3. I dedicate this book to the memory of Thomas Sankara who was assassinated by his so-called
best friend, Blaise Campaore, on 15 October 1987. Sankara inspired me when I was a youth
and he continues to do so even today. His death really touched me. May his memory live on!
4. Contents
Introduction
Part 1 In The Beginning 7
Part II Africa’s Moribund and Shameless Political Leaders 26
Part III Africans Must Be Serious With Themselves If They 83
Want the World to Take Them Seriously 111
Part IV Conclusion 174
5. PART II
AFRICA’S MORIBUND AND
SHAMELESS POLITICAL LEADERS
I begin this section by stating that Africa is in a mess mainly due to the Continent’s political
leaders who, in my opinion, should be apportioned most of the blame for the present deplorable
and horrendous living conditions that exist in almost all African countries. Indeed, the major
impediment to Africa’s advancement in social, economic, scientific and political endeavours,
among other things, I contend, is the Continent’s political leadership. One of the major problems
we face in Africa is mediocre, selfish and incompetent leadership. I am also of the opinion that
Africa’s leaders rarely conform to the tenets of rational decision-making, hence the foolhardy
agendas they are constantly driving. Due to this predicament, many governments in Africa are
overseen by clueless presidents who are not judicious in approaching governance from a rational
and compassionate basis, but from their own warped desires, whims and emotions. Such
leadership is also renowned for its lack of transparency that is tinged with high levels of arrogance
- where leaders think that national issues are their own private domains, or that the citizens owe
them something. There is also a brazen lack of accountability on the part of African leaders, who
feel that State Issues are the preserve of their families and cronies. The other crucial weakness
pertaining to Africa’s leaders is that they are shameless. This shamelessness is exemplified by the
leaders’ lack of compassion and empathy. No matter how many children may die from chronic
malnutrition or preventable and curable diseases, such leaders will not even flinch. No matter how
many women may die from preventable child-birth complications, such leaders will not even be
troubled. Shameless leaders are renowned for flaunting their ill-gotten wealth in environments
where there are high levels of deprivation, destitution and desolation. These leaders exhibit
obscenely ostentatious lifestyles, amidst seas of poverty. They also love to drive or be driven
around in their imported Western or Asian luxury cars... on the many pot-holed or gravel roads in
their capital cities! These are leaders who have, in most cases, foisted themselves on Africa’s
people. When I talk of African political leaders, I am also not exonerating those who are in the
opposition, especially in countries where there are pretentions to Multi-Party Democracy, or those
who see themselves as so-called rebel-leaders fighting for political control in several African
countries. In the main, this second category of leaders is also not a helpful bunch, as they seem to
be cut from the same cloth as those in power. It is almost as if they are merely jockeying for a spot
on the “feeding troughs” of African politics and power.
I am firmly convinced that African leaders must be blamed for Africa’s problems, because the
reality is that ultimately it is the political leadership that wields power and which, as in the case of
normal societies, is used to drive national development processes. But not in Africa. Therefore, it
is political leaders who should raise the quality of life of the mass of the people. This role should
not be expected from an ordinary citizen, because such an individual will not have the power to
influence people’s behaviour on the one hand, or have the state machinery at his or her disposal,
so as to deploy various resources to the masses to secure their well-being, on the other hand. That
is why people who become national leaders are elected into political office in normal societies by
equally rational voters. In most cases, those who have the right capabilities needed to advance their
countries, are elected into office. In Africa, however, it is always the opposite as, firstly, leaders are
not elected into office and, secondly, if they are, it will not be because they are capable of leading
their countries into prosperity, but due to irrational criteria such as tribe, ethnic group, rabble-
6. rousing, or even political gangsterism. African leaders, as I have just alluded to, are always leading
their countries nowhere insofar as national development endeavours are concerned. They also like
to employ outmoded strategies, which only yield national paralysis instead of national
advancement. This does not seem to deter them, even if nothing comes out of such actions, as
they will continue to do the same wrong things, year in and year out, while expecting different
results. One cannot help but recall Albert Einstein’s description of insanity, which he defined as
doing the same thing over and over but expecting different results.
I have always argued that most political regimes on the African Continent must be dismantled and
replaced with more modern and open systems altogether. I know and have heard of dynamic and
progressive Africans who had argued otherwise and declared that one cannot always be in the
opposition, or fighting from “outside”, but that one needed to work from “within” the existing
political system. Often, such Africans ended up suffering grave indignities themselves, after having
joined their countries’ depraved and outmoded political regimes. In all cases, after doing well and
outshining the political dinosaurs, whilst working from “within”, the savvy Africans were either
side-lined, or even ended up facing trumped-up charges of “corruption”, “treason” etc. (my eldest
brother Ikanuke suffered the same fate). That is, if they were lucky, because some of them just
disappeared, or died “mysteriously”. Those who toed the line had no choice but to renege on their
principles; they just kept quiet and coasted along with the unending mediocrity in their countries.
The truth is that one should not trust “crocodiles” by jumping into the river to swim with them
and expecting that they will not eat you. Thus, high-calibre Africans should not be surprised when
they find themselves in difficult situations, after introducing new ideas to politicians who operate
using paradigms from the Dark Ages. In these leaders’ books, the quest for good governance and
progressive politics is tantamount to heresy. The latest casualty, in a line of many (some of whom
remain unknown), is Nigeria’s immediate former Central Bank Governor, Lamido Sanusi, who
was sacked by President Goodluck Jonathan for alleged financial misconduct. Undoubtedly, apart
from being highly critical and brutally candid, Sanusi had clearly outshone Jonathan and his lackeys.
