The solution to African challenges is good leadership and to be able to recruit good leadership in Africa, we have to build strong institutions that will withstand individuals, that will resist pressures of individual leaders
Technology has brought everyone into a global village, which has so many benefits, but the point in being a global village is that nobody hands you a sausage. You have to bring something to the table to be able to take something away from the table.
Today, Africa has not shown global competitiveness. Africa is mostly on the receiving side, carrying a bowel and demanding and expecting favors and concessions from the world. It is not bringing enough onto the global table. So, our leadership is uncompetitive, our leadership challenges have been very well demonstrated by the deficit that we have demonstrated, even in the management of Covid 19.
We were so dependent on the rest of the world to lead us, in developing the kits, in developing therapeutics, in developing the vaccines and in planning the distributions of the vaccines. So, the concept of global leadership is that it forces nations to try and wake up. It forces nations to be competitive and to be able to subject itself to peer pressure and peer measurement.
However, the truth of the matter today is that many of our leaders are still very myopic; they are still pedestrian, they are unable to see beyond their noses. They are not visionary, they are not competitive, they are not able to stand on an equitable ground and on a competitive ground in the global space.
So, what happens is that Africa is receiving the short end of the stick and we have become very much susceptible to what the rest of the world wants us to do, not exactly what we like to do, because of our level of uncompetitiveness, level of unpreparedness, lack of appropriate vision and even proper alignment with best global practices.
Africa doesn’t feature really much in terms of leadership globally as we know. You see, there is a common denominator that runs across Africa. Africa came late to development. Africa is a young continent so to speak in terms of internationalization.
Of course, most of Africa was under colonization until late 50s and early 60s before we became independent countries so that was when we truly joined the committee of nations as equals so to speak. We were being ruled by the European powers all the while. They had the history of developing leadership and this history has spanned thousands of years.
And the wisdom, the learning from this history is that individuals do not guarantee sustainable society, what guarantees sustainability is institutions. So they have taken time over hundreds of years to build strong institutions. Such that right now we have strong institutions in the UK, France, and the US.
As a case study, the last United States election turned out the way it did because the US institutions are very strong to withstand any leader. Otherwise President Trump would have remained President. The institutions are built to outlast individuals.
In the UK for another instance, Boris Johnson, when he became Prime Minister said he would never ask the EU for extension of negotiation to leave the EU, but the moment he came through, the women in the parliament spoke, he had no option, he had to write the letter.
So, it wasn’t about him, it was about the institutions. They guide, they constrain leaders and they make them behave in a particular way that is not injurious to the society. So that even if you have a bad leader, he will not do so much damage to the society.
But African nations have yet to learn any of these. Africa continues to depend on strong men. I mean, European history, American history, world history has been replayed with strong men trying to govern but the leadership of strong men doesn’t guarantee anything. It destroys society. It is capricious. It doesn’t last long. It withers away with time and it is subject to the whims and caprices of an individual.
Most people say the rule book of a society is its constitution, there are rules laid down on how exactly the society should be administered, irrespective of whoever finds himself in positions of authority. In the United States and every other countries, there is the constitution, except monarchies that are usually based on traditions. The constitutions govern exactly how things should be done.
Now people in the society respect the constitutions and there are institutions set up to ensure that the spirit and letter of those constitutions are respected and are not violated in any way or form. But in Africa, the constitutions are on papers alone. Nobody respects those constitutions.
Nobody governs by the dictates of those constitutions. It is by personal whims and caprices and that is the major problem of Africa and why African nations lack the capacity to stay competitive in global leadership. Africa continues to depend on strong men rather than on institutions.
In Nigeria for example, there is hardly any institution that works as it should. Therefore it is not surprising that Nigeria with all its potentials has been struggling to get it right even under democratic rule. This is because personalities instead of institutions reign. So, anybody who comes in, can abuse laws, trample on laws, do whatever they want, and go away with it.
