The Challenge for Africa (16 page)

What might be an even more powerful incentive than the Mo Ibrahim Prize would be an award bestowed by the African Union to a head of state when the AU felt that he or she had
practiced good governance and visionary leadership. It would be very interesting to see leaders competing to win
that
prize, as well as the one established by Mo Ibrahim.

Many observers have wondered why it is that Africans have seemed to tolerate poor leadership over many decades. Is it passivity, or apparent deference to their leaders—even when the latter have proven so disastrous to their countries? Some believe that these attitudes are the result of Africans' natural tendency to venerate elders, a misconception that may persist because many of Africa's precolonial systems of governance were based on age groups. However, as the following case from my micro-nation indicates, the relationship between leaders and their people is perhaps more complex and subtle.

Precolonial Kikuyu society developed its social and leadership structures from birth. While the methods wouldn't be considered scientific by today's standards, midwives observed the infant at birth and could apparently tell whether the child was likely to be a warrior or a medicine man, a priest or a smith, an information gatherer (whom today we'd call a spy) or a counselor. Because there were no formal schools or seminaries, the community watched the children closely as they grew, to see whether they were developing the talents expected of them and that would qualify them for the profession they'd been marked for. If they were, they would become apprentices. Sometimes, the child, having been born to a family that traditionally worked in one area, such as metallurgy, would continue that lineage as an apprentice.

The community had developed these ways of ensuring that talents were cultivated and leadership nurtured as children grew into adulthood and assumed their responsibilities. Leadership took many different forms. If someone was a smith, he
was considered a leader in his own right, because he had specialized knowledge important for the community's welfare, which could be passed from one generation to the next. Another group of leaders was the medicine men—whom today we would call psychiatrists and healers—who were deeply respected by all members of society. I recall that one of my uncles had the paraphernalia of a medicine man or healer, but he abandoned his position during the course of my childhood because he could no longer practice freely. As nearly everyone in the Kikuyu community became a Christian, the clientele for medicine men declined dramatically; to consult one was to risk the accusation of being “anti-Christian.” They and their powers were demystified, and they came to be seen by communities as signifiers of backwardness.

If an individual in the society clearly expressed a talent for something other than what the midwife had marked them for, or the counselor had directed them toward, or if they were acting inappropriately, the community would steer them toward the new talent and away from wrongdoing long before they inherited a position for which they were temperamentally or practically unsuited. Indeed, by the time anyone reached a position of authority, they would have gone through an initiation ceremony and rituals, in which both genders had a role to play. After each of these, the individual would have been entrusted with more responsibility. In addition, as he or she graduated from one level to another, there were always older authorities, both men and women, ahead to make sure the younger person understood their responsibilities. This meant that by the time the individual became a counselor or a priest, they would have been in their sixties or seventies, and well seasoned and well judged by the community. This is why old age in Africa is associated with wisdom and respect, even though the cultural context of creating just and seasoned leaders has been lost.

In communities where governance and leadership resided in one age group, after a period of time in power the entire age group retired in favor of the next generation. In the Kikuyu tradition, this was a formal procedure that took several years to complete and was known as
ituika
, literally translated as “the severance.” These ceremonies served as de facto “term limits,” and acted as a guarantee to all generations that their time to guide the destiny of their people would come, and that they needed to be both patient and prepared to take on their responsibilities. It also meant that there were checks and balances to guard against corruption. Each generation of leaders understood that they were being watched closely by the next, just as they observed those who'd gone before them, to make sure they were not squandering the resources—whether privately owned or held in common—that they had under their control. This ensured that common resources like forests, rivers, and land were protected and handed on to the next generation to continue managing.

The last such
ituika
in the Kikuyu community was to take place between 1925 and 1928, but it remains incomplete. The British colonial authorities, fearing the gathering of a large group of people in one place, cut it short and banned it. Since the symbols of power were never handed over to the next generation, this signaled the end of the Kikuyu system of self-governance. In similar fashion, throughout the continent the European powers ended (sometimes unknowingly) or severely eroded other precolonial systems of governance. Three generations of Kikuyus later, that mode of self-government, or even the knowledge that the community once ruled itself using an indigenous form of democratic space, has been virtually forgotten. Even today, and even among the most sophisticated of contemporary Kikuyus, many are unaware of this and the multiple governance structures that existed in Africa before the Europeans came.

The Kikuyu system is one of the many such structures that could offer insight into how Africans practiced justice and protected individual and property rights. People may argue that such systems were not “democratic” in the way that we would understand the word today. What this system did, however, was provide a methodology by which good leadership could be cultivated and nurtured, and also be held accountable. By the time they reached the apogee of responsibility in the society, every individual had been tested for years. At each stage of their progression through the age-sets, the community had an opportunity to guide that person's use (or abuse) of power through the presence of an older authority, and the careful observation of the generation below. Such systems were also in certain ways more protective of property, women, children, and even life than some modern governance structures.

This heritage has by and large been lost. For instance, Kenya is currently debating whether it should adopt American, British, or German constitutions in redrafting its own; as in many modern African nations, no mention or use is made of the experiences of governance bequeathed to us by our ancestors. African constitutions were in the main written by the colonial powers, drawing on European traditions and not those of the indigenous populations. In Kenya's current form of governance, for instance, modeled on the British parliamentary system, individuals can stay in power for thirty or even forty years, or, indeed, for life. Although young people can be, and are, voted into office in each election, the attractions of incumbency and the undesirability of leaving office are such that many in the older generation are reluctant to relinquish power. At the same time, younger generations chafe at not being able to take their turn.

