Leaders or Lidded?

Published on 18th January 2006

Africa, though a great continent, puzzles the best of minds. It is the richest of the seven continents in natural resources. It has extensive land areas with fertile soil, abundant water supply to support farming and 40 percent of the world’s hydroelectric power potential. The continent boasts of the world’s largest reserves of gold, diamonds, copper, bauxite, manganese, nickel, platinum, cobalt, radium, and phosphates besides large oil reserves in Nigeria, Angola, Gabon, and Sudan. Africa has tremendous cultural, topographical and climatic diversity. Worth noting is the people’s unique spirit of survival and resilience; yet, Africa has accumulated many of the world’s most serious problems.

While world poverty has been decreasing, helped by rising incomes in China and India, poverty has worsened in Africa. Violence, hunger, disease, illiteracy, gender discrimination, religious rivalries, crises in leadership, and endemic corruption all add to the complexity of Africa’s problems. Why is Africa so far behind the rest of the world?

There is a dearth of good leadership in Africa. Africans would not be difficult to please and govern, if only their leaders listened to them. They would not be hard to govern, if their leaders pulled down the walls around their State Houses. They would not be problematic to oversee, if their leaders refused to eat until their people have eaten, if only their leaders would nurture them the way mother hen protects her chicks against hawks and vultures.

Africa has leaders who look at themselves first. Leaders who have lost close ties with the people they govern. Leaders who worry more about today, while they leave tomorrow to worry about itself. Leaders who think they are in State House to serve their relatives or ethnic groups only. Leaders who lack a vision for the whole continent, and do not know how to mobilize and utilize the rich human resources we have on the continent.

Heads of State should know that they are in power because people put them there, and want them to be there. This is one thing they should remember every single day. It is immoral and ungodly for any child or adult to starve to death, for whatever reason, when there is plenty of food, and when food designed for the famine stricken people is being sold by those who are able. This is what we call corruption; it amounts to immorality of the highest order.

Africa is not short of friends. The continent has many. The AID that we receive comes from the sweat of the taxpayers in those countries. How do you think they feel when they hear of all the corruption? Why should they care more about our citizens than we do ourselves? Why should they sacrifice their comfort more than we do? SERVE and earn the respect of your people, rather than rule and be feared by your citizens.

It is immoral for us to look on as our women are defiled and raped. What would you do if it were your mother, sister, daughter or grandmother? It is immoral for us to exclude anybody for whatever reason. You are a leader of all your people and not of only those who supported you. Leaders should go by example and when the going gets tough, just go back to your spiritual book, whether the Bible or the Koran, and recoil to your maker for inspiration and advice.

Our Creator was good enough to ensure that all of us age and die. No human being is immortal, thus it does not matter how many terms one serves. Eventually, one must pass on the mantle. It would be better to do this when one is still popular and in accordance with the provisions of the constitution. Despite the fact that a country cannot be left leaderless, no leader is indispensable. No human being is anyway.

We should worry about the legacy we are going to leave behind. We would be better people if we worried about the TRUE things that would be said about us when we die. Surely, we must prepare young people for leadership so that they do not agitate to take over unprepared and prematurely.

The intergenerational aspect of leadership is one that few leaders worry about. They spend more time fire fighting. Am I being too critical? Maybe. But then, I neither have the luxury of time nor wish to be judged harshly by future generations, that there was a lot I could have done but never did. Leaders! Do your best, and be satisfied to have done your best when you leave office.

 


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