LEADERSHIP IN AFRICA

 Malcolm X at the top, Dr Kwame Osagyefo Nkrumah at the left and Dim Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu.

The African continent is a beautiful continent made up of 54 countries and beautiful people belonging to diverse ethnicities with various cultures and traditions. There are many ethnicities that share similarities as much as differences in the African continent and one of the major similarities is Leadership.

Leadership is a very important aspect of culture that can never be ignored. It cuts across every culture worldwide but in this topic, our major focus is on Africa so I have to limit the discussion to leadership within the African continent. Back in the day, most African settlements were either hamlets, villages, kingdoms or empires ruled by monarchs (kings or queens) or judges. These people helped put society in order depending on their various beliefs which they held in high regard. Of course I won’t say it was perfect because there were no perfect leaders in history but while others captured slaves from other kingdoms and expanded their own kingdoms, others found better strategies to expand their kingdoms and protect their people from harm.

Then slavery and colonialism came. During the colonial era, the African people experienced lots of changes having been colonized by different countries in the continent of Europe such as England, France, Portugal, Germany, Spain, etc. After surrendering to these nations, they introduced their systems of government and way of life to us. During this period, a lot of African countries started with military rule were the citizens suffered under the leadership of notorious rulers. Dictatorship was the order of the day.

At the time the colonial masters had “left” the African soil gradually, this was the time many African countries got their “independence”. Many African cities were developing gradually. Though there was still poverty amongst the people, life was much better. In Nigeria for instance, there was free meal for students, quality education, good infrastructure, etc. Over the course of time, things changed for the worse and here we are. Though some Africans countries have better provision from their governments, the poverty and suffering has increased to a higher level across the African continent. The major point I am trying to drive here is that there are so many unanswered questions. The reason is because we as Africans even have a lot of unasked questions. We have a major problem of underdevelopment which has birthed so many other problems so far and with the amount of resources we have beneath our soil, not a single soul should ever live in abject poverty but that is the case at this point unfortunately, so why is it so is the question.

I’ll start by throwing the following questions,

1. Why are we here anyway?

2. How do we get ourselves out of this mess?

3. Every problem definitely has a source but are we being truthful with ours?

4. Some of our people argue that the white man brought us civilization but can we ascertain it didn’t bring us problems too?

5. Did the Berlin conference of 1885 do us any good? I know many of us agree it did not which is why some African countries are mere contraptions created for business purposes and not for the people living in it.

6. Can we ascertain that the remnants of colonialism has contributed to our problems a great deal?

There are many more other questions but I’ll leave with this few. Have you ever asked yourself these questions before or you’re just coming across them for the first time? If it’s the latter, let these questions be a guide for your future research.