This is a pattern we see repeated in many countries in Africa. Unfortunately, there is no guarantee that the new political leadership will outstrip the old in its ethics, performance,
or commitment to service. Instead, the path to power today in modern African states is often much easier than it was for precolonial Kikuyus. What talks loudest generally is not honesty, commitment, or vision, but money. If you are willing to use enough of it, not only for yourself but also for those who will wield power, you can buy a leadership position. It is not unlikely that if you are elected as an MP, you will be given a post in the government commensurate with the level of financial support you provided to the person distributing power. The more that was spent, the better the position. You may have all the titles befitting a leader, but none of the serious examination, experience, or ethical beliefs that befit someone who has been entrusted with leadership.

It is true that many Africans still trust their leaders and want to believe in them. Certainly, Africa's leaders have relied on that trust, and the fact that the majority of their citizens are still uneducated, uninformed, unexposed, and poor—and therefore very dependent—to exploit them. This entrenched legacy is a vestige of the colonial era, when many citizens viewed their founders—the individuals who helped them gain independence—as almost superhuman.

The presidents who retained power for decades, and those who continue to this day, are not in control because of any intrinsic deference due to age or position of power. Some postindependence leaders genuinely earned the respect and trust of their people. Most, however, maintained power because either they were protected during the Cold War by one of the two blocs, or the leader ensured that enough of his supporters received the benefits of his patronage to assent to his continued hold on power.

In such a situation, this apparent passivity or fatalism does not emerge because of a natural tendency to accept one's lot. Rather, it is a bitter recognition that, until recently, in most independent African states all avenues for the nonviolent removal of
political leaders were blocked, not least because of the behind-the-scenes support of the colonial and emerging global powers. After all, during the colonial period those same “fatalistic” Africans carried out acts of resistance and waged wars of liberation. Even though they were—literally—outgunned, and the reprisals were often brutal and disproportionate, they forced some of the most powerful nations and empires the world has seen to leave their continent. Indeed, in some ways, the numerous violent or undemocratic changes in power in Africa since independence suggest a distinctive lack of deference. At the same time, most of these coups have led only to further repression and the substitution of one dictator for another. Rarely have they resulted in the flourishing of democracy.

Perhaps it is African leaders' sense that their hold on power is actually quite tenuous that explains why so many flaunt the trappings of power so ostentatiously. Of course, to some degree, all leaders need to show they're more important than others, and to invest their office with dignity and authority. In Europe and Asia, nineteenth- and twentieth-century kings and emperors didn't dress like commoners either, for instance. Today in older countries, leaders have tended to reduce their preoccupation with excessive showiness, while in Africa they've done the opposite. Around the continent, heads of state, prime ministers, and sometimes even senior politicians travel with huge retinues and a large security detail—complete with stretch limousines, a convoy of cars, and outriders—that swoop down like eagles whenever the motorcade reaches its destination.

This rarely has anything to do with actual security; rather, it is an exhibition of the illusion of importance. Jokes are often made about the political elites' preoccupation with displays of power, privilege, and importance. Ministers are called
wabenzi
, a Kiswahili term meaning “the people of the Mercedes-Benz;” the term has become shorthand for a member of the new
African ruling class—generally a government official or member of his or her family—who loves to show off the prerogatives of power and wealth. Critics of the privileged may laugh, but in the countryside the poor masses are impressed and regard such displays with adulation. They can only dream of such wealth and comfort or of holding such a position themselves.

Nevertheless, the insecurity evident within such a leader's show of power is almost palpable. An illustration of this is how quickly new leaders ensure that the previous incumbents of high government offices are immediately stripped of any status the minute they leave their position. This expresses the chronic paranoia and desperation that hang around the offices of so many of the presidents and prime ministers of Africa—a disorder that, as was witnessed during the deeply flawed elections in Zimbabwe and Kenya, can have terrible consequences for the state and its people.

The outside world has been at once horrified and astonished by the self-aggrandizement of African heads of state like Jean-Bédel Bokassa of the Central African Republic, Idi Amin of Uganda, and Mobutu Sese Seko of Zaire. However, the message conveyed to these men by the industrialized world has not been consistent. In my experience, foreign diplomats and businessmen speak politely when African leaders are present. In the quiet of their boardrooms and embassies, however, I'm sure they know all too well when the leaders with whom they conduct business are not doing right by their people. If their own leaders were doing the same things, they would be chastising them.

Ultimately, even today, twenty years after the end of the Cold War, the rules of realpolitik apply. Actual or potential business opportunities that await the foreign powers depend on maintaining a relationship with African leaders; in the end, these opportunities are often more significant to both sides than seemingly abstract notions such as practicing good governance
or protecting human rights. After all, if that country is not the one doing business with an African government, then there may be other nations eager to step in. At times, it suits both non-African and African leaders to claim that the African people have, in some measure, accepted the form of governance they live with. Then they can cynically ask the question: Who are the foreign powers to dictate to sovereign nations how they should govern themselves? This attitude serves only the leaders on both sides of the divide; the victims, as always, are the African people.

As the first and second generations of postindependence African presidents leave the scene, and the third takes power, most Africans have cause to reflect on the fact that they are still waiting for a genuine say in how their countries are governed. In a 2008 study, the U.S.-based organization Freedom House listed only eleven of sub-Saharan Africa's forty-eight nations as “free”—meaning that they had more than one political party, a free press, and protections for civil rights. This situation, while grim, was in fact an improvement over a similar survey conducted thirty years previously, when just three sub-Saharan African states were considered free. In Freedom House's analysis, the number of such nations defined in 2008 as “not free” was fourteen, down from twenty-five in 1977.
³
Most African states were judged in the middle: “partly free.” This is not a record to be proud of.