Former Minister of Education, Mrs. Obiageli Ezekwesili, has drawn attention to the persistent issue of bad leadership as a significant obstacle to the economic development of Africa.
She emphasized that unless urgent steps are taken to bring about structural changes in African politics, the continent will continue to struggle with the problem of inadequate leadership.
Ezekwesili made these remarks during the graduation ceremony of the 2023 School of Politics, Policy, and Governance. She expressed her concern that without intervention from leaders across various sectors, including government, the private sector, and civil society, Africa would remain deprived of good leadership.
The former minister stressed that available data substantiates the notion that meaningful development is unattainable under the current circumstances prevailing on the continent. She highlighted Africa’s commitment to the path of democracy but noted that historical data demonstrates that countries that have achieved prosperity have generally done so through democratic governance.
Ezekwesili’s remarks underscore the pressing need for reform and transformation in African politics to pave the way for effective leadership and sustainable development.
She noted, “As you listen to our brothers and sisters from various countries on the continent, you can see that it is a common denominator for Africans to mourn the absence of quality leadership.
“Africa has chosen the path of democracy and if we look at historical numbers, more countries that have enjoyed prosperity have come through the democratic path.
“So, democracy is a very important thing because democracy comes with political freedom. With political freedom, there is a rule of law and that rule of law is the cornerstone of economic freedom.
“It is economic freedom that leads to the proliferation of ideas, innovations, creativity and therefore, the two most important economic agendas for countries is get solved faster and better.
“Competitiveness and productivity are all based on empirical data. So, if we know all those things as evidence abounds, we can not then sit back and hope that somehow change will come.
“So if Africans need to transform our politics and we just sit back as citizens, hoping that those who have entrenched poor governance as a matter of political culture will someday fall in the kind of Apostle Paul and have a Damascus experience we will wait forever and that is not something that this generation should do.”
In his remarks, a Kenyan activist, Boniface Mwangi, also said Africa’s biggest problem is leadership, adding that too much concentration on religion has contributed to the continent’s underdevelopment which must be addressed.
He stressed the need for young people to take over power from the older class which has not helped the continent but are mere neocolonial stooges as African stolen wealth is stashed in advanced countries.
Mwangi said, “Africa’s biggest problem is its leadership and we have to fix that. Driving from Abuja Airport to the Hotel I saw that the biggest buildings and very magnificent were not schools, or good homes but churches and there lies our problem. We focus a lot on religion and we need to fix that.
“Our leaders have copied the white man’s ways. When the white man colonised our continent, he took our lands, he took our minerals, he took everything and we kicked them out and then we took the bad habits. Our continent, our land was communal but now we have become very Western in our ideals. So we have 10 billionaires and a billion poor in Africa and that needs to be fixed.
“And then we need young people to take over power and that can’t happen when we spend more time praying than politicking, make politics our way of life because that’s the reason you don’t have a job, the reason there is no security, medicine in hospitals.
He added, “The biggest mistake the young people have made in this continent is to serve the old people. The old people of yesteryears, the people who came before us, the ones who fought for independence did not collaborate with the white men why are we collaborating with criminals, collaborating with thugs?
“So we need to think how do we have across Africa a Pan African movement to fix our leadership because if we don’t fix our leadership we will be doomed. The people we have in power are neocolonial stooges, they work for the white man. The money that is stolen in our continent goes abroad.”
