abdul-Azziz Jemus Junkung Jammeh Naasiru Deen’. Does this name say ‘I mean business’ or simply that ‘I am a joke and a phony’? Great men who built their countries that are admired today did not first think about what they were going to gain but did what they did for the love of country. Would you as head of household eat all the good food, wear designer clothing and live a life of sheer luxury when your household is plagued with disease, hunger etc? No! Think of your country as your household and determine to make the system work. There is no empathy in African heads of states and it is the reason why they will sit idly by and have the continent drown in such derision.

Even those of you being praised and tapping yourselves on the back as ‘Gateway to Africa’ and known to the west as being beacons of light on the continent, do not sit and put your hands on your gluttonous bellies and sigh – we have arrived! Your style of democracy is what I will describe as Civil Dictatorship; where the opposition is useless and the presidents (government) do whatever they please. It is not enough to enjoy accolades when foreigners come and spit on your citizens, loot natural resources, getting simple services a bribe has to be paid, simple life-saving equipment cannot be found in your hospitals and your ministers go on lavish vacations at the expense of taxpayers. It’s only in Africa that a sitting Veep goes around the world peddling a book he’s written. This is the kind of gross disrespect politicians show their citizens, constituents’ etc. The same people who vote for them suddenly become a nuisance and have no right to question them. They don’t care what they think because come elections they will pay bribes to win. Citizens, vote objectively and reject vote-buying corrupt and irresponsible candidates, so you can demand accountability and integrity from them. Elect competent and civilized candidates - not legislators and executives who don’t know where their Form four certificates are and the schools they attended can’t be verified. When you vote without bribes, you can hold them accountable. Any serious citizen wishing to be a true leader and reformer will not give bribes to win but they will run on their own merits.

Self rule as demanded from the colonial masters has been like a teenager who insists on emancipation and gets his way, yet continues to fall back on his parents for his livelihood. There are people who will say ‘hmm I wish independence was delayed a bit more for our country to have been built nicer in infrastructure’. Is it not shameful to have allowed greed to blind the vision of the freedom fighters? What was the point of independence when you can’t even provide basic necessities for your ‘children’ Africa? Awake from your slumber and grow up. Stop begging and asking to be told what to do next or to be told what to use money you borrow for. Even if there are powers that pull at your hamstrings and you can’t run as fast as you’d like, determine to walk and don’t compromise easily by staying in your tracks to nurse your ‘hammies’. Stop asking to be fed this and that meal instead ask what the ingredients are and how it’s prepared to taste the way it does. What will happen the day the feeding stops because your ‘benefactor’ has nothing to gain from you anymore?

It was refreshing to see Benin send a delegation to learn how Ghana implemented her National Health Insurance Scheme. Why can’t you so called leaders do same by asking to be taught something that will improve and build your country? Kwame Nkrumah, the first president of Ghana used his knowledge and insight gained from living abroad to build a hydro-electric power dam, the Adomi Bridge, started the nuclear power project at kwabenya, etc. it is such a wonder that other heads of state, with all the trips they take have seen nothing worthy of emulation to improve conditions in their countries. At least they have seen how hospitals they receive treatments from are equipped, services their colleagues or wives receive giving birth abroad etc.

Stop the unnecessary fanfares you welcome foreign leaders with on tarmacs and lining your streets with poor school children waving flags in the hot sun. How many of you receive such fanfare in Europe, Asia and the Americas? I don’t care if it is your culture; it is simply unnecessary and foolish. Stop the sheepish grin you perpetually wear when meeting with leaders of developed countries and behave like thinking and vision-driven serious Leaders looking to build a nation. You grin till you hardly hear what is being said to you. Go boldly to the ones who are successful and ask questions. Replicate some important measures, infrastructure and systems of operation you come across in foreign lands. Stop taking unnecessary trips where sometimes you even go uninvited and focus on issues at home.

Secular things should remain secular such as holding accountable those who abuse office to serve as a deterrent to others. Don’t say for the sake of peace let them be. Any government official caught breaking the law, involved in sexual scandals or in any malfeasance has to be reprimanded, possibly fired or asked to resign as well as be probed for financial loss to deter to others. In America for instance any senator, congressman/woman, government official caught accepting bribes, speeding or drunk-driving is charged with the offence according to the law. Can an African official be held accountable like that? Africa’s problems are corruption and greed sandwiched with arrogance, selfishness, lack of vision, innovation and leadership. You need serious and Effective Leadership to start the healing process. How do you sit down and see your people suffer such humiliating hunger and preventable diseases when all you are concerned about is holding on to power and enriching yourself. Juntas of Africa, you stupidly don’t realize that there will be nothing like power when you have no one to rule over after you cause the ‘slaughtering’ of your fellow citizens.

How long are you willing to have them incite you to war and continue to live in darkness? Hopefully, countries healing from the aftermath of war will not repeat such irrationality. However, with all the globalization today, when are you going to learn or begin to rethink serious issues like improving healthcare, education, manufacturing and infrastructure in your sovereign countries? When will you stop electing illiterates to parliament and appointing incompetents and sycophants to positions that require serious thinkers, visionaries and innovators? Do away with degree-buying mediocre but arrogant professionals and office holders in public service as the call to public service is a selfless one, not a means to enrich oneself. Therefore electing and appointing those with this quality is the first step to healing. Hopefully in the near future, selfless, effective and vision- driven leaders will emerge and build the continent. Essentially, let there be light on this continent so blessed with enviable resources yet continues to be at the bottom of the food chain.

By Abby Larson

abbylarson8@yahoo.com