Africa Needs Better Leaders

             The recent death of former Zambian President Kenneth Kaunda has led to a lot of discussion and remembrance of well-known African leaders of the past, such as Tanzania’s Julius Nyerere, Kenya’s Jomo Kenyatta, South Africa’s Nelson Mandela and Ghana’s Kwame Nkrumah.  As with all leaders worldwide and throughout history, these men were flawed, but they are remembered for leading their nations into independence or majority rule. 

They may have made unfortunate choices in the opinion of many in some cases, but at least they seemed to care about the welfare of their people.  Their lives and rule were in contrast to other African leaders such as Uganda’s Idi Amin and Milton Obote, Central African Republic’s Jean-Bédel Bokassa, Nigeria’s Sani Abacha and Ethiopia’s Mengistu Haile Mariam.  Their reigns are not remembered fondly and indeed, their names inspire fearful memories of what they wrought on their own people.

Whatever errors for which the first list of African leaders may have been responsible, many still remember them fondly.  Mandela was known as “Madiba” a Xhosa word for respect for an elder.  Nyerere was called “Mwalimu”, in Swahili meaning teacher of the people. Nkrumah was given the Akan label” Osagyefo”, or redeemer of his people.  What names are given or will be given to today’s roster of leaders?

Back in the 1990s, U.S. other Western governments hailed several presidents as “Africa’s new leaders”:  Uganda’s Yoweri Museveni, Rwanda’s Paul Kagame, Ethiopia’s Meles Zenawi and Eritrea’s Isaias Afwerki.  All four failed to live up to the promise the international community saw in them in one way or another, most commonly in their refusal to pass on power.  Other African leaders have magnanimously given way to successors, such as the case of Botswana’s Seretse Khama, who reportedly declined the offer by the ruling Botswana Democratic Party he founded to be exempt from the law establishing term limits. 

Khama was popular throughout his long term in office and could have continued until his death, but he declined to do so.  After his passing, an estimated 40,000 people paid their respects to Khama as his body lay in state in the capital of Gaborone. Who among Africa’s current leaders would you anticipate would engender the same level of admiration from their people?

To be sure, there are other African leaders who have respected the rule of law and the expressed will of the people through the vote.  Mathieu Kérékou seized power in Benin (then known as Dahomey) in a military coup on 26 October 1972.  He conceded to democratic reforms, and when he lost the March 1991 election, he willingly left office for successor Nicéphore Soglo. In the next elections in March 1996, Kérékou reclaimed the presidency, which was voluntarily vacated by Soglo.  After two terms in office troubled by efforts to stymie his political opposition, Senegal’s Abdoulaye Wade lost widely to Macky Sall in April 2012 after his unsuccessful effort to win a third term in office and left the presidency.

Unfortunately, the examples in Botswana, Benin and Senegal have not been followed by other African leaders who prefer to continue their rule indefinitely as “presidents for life” despite internal and external pressure to leave office.  Political manipulation and ethnic loyalty have prevented many opposition figures from achieving success, but as in the case of President Sall, persistence can be rewarded with success.  Yet another example of persistence despite repeated attempts at disqualification and postponements of elections saw Alassane Ouattara become President of Cote d’Ivoire in December 2010.

Mohammed “Mo” Ibrahim is a Sudanese billionaire businessman and philanthropist who founded the telecommunications company Celtel International in 1998.  The Mo Ibrahim Foundation was established in 2006 to "bring about meaningful change on the continent, by providing tools to support progress in leadership and governance".  The Ibrahim Prize for Achievement in African Leadership is an annual prize since 2007 awarded to a former African executive head of state or government based on a criterion of good governance, democratic election and respect of terms limits. With a US$5 million payment, the prize is larger than the US$1.3 million Nobel Peace Prize.

The Ibrahim Index of African Governance, a major program of the foundation, examines the record of potential recipients of the award in four categories: safety and rule of law, participation and human rights, sustainable economic opportunity and human development.  These four categories are then divided into 14 sub-categories, consisting of more than 100 indicators. In eight of the fourteen years it has been offered, no leader has been found worthy of the award. 

Ibrahim Prize recipients thus far have been: Mozambique’s Joaquim Chissano (2007), Botswana’s Festus Mogae (2008), Cabo Verde’s Pedro Pires (2011), Namibia’s Hifikepunye Pohamba 2014), Liberia’s Ellen Johnson Sirleaf (2017) and Niger’s Mahamadou Issoufou (2020). Former South African President Nelson Mandela was an honorary laureate.

A major impediment to finding qualifying former African leaders is the outbreak of presidents prolonging their stay in office.  An award winner must have vacated the office in order to receive the prize, provided he or she has met the other criteria.  Of course, if a president or prime minister has prolonged their stay in power beyond the originally mandated terms, chances are they have violated principles on which they would have been chosen.

The roadblock of leaders who refuse to relinquish power is but one obstacle to identifying and moving up younger, more democratically committed and capable leaders.  For example, until relatively recently, women such as Ellen Johnson Sirleaf or Malawi’s Joyce Banda, Ethiopia’s Sahle-Work Zewde or Central African Republic’s Catherine Samba-Panza wouldn’t stand a chance of even being considered as a transitional leader.  With more women becoming Vice President or major political party figures, women have a much greater chance of becoming the leader of their country.

Being from the “wrong” ethnic group, religion or political party have long been considered disqualifiers for African leadership, and African presidents, their governments and their ruling parties have used various tactics to prevent people in out groups from assuming power – from declaring them to be non-citizens, to jailing them on manufactured charges to forcing them into exile.  Leaders such as former President Wade of Senegal and current President Ouattara of Cote d’Ivoire overcame efforts to prevent their ascension to power, and others will as well in the years to come.

Young people, however you delimit their ages, are still blocked from taking office at the highest level in Africa.  The old guard continues to prevent young men and women from rising as their talent might deserve.  The U.S. Young African Leaders Initiative has identified and provided leadership training for thousands of younger Africans in government, business and civil society.  The graduates of this program return to their home country to resume their lives and solidify their connections, while better understanding how the United States and the other governments in the West operate.  One day they will break with outmoded traditions and prejudices and be capable leaders of their countries with an expanded ability to relate to their counterparts in the international community.

The process of leadership development, though, will be more successful if two things happen.  First, if citizens in African countries must increasingly choose their leaders based on how well they serve their needs.  This is a development that escapes many in the developed world so we outside Africa should be less smug about our superior ability to select great leaders. 

That leads to the second point.  The U.S. Government, Canada, Europe and other developed world governments must stop allowing expedience to cause them to overlook violators of the same standards the Ibrahim Prize was established to reward because a rogue leader is beneficial for short-term foreign policy initiatives.  Overlooking the behavior of violators only encourages new violators who then make the case that they serve international interests too.

We must ask ourselves whether our immediate interests supersede the long-term development of Africa and the welfare of its people and act in accordance with all our long-term best interests.  Short-term thinking has resulted in horrendous mismanagement of resources, massive corruption, unnecessary civil conflict and even genocides.  The international community cannot continue to behave in such a heedless manner, no matter how practical a decision may seem at the moment.