The English dictionary defines Vision as “far-sightedness;
the ability to anticipate possible future events and developments”. In
parapsychology, a visionary is a seer, someone who can predict the future.
However, the popular meaning of a visionary is someone of unusually acute
foresight, a thinker, an innovative mind, a forward-thinking being whose
thoughts run miles ahead of others. While others are thinking of what tomorrow
will look like, a visionary is already imagining what next year will be like.
People who possess this innate ability make great leaders. Yes! I said great leaders!
But unfortunately for modern Africa, there has been an endless scarcity of such
leaders in recent times.
Gone are the days when the Awolowos, the
Azikiwes, the Nkrumahs, the Lumumbas, the Sankaras and the Mandelas of this
world were at the forefront of anti-imperialist struggle. They were advocates of
Pan-Africanism and envisioned a FREE and prosperous Africa where people with
African ancestry can confidently call a home. They were the epoch-making crusaders
that warred against colonial rule, economic exploitation and the subjugation of
the African continent to the Western world. They relentlessly fought for
political emancipation and took the reins of power when the battle was won. They
perspicaciously piloted the affairs of their people and led with a vision. They
imagined and worked towards a united Africa where poverty is not endemic, where
peaceful co-existence among ethnic groups is fostered, where political
stability is ubiquitous, where terrorism is alien and religious crises are
nonexistent. But today, Africa is plagued with a serious disease whose cure is
yet to be found. This disease is called bad leadership.
Many a times, I have tried to analyse the
disheartening economic and political situation of many African countries, in a
bid to understand why these countries remain backward despite the vast
resources that God deposited in their geography. Some analysts hinged this lack
of growth and development on neo-colonialism and continuous economic dependency
of these nations on Western powers. Even though I concur with this school of
thought to some extent, my own analysis is premised on a conclusion that a
major impediment to political stability and economic advancement is actually
bad leadership. Over the years, many African countries have experienced one
military coup or the other. From Ghana to Nigeria, to Togo, to Central African
Republic, to Uganda, down to Democratic Republic of Congo, the ‘Khaki’ men have
staged all forms of military take-over, whether bloody or bloodless. However,
this dethronement of civilian rule ushered in military dictatorship, autocracy,
tyranny or whichever word you might want to use to describe the iniquitous and
high-handed style of governance that was installed by these men in most African
countries.
Some of the notorious military dictators include Sani
Abacha and Ibrahim Babangida (Nigeria), Samuel Doe (Liberia), Idi Amin
(Uganda), Mobutu SeseSeko (DRC), Jean-Bedel Bokassa (CAR), Jean Bagaza
(Burundi) and Gnassingbe Eyadema (Togo) to mention a few. These men ruled their
territories oppressively, eliminated opposition through unlawful killings and
assassinations, unrestrainedly embezzled state funds, hindered the rule of law
and infringed on the rights of their followers. These dictators also came in
the form of politicians, activists and warlords who were elected by their
people to propel them to greater heights. At first, they were deemed as heroes
but when they acceded to the presidency, they became tyrants who clutched at
the strings of power with every might and by any means possible. Notably among
them are Charles Taylor (Liberia), Robert Mugabe (Zimbabwe), Sekou Toure
(Guinea), Kamuzu Banda (Malawi), Muhammad Gaddafi (Libya), Milton Obote
(Uganda) and Paul Kagame (Rwanda). A thousand paragraphs might not be enough,
if I were to list out the numerous dictators that have emerged from this part
of the world.
Imagine if these aforementioned leaders didn’t
employ oppression and intimidation as ruling techniques but promoted the rule
of law and ensured a liberal society; imagine if they shunned autocracy and
one-party system and instead embraced a people-based style of governance;
imagine if they focused on satisfying the needs of their people instead of
swindling money and amassing wealth; imagine if they used the resources at
their disposal to ameliorate the poor living conditions of their people instead
of spending their entire tenure fighting the opposition; imagine if they had
vision and toiled day and night to actualize the dreams of our past heroes. But
NO!, these vision-impaired leaders were too power-drunk, money-hungry and blood-thirsty.
They lacked the genius to guide their nations to the pinnacle of economic
prosperity and political stability. They enshrouded the African continent in a miasma
of bad governance, retarded the pace of development and ensured that succeeding
generations were bequeathed with poverty, political crises, civil war, economic
decay and ethno-religious conflicts.
Sadly, some of these leaders are still around,
old but alive and still ruling tyrannically in their countries, while others
have kissed the dust but passed the torch to the new ones. Painfully, the new ones
have perfectly demonstrated that they are chips off the old blocks. Even though
civilian rule is now prevalent in most African countries, we still have
Presidents and Prime Ministers who are Abacha and Idi Amin incarnates. Don’t be
fooled by their well-designed suits and ‘Agbada’ or by the description of their
public offices (President, Senator, Special Adviser etc), which are only
permissible in a democratic setting, most of these leaders have failed to
uphold democratic principles. They still toy with the lives of their followers,
ignore the voices of oppressed citizens and pay no attention to the cries of their
poverty-stricken followers. Many cities across Africa are still war-torn and
beleaguered with economic issues while the rate of political tension heightens
every day. Development is still a mirage and real democracy has not gained
enough momentum to force autocracy into extinction. Corruption permeates our
society while sectors like education and power have been rendered comatose.
There is a denominator that ties the old set of
leaders to the new and emerging ones- the lack of vision. If any leader must be
the messiah that will transform the misfortune of his people, such leader must
be a visionary. He/she must blaze the trail of leaders like Mao Zedong of
China, Abraham Lincoln, Margaret Thatcher, Eva Peron (the influential second
wife of Juan Peron and erstwhile first lady of Argentina), Jawaharlal Nehru of
India, Kwame Nkrumah, Nelson Mandela and John .F. Kennedy. These great men and
women were exemplary in their time; the interests and well being of their
people were topmost on their minds and they led, labored and served with
dignity. These are the types of leaders that Africaneeds, if she must be salvaged
from this malady called bad leadership. The health of our motherland keeps
deteriorating and she is like a patient in dire need of a surgical operation.
Till date, she still suffers from different bouts of sickness brought upon her
by visionless and crooked leaders.
In the words of Harriet Rubin, “the most elusive
and desired quality of leadership is vision. Vision is the perfume of the
mind”. The very essence of leadership is to have vision; any leader who can
look into the future and see the world, not as it is but as it should be will
move mountains and win the hearts of men. However, it is obvious even to a
blind man that there is a serious shortage of such individuals in Africa and
drastic measures must be taken to ensure that we stop short-sighted men from despotically
ruling in our polity.
Children they say are the leaders of tomorrow;
therefore, they must be properly socialized and orientated to assume leadership
roles as they grow up. The two key agents of socialization are the family and
the school and it is to these that we turn in our desperate search for a
panacea to cure the malady of bad leadership. Parents must inculcate core
principles and moral values and they must ensure such values are upheld and
properly imbibed by their children. The deplorable state of our educational
system must be addressed: the answer does not lie in sending our children
abroad to study. When these institutions function properly then they will in
turn churn out selfless leaders and visionaries.
Adedapo
Adebajo
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