Just comparing the way Sanusi and Jonathan (who insists on wearing a hat all the time) dress and
carry themselves, will alert you as to how one of these individuals is serious and how the other is
not. My advice to progressive Africans is to keep fighting from the outside, because sadly - as
things stand - African politics is extremely toxic, petty, vindictive and outright sordid. Some people
may think that I am not being fair with Africa’s politicians. Well, I am not talking from the outside,
as I was deeply involved in the politics of my country, Zambia, not only at a young age, but also
at a very high level. My involvement in Zambia’s politics also had very high stakes – death included.
So I know what I am talking about. Alright, let me use a simple analogy of football, since this sport
is not only popular in Africa, but has become almost like a form of escapism on the African
Continent. Whenever African teams fail to progress to the next round of the World Cup, for
example, almost on cue many Africans start “baying for the blood” of the coaches of such teams,
or calling for the axing of players who could not score a critical goal, like a penalty kick. This was
the case with the Ghanaian team in the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, when Ghana was the
only country shoring up “African pride”. Thus it seemed like the whole Continent, or sub-Saharan
black Africa to be specific, was rallying behind Ghana. When Ghana failed to progress to the next
stage of the competition, however, many Africans were upset with the coach and players, who
could not “rise to the occasion” at “such a critical juncture”. In Ghana, the disappointment was
palpable. However, in matters of politics and governance, when African leaders fail dismally to
develop their countries, or even just steer them in the direction of well-being, there is a deafening
silence across the Continent. No one “bays for the blood” of the presidents of Algeria, Angola,
Eritrea, Equatorial Guinea or Zimbabwe, for example. So coaches and players can be fired for
“non-performance”, but presidents and other political leaders cannot be removed from office due
7. to gross incompetence and maladministration. Here, I will blame the African people, or ordinary
citizens. Africans are just too docile and that is why their leaders rule them with impunity. Let me
qualify my assertion with an example of certain recent global political events that unfolded in
several countries, for example, Brazil. Despite this country doing somehow better economically
than most African countries, the people of Brazil did not sit on their laurels when they thought
that their country was not performing well, both socially and economically.
Brazil’s citizens rose up through various demonstrations in that country in 2013 and this year,
2014, against what they perceived as a rising cost of living and their Government’s alleged
insensitivity with regard to the plight of the poor. Likewise, in Thailand, ordinary people also took
to the streets in protests against what they saw as political misrule in 2013. But in Africa, it was
dead-quiet. From all accounts, “all was well” in Angola, Cameroon, Congo Brazzaville, Equatorial
Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Sudan, Zambia and Zimbabwe, just to mention a few. Now some people
may say that there wasn’t a brutal dictatorship in Brazil, so people could demonstrate without state
repression. They may be right there, but they should also be reminded that the President, who did
not brutally crack down on Brazilian demonstrators, had been a student activist herself and had
been arrested by a brutal military dictatorship in 1970 for fighting for Democracy in her country.
Despite being tortured, she never broke (I salute this fellow former student revolutionary,
whatever her faults may be). If she and her colleagues had not revolted against dictatorship, Brazil
may not have turned out to be the democratic society that it is today. The problem with Africa is
that whilst other parts of the world may have moribund political leaders, it is their ubiquity and
regularity in Africa that is bewildering. This situation is literally sucking the life out of ordinary
Africans and African civil society. It also seems that things are almost the same now as they were
in past decades – with, perhaps, only a few slight differences. For instance, when I was growing
up, Africa was plagued by one-party state dictatorships, military dictatorships, “presidents for life”
and depraved autocratic or totalitarian regimes. At the time, and without fail, all of them would
take a swipe at apartheid South Africa and they would complain about the racist government’s
brutality towards the Africans of that country.
Such tirades would be made at the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) and on other platforms,
such as the Front Line States or Non Aligned Movement (NAM). Meanwhile, and whilst African
leaders challenged racist South Africa on all fronts, their own citizens would be wallowing in
poverty and enduring other forms of deprivation, with the intelligentsia or some of the Continent’s
critical and vocal individuals being tortured in dungeons, or already eliminated by the secret police
or similar draconian state agencies. I remember thinking to myself at the time that this behaviour
was sheer hypocrisy on the part of the African governments. Incidentally, many of the intelligence
operatives of these African countries had been trained in either the former Soviet Union, or its
equally totalitarian satellite states in the Eastern Bloc, such as Romania, for instance. I recall that
the late dictator, Nicolae Ceauşescu of Romania, had a very warm relationship with Kenneth
Kaunda – not discounting the likes of Saddam Hussein, the late dictator of Iraq. There were just
these “strong men” all over Africa when I look back, and most of them were the so-called “Fathers
of the Nation”, who saw themselves as African Tsars presiding over their dominions. Citizens
were supposed to have been “grateful” to these “great” men for “bringing” them “Independence”.
Songs were composed and dances were also choreographed in their honour. Some of Africa’s
leaders, at the time, were also arguably dabbling in primitive activities such as cannibalism and
witchcraft. They were also notorious for throwing their political opponents to the crocodiles,
engaging in “conquests” of their ministers’ wives or other beautiful women for that matter,
presiding over public executions, or similar gruesome or backward acts. Other African presidents
were also famous for carrying around walkingsticks, fly-whisks, or handkerchiefs, which they
waved at the crowds whenever they were at public gatherings. These appendages were rumoured
to have been “equipped” with potent medicinal powers that were supposed to entrance their
8. subjects. To this day, there are still remnants of that political order in countries such as Angola,
Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea and Zimbabwe.