The solution to African challenges therefore is good leadership and to be able to recruit good leadership in Africa, we have to build strong institutions that will withstand individuals, that will resist pressures of individual leaders. Yeah, I mean, it is about leaders. It is about building strong institutions.
What role Africa should be playing right now?
Africa should play as an equal in the global community. We should play as a valuable member of the global community. So, the first thing is that Africa and Africans should jettison the mentality of dependence. Depending on aid, depending on help, depending on support all the time. China will support Africa; the UK will support Africa; everybody is supporting Africa.
In fact, in many African countries, if you take away global aid from Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation; you take away help from WHO, USAID, Oxford University, Cambridge University; you will be surprised that there is nothing going on in the health care sector. Most of the health care programs – fight against Malaria, HIV AIDs, all are by donations. The question is where is the budgeted money for health care for example?
The point is that Africa needs to grow up. Grow up to take its position in an equitable manner. Africa cannot grow up without the right leadership orientation. Most people occupying leadership positions are not even properly educated. They are not competent; they don’t have good character; they don’t have courage; they can’t stand up to their convictions. They are not even democratically elected. Therefore, they don’t have the moral right to stand up as leaders.
First we need to be sure that our leadership selection or election method is such that it will throw up the right calibre of leadership. The major problem with Africa is poor leadership. Poor political leadership. And in the places where good leadership has manifested, like in Rwanda, and Ghana, you can see things are changing. It is directly related to the quality of leadership. Rwanda is attracting investment; Ghana is attracting investment. International conferences are being held in Rwanda, they are being held in Ghana.
Twitter just took their African office to Ghana. That is because they see competent leadership, leadership that understands how the world operates. Leadership that will not have any complexity in discussing with Joe Biden, in discussing with Putin, in discussing with all other leaders of the world.
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Africa must look for leadership that is contemporary, leadership that is competent, leadership that is educated, leadership that is visionary, leadership that understands how the world operates. This is the first challenge because if you give an incompetent man a job, he won’t do well.
He will probably not have the confidence to take the right stand in global issues. So he rather avoids them. The first job therefore is to create the proper leader cadre that can build strong institutions, come to the global stage and then can merit their space and can defend Africa. This is critical.
Secondly of course, even if you have the competent leadership as I just described, the leaders must also have vision. Visionary in terms of moving Africa from its current doldrums, from its level of underdevelopment and sub development, from its level of poor quality of life, low life expectancy, high infant mortality, high maternal mortality, low quality of life.
When you look at human development indices, transparency index, corruption index, Africa is at the bottom. Just check which countries at the end, it must be an African country. We seem not to have leaders that are angry enough to make the necessary decisions for change to happen.
Africa needs leaders that are visionary and also ambitious to be able to move their nations from where they are. Because if you don’t set ambitious goals or vision, you will allow the law of gravity to deal with you, you follow the least line of resistance.
These are two critical things Africa should be looking at: the model of leadership selection and election; the minimum qualifications, and criteria for assuming leadership and that leadership to become visionary, ambitious, and competitive to be able to lift Africa from its current doldrums.
Africa and Africans must give attention to how leaders are trained, how they are groomed, and then how they are enthroned. The system must be merit driven. If leaders are not properly trained, great leaders will not emerge because if your selection is based on other mundane considerations, the best people will not emerge. The system must be merit driven, the selection method must be evidence based.
African societies must also look at the pedigree of the people seeking to lead. Where are the people coming from? What have they done before? What jobs have they held? How did they perform at those jobs? The idea is to look at the past performance in order to predict the future.
In most African countries, people vote people into office driven by considerations like: how much money did he bring? How much rice did he give us? Is he from our tribe? Is he from the same religion? These considerations appear more important than competence and merit.
When you want to measure honesty and integrity of one seeking a leadership position whether in a company or a country, you can get it from his/her past.
So every African should understand the situation as it is and take responsibility for changing it. By ensuring first of all that the right leaders are selected and holding these leaders accountable, a country can begin to build the systems and institutions necessary for responsible leadership that can then play the type of role expected of African nations in a globalized world.
