African dictatorship rooted in her traditional culture!

Kenya’s coalition government is still out there in the air and civil strife might resume. In Zimbabwe there is a rumor President Robert Mugabe has ordered a vote re-count before the Electoral Commission even announces the results. In Cameroon, President Paul Biya has had his way to a third term and past and future crimes cleared by the national parliament through a constitutional amendment on April 10th, 2008. This pattern is all over the continent. Africa seems to be under siege with itself which might explain a possible mass clash of culture as the world globalizes.

Some years back my grand mother deep in Luwero explained to us around a fire place that she can’t eat chicken because traditionally women are "not" allowed to eat chicken. Yes, women were not allowed to eat the high protein stuff but greens. She actually argued that in many homes a gizzard being misplaced could spark a storm in a cup of tea. Men were treated like kings and children grew up knowing that a man, as ahead of family was treated with many privileges. Young boys aspired to assume their rightful position in the home by marrying early. While the positive aspects of early marriages could be for genetic continuity as expected by community, the motive for early marriages (family formation) by many could be the power and control that comes along with the position of family head. Traditionally, polygamy was also a source of power and wealth as a large family provided a labor supply for the family head in the number of wives and children.

This family environment, church or school is therefore the breeding ground for dictatorship in Africa. Are leaders at family level instilling the moral fabric that is required of leaders at home? Are fathers role models to their children and family? Are church leaders leading by example or have turned into con-men? Are our professionals leading by example at their work place or more interested in money rather than service of those they supposed to serve? With women emancipation, women have taken leadership roles as family heads and corporate institutions. We need to examine the behavioral pattern of leaders at a broad spectrum in order to understand the economic-political hemorrhage that has hit the face of Africa in the post-independence political regime. Too powerful is the African teacher, church-man, president, traditional leader since he/she has been an absolute source of information while his subordinates remain silent recipients rather than having an interactive dialogue or multilogue. It is now common to hear elites use a phrase “Africa Leaders” with an element of exclusivity both in public conferences and virtual communities on the internet. This African leader disease is hard to identify in oneself but easy to see in others and thus the ease of pointing finguers. “African leaders” is a phrase used to refer to the usual military “strong men” but in actual sense these are insecure individuals with low-self esteem whose psyches date back to the time they were children in their families, church and schools where the father, bishop or teacher wielded unnecessarily immense power for subjugation. The attempt to exclude oneself from leadership at all levels of our individual efforts in society is very much a distorting fact in our efforts to criticize those at the apex of our national leadership. Leadership starts with me and you in our local communities, homes, church, offices and even informal groups as friends.

The Oxford dictionary defines leadership as taking responsibility of an entity or other individuals. It is a position where one is charged with making sound decisions because one has been trusted to have sound judgment on behalf of an entity or those he is responsible for. Leadership is not by comfort but by sacrifice. It calls for service above self. It calls for humility of those charged with responsibility to serve above self. Today, Africa is a shameful scar of our modern history. We have betrayed our continent and the future of our children at all levels of our calling. Somalia, Kenya, Cameroon, Angola, Sudan,Chad, Uganda, Zimbabwe and all what happened to the African people?

Visibly there is clash of cultures at play at this stage. Many of our ageing leaders are still stuck in the traditional culture of “rulership” characteristic of a feudalistic system which has its roots in the African traditional family. With the emergence of the internet and digital television, an emerging community of young leaders is questioning some of these traditional beliefs and thus potential for a second continental revolution. In Uganda as the President invites Libyans to invest in an instant coffee plant worth $20m he has already signed another agreement with Indian firm TATA for another plant in Jinja at the same cost. But the same President has just invested $80m (worth 4 plants) in refurbishing state house Entebbe. The same President has just invested interest in a Luxury Gulf Stream 5 Jet worth $40m (2 plants) for his own comfort typical of the traditional African strong man. It is very easy for government functionaries to defend some of these decisions across the continent using jargons such as security of the person of the president but glaringly our leadership limitations as a continent can be traced in the flaws of our traditional culture and our traditional resistance to change.