I love soups, especially palm nut soup. They breathe life into my life. Like every meal, every ingredient ― no matter how little ― is very important. When soup lacks an ingredient, it does not taste the same.
A careful observation of all the recent happenings on the African landscape points to how leadership is perceived in this side of the world. The standards of leadership have sunk so low, and the living standards of Africans keep sinking even lower. Slavery in the hands of the white man was bad. Unfortunately, slavery in the hands of our fellow black men has been worse.
Even the blind can see that Africa has a grave leadership challenge. In a continent where almost century-old leaders are still forcing themselves on their people, it goes without saying that we are yet to understand the concept of leadership. And, just when we thought that tyranny was a thing for the world of men, Tanzania proved us wrong.
Leadership cannot be understated in the progress of any people. How far a people will go largely depends on who is leading them. Gather a group of losers, and put a daring winner in charge of them. (S)he will change their destiny eventually. Leadership drives the direction of a people, and it takes them to the right destination.
Leadership is a game changer. A herd of sheep led by a lion will always be the head over a pride of lions led by a sheep because leadership is strategy. It is an intentional effort to move mountains to the deserts. The advancement of any people revolves around its leadership.
The multimillion dollar question is, “Does the typical African/African leader understand leadership? In a continent plagued by poverty, what does leadership mean to those who have been mandated to take their people to their promised land?”
Interestingly, leadership has a wrong definition in the dictionary of most Africans. We perceive it as an opportunity to take advantage of others. To a lot of people, their desire for leadership is to grab the opportunity those they condemned had. They get into these shoes and do worse than what they complained about, leaving an already bad system worse.
Many of us perceive power as an opportunity to abuse others. When given the privilege to be in charge, we treat people with disdain. Every little opportunity to lead becomes an opportunity to suppress others. We make rules we want to be exempted from. Little wonder we climb to the top with no intention to change the systems we so much abhor.
Africa needs to reimagine leadership. We need a total mental reformation as far as leadership is concerned. Until we understand that good leadership is the magic wand that will turn our economy around, we will keep knocking at a door that never seems to open. We will keep begging from those who have to be begging from us.
Enough resources are never enough when poor leadership is at the helm of affairs. When we faithfully create a system that fetes the politician at the expense of the poor, everyone’s biggest dream will be to become a politician despite having no iota of leadership in them. Truth is, the politician who buys nothing cannot understand the pain of the citizen who buys everything. After all, a leader cannot solve a problem they do not have.
A poor system is one that exempts its leaders from the problems they are supposed to solve. Wherever political leadership is the easiest escape from the problems of the people, political leadership becomes one of the problems of the people. Politicians will go to hell and back as long as it will keep them in power!
Africa needs to crack the code of leadership ― good leadership ― else our progress will constantly be stagnant. We need a deeper understanding of leadership ― that the greatest leader is the greatest servant. The typical African leader ought to understand that one does not need a millennium to make an impact.
Leadership is what makes a people. It is not about how many resources those people have. It is about how far their leaders can see while managing those resources. Great leadership is when we set up sustainable systems that have posterity in mind. Leadership that considers the future of the present should be the kind of leadership Africa should boast of.
Great leaders raise abled men and women. They do not bully them into oppression even when their time is done. The legacy of a great leader is not in the length of time they serve, but the length of time their impact lasts. A leader’s trump card is in the caliber of people they raise.
Leadership is a bridge. It connects challenges to their solutions. When people aspire to lead, their greatest inspiration should be to solve the challenges of those they desire to lead. Without a solid plan to solve problems, leadership becomes another problem.
We should be intentional about resetting the mindset of the African about leadership. Leadership is not an opportunity to enrich people’s pockets. It is an opportunity to make the lives of people better.
An opportunity to lead is an opportunity take a people where they need to be, and not even where they want to be. Where people want to be is sometimes not where they need to be. It takes a great leader to foresee the future of a people as a destination and take bold decisions that will take them there.
Weak leadership has cost Africa. It has been the foundation of our weak systems. Wherever systems are weak, indiscipline is at its peak. It is going to, for instance, take forever to fight the menace of galamsey if weak leadership is all we have. Weak leadership is like a toothless bulldog. All it can do is to bark and move back!
We are at a critical dispensation of our history as a continent. We cannot fail posterity because of weak leadership. The time to drive the future is now… and it begins with intentionally adding leadership to the African soup.
By Kobina Ansah
The writer is the Chief Scribe of Scribe Productions (www.scribeproductions.com) and Scribe Communications (www.scribecommltd.com).