Poor leadership in Africa setback for development
By Kenneth Kwama
Updated Monday, June 24th 2013 at 22:35 GMT +3
Kenya: Two decades ago today, former Zambian leader
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ARCH> Kenneth Kaunda broke down and wept in front of an audience of artists
in Nairobi, citing the political turmoil in most African states as the cause
of his anguish.
Kaunda, who used the traditional white handkerchief he is known to carry to
every function, later recited a poem he wrote in which he attributed
Africa's problems to poor
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leadership. He also identified greed, oppression and corruption as major
causes of conflicts and other crises afflicting the continent.
Details of the proceedings were published on page four of The Standard on
June 25, 1993 under the headline: Cry the beloved continent. A graphic photo
of a weeping Kaunda struggling to control his emotions as he wiped away
tears accompanied the story.
Kaunda who ruled Zambia for 27 years became the first African Head of State
in 1991 to concede defeat in multi-party elections in which he lost to
Frederick Chiluba in Zambia's first competitive polls.
Poem for Africa
The paper quoted Kaunda saying he wrote a poem, which he still recounted at
meetings about problems facing most African countries while at the Maasai
Mara, where he stayed on a visit to Kenya soon after his election loss.
"In between sobs, which caught most members of his audience by surprise, an
emotional Kaunda decried Africa's numerous woes. Kaunda was speaking during
a keynote address at the
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http://www.standardmedia.co.ke/?searchtext=Union%20of%20Radio%20and%20Telev
ision%20Network%20of%20Africa&searchbutton=SEARCH> Union of Radio and
Television Network of Africa's (Urtna) 30th anniversary in Nairobi
yesterday," reported The Standard.
Not much has changed in terms of
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leadership in the continent since Kaunda's lamentations two decades ago,
although there are indications that some African countries and leaders are
striding towards better governance.
Recent examples of revolutions in countries like Tunisia, Libya and Egypt
have ushered in new
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leadership, although the countries are yet to show any substantive changes
in governance, probably because they are still in transition.
Unlike during Kaunda's tenure in office when democratic elections were rare,
countries like South Africa, Kenya, Nigeria, Tanzania and Ethiopia have
conducted elections that in many ways could be said to be reflective of the
people's will in the past decade.
Although there has been discontentment in some cases like during the 2007
and 2013 elections in Kenya, which resulted in post election violence and an
election petition challenging the election of Uhuru Kenyatta as President,
respectively, the general trend is pointing to positive change for the
continent.
But this doesn't mean the going has been smooth all through because there
are still glaring examples of bad
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leadership.
Last year, Forbes magazine stated that while African leaders were becoming
increasingly democratic, showing more respect for human rights and recording
significant progress in liberalising the political environment, the bad eggs
still linger.
It listed the top five worst leaders in the continent starting with
Equatorial Guinea's Teodoro Obiang Nguema, who having ruled for 34 years is
Africa's longest ruler whose first son spends millions of taxpayers' money
to feed a lavish lifestyle, which includes luxurious apartments in Malibu, a
gulfstream jet and a car collection that 'could easily make billionaires go
green with envy.'
Others in the list include Jose Eduardo dos Santos of Angola, Robert Mugabe
of Zimbabwe, King Mswati III of Swaziland and Omar Al-Bashir.
Selfish
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leadership
While greed and personal aggrandisement has been mentioned as possible
reason for the selfish
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leadership in some African countries, in 2011, News Day gave a new twist to
the script when it published a story quoting leaked US cable, which stated
that Mugabe was so obsessed with eclipsing Kaunda's 27-year stay in power
that he rejected advice from aides and his personal doctor to leave office
in 2007.
Mugabe's policy of seizing white settler farms in poorly thought out
'Africanisation project' has been condemned as the epitome of poor judgment
in
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leadership in many newspaper editorials.
It led to fallout between Zimbabwe and Western donor countries, triggering
an economic nightmare that analysts say has set back Zimbabwe by more than a
decade. Generally, the lesson from Zimbabwe and other African countries with
bad
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leadership is that the direction in terms of economic and democratic
progress such countries take depend on the political leader.
A good illustration of this is the rise of the South African economy as well
as the increasingly sense of inclusiveness in the 1990s, which was
attributed to the now ailing Nelson Mandela. His replacement with Thabo
Mbeki could not sustain the momentum and the country started to relapse.
Mr Mbeki refused to accept the "link between HIV and Aids", which caused
millions of deaths. Current President Jacob Zuma, who took over the
presidency in 2009, has been criticised for not putting enough effort in
solving the issue of corruption.
Although South Africa still stands out as an icon of good governance in the
continent, the uncertain political and democratic development in South
Africa still mirrors that of several other countries in the continent.
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Received on Mon Jun 24 2013 - 17:57:41 EDT