Odhiambo T Oketch asks, African revolution; Is it possible?

When one talks of African leadership, there is one constant denominator across the continent: poor, visionless leadership. And this debate has been on in the recent past.

This makes me feel sympathy with the African voter, not the African leader. The African leader has failed, and failed big. Even though my African friend Orina Nyamwamu feels offended when I give examples of failed African leadership in the corporate world in Kenya, I want to posit here, we cannot hide under cowardice in solving our shared African weakness.

I am firmly in the conviction that independence came a little bit too early for the African. Our leaders were not yet ripe to assume leadership, or they were simply inept. What most African leaders thought of as leadership sadly was greed.

In Ghana, the Osagyefo Kwame Nkurumah promptly became a despot upon assuming leadership. Instead of thinking big for Ghana and Africa through his pet pan-africanism ideology, the man simply became full of himself, and brooked no opposition and pampered himself to the level of a demi-god.

In Nigeria, Namdi Aizkiwe and Obafemi Awolowo got killed before they could give clear directions; killed by Africans! In Congo, Patrice Lumumba, Moise Tshombe, Kasavubu, got killed in petty squabbles; killed by Africans!

Africa has produced some of the funniest characters as leaders. We have had Jean Bedel Bokassa – the little said about him the better. We have had Milton Obote; the man who failed twice in Uganda. We also had ‘The Conqueror of the English Empire’ – the one and only Idi Amin Dada – the kind that makes my friend Orina feel proud being an African!

Then we have had some other colourful characters: Joseph Desire Mobutu Sese Seko, Theodore Nguema, Felix Houphouet Boigny, Siaka Stevens, William Tolbert, Julius Nyerere, Jomo Kenyatta, Kenneth Kaunda, Leopold Sedar Senghor, Juvenal Habyarimana, Siad Barre, Lansana Conte, Samuel Doe, Paul Biya, Hastings Kamuzu Banda, Daniel arap Moi, Hissene Habre, Robert Mugabe, Abdel Nasser, Omar Bongo, name them! Orina, what can you tell me is inspiring about all these leaders? What will make me feel proud of being an African, led by such visionless leaders?

Then look at the current crop: Yoweri Museveni, Mwai Kibaki, the one in Somalia, Hosni Mubarak, et al. These leaders simply lost it. Instead of competing to make Africa great, their single most compassion was to amass power, grab wealth, stifle political opposition, kill political opponents, steal from their own governments, open fat bank accounts in Europe, grab all the fertile land, grab all the blue chip companies, run down any functional institution, surround themselves with kith and kin, promote tribalism, promote bad governance, and in all this, behave as if they knew it all. They will give you funny advice; the one like vision 2030.

In simple terms, they raped Africa and our resources. They became fabulously rich, while the countries they were leading became beggars.

The economic sense that made our African leaders all that rich, while their subjects and their countries became so poor still beats all logic. I doubt if I would feel proud being associated with such failures! I am just a victim of bad leadership and circumstances.

At the same time, the Asian Tigers, who also became independent at the same time engaged in governance of growth to an extent that their economies, which were at par with those of Africa, are now 45 times better than ours. Thanks to myopic leadership from African leaders.

Kenya is not alone in this. The African problem is a shared problem that we must face head-on. The Asian Tigers had leaders who were focused, visionary, and resolute; leaders who knew what they wanted for their countries, where they wanted to go, and they knew how to get there. While Africa had rudderless leaders without vision and focus. Our leaders did not have any game plan. No wonder in Kenya, a young man called Mwai Kibaki came up with Sessional Paper No. 10 in 1965, a self-centred, egocentric policy meant at subjugating the whole country and making all Kenyans subservient to Central Kenya.

What was the economic sense of fishing in Lake Victoria and transporting that fish all the way to process the same at Thika? What was the economic sense of farming maize in Kitale and transporting the same all the way to be processed at Thika? What was the economic sense of producing macadamia in Mombasa and transporting the same to process at Thika?

This epitomizes the myopic African leadership thinking. This was the kind of policy that led to poverty, not prosperity. If a young man, well educated in economics and fresh from school could offer such failed policy, can you trust him in his dotage to present anything better? Can you share with him in his current dream of a utopian Vision 2030? If he could not get it right when he was young and fresh, do you think he can get it right now at his age?

We have seen a bit of his leadership style and vision in the four years he has been president: massive tribalism; massive corruption; massive ineptitude; poor governance; self-centredness; twisted economic growth; government-propelled corporate raids the Trans-Century style; name it! Is this the kind of leadership that can ensure we realize what they call Vision 2030?

This kind of warped thinking and misplaced intelligence replicates itself across Africa. And we cannot simply ignore these failures. We must face them head-on and rectify them. Not by denying their existence the Orina style. When our people have failed, we must accept that fact, face it, and fix it (3Fs). Our style of leadership sinks us more deeply into poverty and backwardness in Africa. We must seek focused leadership to enable us realize the kind of thinking in Vision 2030. But with our wrong approach to leadership, Vision 2030 across Africa will remain a dream.

But I am confident that in the Kenya that we want, Africans can come to the desired level and play game. Amongst our current team in ODM-K, we have visionary leaders who can lift us up, and rest that bad ghost of failed leadership in Africa.

In Europe, there was the French and other Revolution; in America, there was the Great Civil War of 1861-65 that led to new thinking. Then science came in and the white man went high-tech! He became daring and started to ask questions about existence, about things, and about his surroundings. But the African leader upon assuming power became daring with stealing, stealing from his own government, and in came corruption.

With the kind of prevalent corruption, Africans, let alone Kenyans, cannot realize things like Vision 2030. If the NARC government in Kenya can steal almost KShs. 200 Billion in eight months through Anglo Leasing and other related syndicates, can we pretend to focus on such grandiose programmes? That kind of money stolen in Anglo Leasing can build for us 8 superhighways from Mombasa to Busia, even across the sky as envisaged in Vision 2030.

But No! This is Africa where the African leader must steal and subject his people to more taxation. Then you pride yourself with collecting the highest taxation in the world! When the white man was inventing new technology for growth, the African leader was inventing such high tech stealing technology like Anglo Leasing where you cannot even detect who is being paid what, or who refunds what to the government!

While the white leader is busy improving the daily welfare of their subjects, to the point where welfare states are coming up, the African leader is busy stealing from his own government and banking the loot in the white man’s bank; Or kowtowing to the whims of some foreign based NGO. While the white leader is a servant leader, the African leader is a law unto himself. He can call you ‘pumbavu’ in public, he can dare you ‘ati utado nini’ about his thieving ministers, he can disdainfully defy a court order, and behave continuously as if he is in his own homestead, and we still rate the same man as the best gift to Kenyans since manna fell on the Israelis!

While the white man engaged in productive and educational revolution, the African leader engaged in a destructive revolution. Our revolution was aimed at killing all the top brains that could offer alternative leadership. Where is Tom Mboya, JM Kariuki, Robert Ouko, Chris Okigbo?

Instead of engaging in productive revolution, the African leader engaged in theft, tribalism and pettiness. We do not solve these African problems by wishing them away. We solve the problem by identifying what the problem has been, isolating the same, accepting that we have failed, and tasking our next president on the right path, so that he does not fall into the same pattern often associated with African leaders. We must put him (Hon. Raila) firmly on the straight line so that in our time, we can also benefit from good leadership.

Yes, African Revolution is possible, but only with people who know the problem, people who have fought the problem, and people who can slay the dragon that is failed African leadership.

Odhiambo T. Oketch
Komarock Nairobi