Mrs. Obiageli Ezekwesili, a former Minister of Education, offered more light on Saturday on how weak leadership has proven to be a major barrier hurting Africa’s economic development as a continent.
According to her, unless urgent efforts are taken by leaders of thought across governments, the commercial sector, and civil society to promote structural transformation of African politics in order to reverse the negative narrative, effective leadership would continue to elude Africa.
Ezekwesili raised the warning during the 2023 School of Politics, Policy, and Governance graduation ceremony.
Ezekwesili noted that data had proven that development would not be feasible with the current state of affairs on the continent.
Africa, she said, has chosen the path of democracy and if historical numbers were looked at, proof was on display that countries which have enjoyed prosperity have come through the democratic path.
She noted, “As you listen to our brothers and sisters from various countries on the continent, you can see that it is a common denominator for Africans to mourn the absence of quality leadership.
“Africa has chosen the path of democracy and if we look at historical numbers, more countries that have enjoyed prosperity have come through the democratic path.
“So, democracy is a very important thing because democracy comes with political freedom. With political freedom, there is a rule of law and that rule of law is the cornerstone of economic freedom.
“It is economic freedom that leads to the proliferation of ideas, innovations, creativity and therefore, the two most important economic agendas for countries is get solved faster and better.
“Competitiveness and productivity are all based on empirical data. So, if we know all those things as evidence abounds, we can not then sit back and hope that somehow change will come.
“So if Africans need to transform our politics and we just sit back as citizens, hoping that those who have entrenched poor governance as a matter of political culture will someday fall in the kind of Apostle Paul and have a Damascus experience we will wait forever and that is not something that this generation should do.”
In his remarks, a Kenyan activist, Boniface Mwangi, also said Africa’s biggest problem is leadership, adding that too much concentration on religion has contributed to the continent’s underdevelopment which must be addressed.
He stressed the need for young people to take over power from the older class which has not helped the continent but are mere neocolonial stooges as African stolen wealth is stashed in advanced countries.
Mwangi said, “Africa’s biggest problem is its leadership and we have to fix that. Driving from Abuja Airport to the Hotel I saw that the biggest buildings and very magnificent were not schools, or good homes but churches and there lies our problem. We focus a lot on religion and we need to fix that.
“Our leaders have copied the white man’s ways. When the white man colonized our continent, he took our lands, he took our minerals, he took everything and we kicked them out and then we took the bad habits. Our continent, our land was communal but now we have become very Western in our ideals. So we have 10 billionaires and a billion poor in Africa and that needs to be fixed.
“And then we need young people to take over power, which cannot happen if we spend more time praying than politicking, if we make politics our way of life because that is why you don’t have a job, why there is no security, why there is no medicine in hospitals.”
“The biggest mistake the young people in this continent have made is to serve the old people,” he continued. Why are we collaborating with criminals and thugs when our forefathers, those who came before us, and those who struggled for independence, did not collaborate with white men?
“So we need to think about how we can have a Pan African movement across Africa to fix our leadership because if we don’t fix our leadership, we will fail.” The individuals in authority are neocolonial stooges who serve the white man. Money taken on our continent is sent abroad.”
