For most Africans, Africa is home. We are supposed to be a formidable force which cannot easily be broken. Leadership has failed us on many fronts, from the Kwamina Ansah’s who gave the Europeans access to his people just because of schnapp and gun powder to more recent nation wreckers we have now, something has gone wrong and the new generation has to fix it.
South Africa has started experiencing xenophobic attacks comparable to that of 2008 and the question is why does the South African government allow that to happen again? I think South Africa is experiencing a leadership crisis. Every time you hear of a place with a leadership crisis, blame the people.
The African National Congress (ANC) of South Africa has been the party in power for close to twenty years. Mandela set a very high standard of leadership even Europeans and Western leaders may never achieve in their lifetime and as a result of the hardwork and sacrifice by this great man, pre-apartheid and apartheid born South Africans feel eternally loyal to the ANC.
This has led to this point whereby even if ANC presents a dog as a flagbearer, South Africans are most likely to vote for it massively because to them the dog is Mandela. So at this point you have a corrupt, incompetent person like Jacob Zuma leading such a potential super power. (The sentences might be close but I am in no way saying Jacob Zuma is the dog)
Post apartheid ‘babies’ need to begin a revolution not necessarily by voting Julius Malema (He’s probably just bitter about leaving ANC) but by identifying good leadership material and giving such people their support.
I don’t understand why and how people think you are exaggerating or being too melodramatic when you say corruption and bad leadership is a national security threat. A typical example is South Africa. The sad fact however is that the frustration is not meted out on the bad leaders but rather on innocent people. This is a country which not too long ago was fighting discrimination on the basis of colour, a fight which almost every African country joined in diverse forms. Now here is the irony, today it’s a crime to be a black African in South Africa and who are doing the hunting? Black South Africans! South Africans should bow their heads in shame and ensure this menace stops and never happens again. It is absolutely ludicrous, and the highest form of cowardice to blame black foreigners for causing the economic problems.
South Africa’s leadership crisis is similar to that of Ghana, Nigeria and most African countries actually, however, here in Ghana we choose to attack and demand accountability from our government under the leadership of John Mahama instead of attacking black foreigners here in Ghana. It is not the foreigners who are killing our industries and creating unemployment but rather the government of Ghana for making a conscious effort not to boost the fortunes of local industries by creating an enabling environment for them to thrive.
Take a look at Ghana, no power, a currency which is faring badly and a clear lack of political will to promote indigenous businesses. So how are these issues for example the fault of foreigners even though we see gross disrespect shown to our people almost always by the Lebanese, Syrians, Indians, Chinese and so on. The main problem isn’t the presence of foreigners but the policy direction by the leadership of a country.
Nigeria may even be a worse situation because a country with that kind of wealth should have been leading the continent to become the economic lion but you see what Nigeria is and you cannot help but get sad. During the last general election in Nigeria, the fact that Goodluck Jonathan and General Buhari were the most qualified representatives of their parties is disheartening because in my opinion those are two men with no interest in developing Nigeria.
I therefore call on those brainless South Africans to redirect their misguided enthusiasm towards their Presidential Palace to remind Jacob Zuma of his primary mandate in case he has forgotten. His mandate is to steer South Africa on a path of prosperity and national development not choosing wives from a pageant list, living like a king and taking baths to avoid STD’s.
Africa has a leadership crisis and the sooner we, the people decide to solve it the better for all of us. Men like President Hifikepunye Pohamba, former President of Namibia, the latest Mo Ibrahim Prize for Achievement in African Leadership give us hope but for how long will only see glimpses of what could have been a very fierce constellation of leaders whose prime focus is to serve. We need to get to the point where the people who choose these leaders can sit outside the Presidential Palaces till we see change happening. When that happens, a precedent is set for subsequent leaders to know that these are the people whose destiny you cannot joke and toy with.