African leaders/. Pix: Africannews

Dan Agbese’s article title “The Cursed Continent: Thoughts on African Leadership” in The Guardian Newspaper of September 8, was expectedly a robust article with catchy heading and intelligent discourse on leadership in Africa. The beautiful piece from the frontline journalist wouldn’t have required a rejoinder but for the lacuna in its presentation. Is Africa really accursed or a place full of self-affliction?

The truth is that the failure of leadership in Africa is foisted on the continent more by centuries of colonialism and the docility of its teeming enslaved minds. In Africa the leaders are most active while the followers are chronically passive.

As earlier mentioned, this is not unexpected because the uncorrupted minds of the Africans have been re-modelled by several years of subjugation and sub-human conditions which today is manifesting in other forms through religion and by the so-called education that presents the slave-master as superior in all ramifications. Certainly, the slave master came to Africa with weapons to fight a war but soon discovered that physical force was unnecessary because it was easy to lure the African leaders with tinsels and money in exchange for human beings.

In fact, when it pleased the colonialists to stop slave trade it has to be done through the use of force because the community leaders were not willing to stop selling their people to the traders. For instance, the colonialists had to wage war against Oba Kosoko to completely abolish slave trade in Lagos.

The situation is compounded by our stems that derived its roots from the monarchy system in which the leader enjoys almost absolute power over the people. Hence, the Yoruba concept of “Kabiyesi” which is in similitude of the English system whereby the “The King can do no wrong”.

Generally, in Africa we misconstrued the power of leadership as belonging to one person rather than one given by the people solely for the benefit of the people. Hence, the belief that the person is “all in all”, almighty and infallible to the extent that the individual is surrounded by mediocre who would rather curry favors from him to carve out their own “kingdom” rather than effectively challenge the excesses of leadership in accordance with the rule of the land.

In one word, the followership creates the “Big Man” rather than the big man creating the monstrous image for displaying notoriety for which African leaders are known. It is certain that if the followers are not honest, highly dependable, industrious, committed, and nationalistic, very little can be expected of leadership. One wonders where the good leader would emerge from but from the same population of followers with the stated characteristics.

The premise of the above position is that every society designs and adopts its own system and mode of government and administration. It may, at the end of the day, not be because the leadership baton changes between father and son but because the followers are watchmen who play their roles effectively and efficiently in monitoring the leaders.

The Nehru dynasty in India is a case in point. Motilal Nehru (1861-1931) who was twice the president of the Indian National Congress handed the baton of leadership of the party to his son Jawaharlal Nehru (also known as Pandit Nehru) who became the President of the same congress and consequently the first Prime Minister of India. He ruled for 16 years and 286 days before being succeeded by Shri Lal Bahadur Shastri on June 9 1964. Shastri died in a mysterious circumstance about one and a half years later on June 11 1966.

His tenure was followed by that of Nehru’s daughter Shrimati Indira Ghandi who, ruled for 15 years and 350 days ( with a short tenure of Shri Moraji Desai in between) before she was assassinated by two of his bodyguards, Satwant and Beant Singh on October 31, 1984. She was succeeded by her son Rajivaratna Ghandi who ruled from October 31, 1984 to December 2, 1989.

His brother Sanjay Ghandi would have become the successor of their mother but for his untimely death. Rajiv’s wife Sonia Ghandi an Italian (who changed her name from Edvige Anthonia Albina Maino) is today the leader of the Indian Congress but for her foreign descent, she would have succeeded her husband.

The question is what has India lost from this spate of family succession? The World statistics shows that India is not a push over in the socio-demographic data of the world. On August 23, 2023 India became the first country to land a spacecraft near the moon’s south pole. Its Universities of Technology (Indian Institute of Technology) has populated the world with manpower that the world would ignore to its own peril.

In this regard and to complement the writing of Dan Agbese, it may be necessary to use Nigeria as a template of the African psyche on leadership and followership. The truth is that rather than being cursed, the African people wallow in self-denial which they brings upon themselves through myopic tendencies, self -centeredness, selfishness, greed and avarice.

When the African lay his hands on power he uses it to oppress rather than promote the welfare of the people. He is a model and an example of what a leader should not be. The sordid tales of the reaction of the followership in Nigeria to the 2023 general elections is a case in point. The adamant posture of a political party on Muslim-Muslim tickets and the refusal of a presidential candidate to yield to zoning are all decisions taken in the right direction because it is time, we dispense with the idea of electing a leader for being one of us rather than for being able to work for us. The two parties and leaders concerned have shown direction one way or the other because good leaders don’t necessarily give people what they want but what is beneficial to them.

Moreover, God has been so charitable to the African that he doesn’t have to grapple with the challenges facing the man in the orient and the occident. There is absence of tsunami, weather around him is clement, no cyclone and he doesn’t have to give hurricane and tornado names. The sun that shines on his land and over him is relatively mild, therefore, he is never facing sunstroke. Every part of his land is endowed with one natural resource or the other even though he doesn’t know the utility for his own wellbeing and benefits. He is blessed and therefore takes life for granted.

The colonial masters risked everything to get to this continent at a time when the means of doing so with ease was not available. It is all because the African land is blessed.
Ojikutu is a retired Professor, University of Lagos.