African leaders and the ‘illusion of omnipotence’

Leadership in this article is not referring to a position or any individual. It is referring to complex and ethical relationship that exists between leaders and followers based on trust, commitment, obligation, service, development and a shared vision of the good. Speaking contemporaneously, most nations have not only defined the process through which leaders emerge, they have put structures in place to compel leadership to develop more followers as leaders in order to ensure smooth succession. The truth, however, is that in a few countries, particularly in Africa, leadership succession is often problematic.

The ‘illusion of omnipotence’ is the assumption made by leaders that they have unlimited power and authority to match their responsibilities, while they are at liberty to choose between making mistakes and not making them regardless of the world around them. It is a concept that leaders can alter the world at their caprice without being questioned. Leaders are sometimes able to generate illusions that are realistic to the extent of confusing all the senses of their followers, making it difficult to break free unless the latter are strong-willed. For instance, if the leader of a nation promises to deploy diplomatic, information, military and economic powers to prevent undesirable things in the world, then it must be his or her fault if those undesirables are not prevented. Preventing undesirables in the world by a leader may be impossible as he or she is not Almighty God. Why should leaders make promises that cannot be fulfilled within their tenure in office? Are they giving us the impression that they are not on top of the situation? It is in Africa that a leader assures his people that poverty and hunger will be eradicated in 4 years, when a promise to equally rehabilitate a 120-kilometre express-road within same period cannot be fulfilled. Any leader that makes such a promise to followers when crude oil was USD140/barrel must be courageous to let them know why his promise could not be kept rather than blaming contractors. He must be bold to state what he intends to do to keep his promise when oil is USD50/barrel. Those who claim they are transformational leaders do not deny the world around them through false and misleading information when their promises have not been kept. Rather, they truly describe the future they would like to create and in the spirit of transparency and accountability give an account of their stewardship.

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Africa is the second-largest and second-most-populous continent with an estimated population of 1.069 billion in the year 2014. In the last five decades, questions have always been asked about the quality of leaders emerging from Africa. This is because there have been a lot of crises which have assumed political, socio-economic, developmental, environmental and humanitarian dimensions. Any political observer would want to know the problem with both leadership and followership in Africa that there has not been peace in many countries within the continent in the last 50 years. Succession has been very difficult in many African countries to an extent that followers have expressed their displeasure through incessant civil unrests and uprisings. Some leaders even chose to die in office because they believed they were the only ones who could deliver their people from hunger and poverty. These leaders in their arrogance saw themselves as liberators created by the Almighty to take their people to the ‘promised land’. This was very common when military rule was the vogue in Africa. With democracy, the situation has not really changed.

Regrettably, Africa is only blessed with many leaders who want to rule perpetually, while resources are channelled into unproductive uses, initiation of projects for parochial reasons and projects located in places where they are least beneficial economically. Contracts are awarded to those who matter politically and not those who are qualified to successfully execute. Well paid jobs are created for political cronies and not those who are competent to do the work. The consequence is armed conflict which has disabled development in Africa. It is disturbing to see leaders who despite their obvious deficiencies want to remain in office longer than they deserve.

Insecurity has disabled economic development in most African countries. Unfortunately, when indices of development are examined, most African countries are laggards. For instance, ‘out of the 47 countries in the Low Human Development Index category, Africa has 33 countries and the highest incidence of conflicts in the world’. Although World Bank report has it that extreme poverty rate has declined by 17 percent in the last decade in Africa, sub-Saharan Africa is, however, the only region in the world for which the number of poor individuals has risen steadily. Most countries in sub-Saharan Africa have domestic crisis of either an international or local dimension borne out of poverty, hunger and injustice. This has impaired security in those countries and the sub-region. This suggests that African leaders react to manifestations rather than address the root cause of insecurity and economic underdevelopment.
In Nigeria, report has it that about 10.5 million youths are out of school spending their formative years hawking cheap goods made by other nations on streets and motor parks. This, according to a government official, was ‘indeed an embarrassing literary statistics on Nigeria’. It was also reported that ‘the number of illiterate adults has increased over the past 2 decades to reach 35 million’. By implication, about 45.5 million people, which is about 40 percent of Nigerians of working age (15-65 years) are illiterates. Consequently, the nation has not empowered this category of people for economic, political and social consciousness through literacy. These statistics are not encouraging in a continent where political leaders have always promised that they will remove hunger and poverty as well as create jobs for all those that are unemployed. It is beyond comprehension how promises currently made by African leaders will be fulfilled when economies they have been managing in their countries for more than 50 years are now depressed.

Leadership is constant work in progress. Africa needs more of courageous and committed leaders in our political landscape. Leaders should not thirst for recognition but should let their work speak for them and imbibe the truth culture. Promises made by leaders must be fulfilled by re-establishing a mechanism for supervision, discipline, transparency and accountability. African leaders must maintain cohesiveness, and ensure they do not exhibit ignorance that has shaken the confidence of their followers.

MA Johnson