The current wave of political protests that have seen heads of state in Tunisia and Egypt quit power is a sign that there is a new breed of Africans who not only understand what accountability and democracy is, but is also angry.

They have watched their political elites stick in intellectual patch, complain about colonialism and imperialism; run their countries as personal property and refuse to reform their economies because they benefit from the rotten status quo. In spite of their continent’s endowment with abundant natural mineral resources, the mineral wealth is not utilized to lift them out of poverty. They understand that 40- percent of the wealth created in Africa is not invested in Africa but finds its way out of Africa. Capital flight out of Africa is $80 billion a year while the continent spends $20 billion a year to import food. Rather than nourish the electorate, their governments suck the economic vitality out of them and use the instruments of state power to enrich themselves, their cronies, and tribesmen while excluding everyone else.

African leaders should be warned – the electorate no longer want to be
spectators in their own continent. They no longer want to be governed from foreign capitals. They want to be determinants of their own socio-political and economic future. Firearms will not stop them. Ethnic covers will not cower them. No amount of money and public relation stints will assuage them. It is time that the continent’s leadership moved in sync with the electorate. It is time the leadership shapes up or is shaped out.